The lure of gold in the American West beckoned to thousands of hungry settlers eager to stake a claim, reap the wealth, and escape often difficult conditions at home, whether Eastern cities, Europe or China. Prospectors found that veins of gold and silver were elusive and could dry up suddenly. Forced to move often in search of the next big lode, they left behind them hundreds of mining camps and settlements, many of which still exist across the Western landscape. This reference work catalogs silver and gold mining camps by state in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Each entry includes location, names of known miners, year of discovery, and ore value. Unique details of each camp are given, including historical events, buildings and businesses present. Interesting anecdotes abound about the resident miners. The work is indexed by topic and mine, and appendices offer a glossary and the Miners’ Ten Commandments (Placerville [California] Herald, 1853).

Depicts the history of more than one hundred Colorado towns abandoned after the end of the mining boom

Here, for the first time, is a clear account in words and pictures of the methods by which gold and silver were extracted and processed in the Old West. The author describes the early days of Spanish and Indian mining and the wild era inaugurated by the American prospector who rushed west to get rich quick, ending with the year 1893, when repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act virtually closed the mining frontier. The account gives in laymen’s language the techniques employed in prospecting, placering, lode mining, and milling, particularly those employed by the Spaniards, Indians, and Cornishmen, and shows how the ever-practical Americans adapted and improved them. Special attention is given to the methods employed in the California and Montana gold fields, Colorado and the Comstock Lode, the Black Hills, and Tombstone, Arizona. In these pages the reader also meets some of the unforgettable personalities whose lives enriched (and sometimes impoverished) the mining camps.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Vardis Fisher and Opal Laurel Holmes bring together the stories of all of the remarkable men and women and all of the violent contrasts that made up one of the most entrhalling chapters in American history. Fisher, a respected scholar and versatile creative writer, devoted three years to the writing of this book.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night kept this poch from his appointed rounds! Back in the 1880s, when the Old West boomed with the rush for gold and silver, the miners of Calico, California, needed a mail carrier they could count on. And they found him in a Border collie named Dorsey. Based on the true story of the most celebrated canine mail carrier in U.S. history, Calico Dorsey tells the tale of a winsome stray who found both a home and a calling on the mining trails of the Old West. An Author's Note includes a photograph of the real-life Dorsey, as well as historical information about the dog and the mining town he called home.

During the gold rush, women worked alongside men panning and digging for gold and silver in the mountains of Colorado, California, and all the way up to Alaska. While many books have been written about the frontier women who ran brothels and boarding houses in mining towns, none have told the true stories of ladies who labored as hard as men out in the mines. A wonderful collection of true Americana, this book includes archival photographs of lady miners as well as the mines and boomtowns.

"The central idea in the preparation of this little book has been to give, as concisely as possible, such information in regard to the silver mines of the Comstock as the visiting tourist is likely to require." -- introductory.