The farming boom – Sec.3

The cattle ranching boom – Sec.3

The mining boom – Sec.3

Conflicts with the American Indians – Sec.2

Westward Expansion

Animated Geographic HISTORICAL TIMELINEGROWTH OF A NATION

Great Plains a semiarid region East of the Rocky Mountains, in the U.S. and Canada.

The mining boom (Ch.6 Sec.3)

The cattle ranching boom (Ch.6 Sec.3)

The farming boom (Ch.6 Sec.3

•Conflicts with the American Indians (NA) Ch.6 Sec.2

The mining boom (Ch.6 Sec.3)

After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, mining developed rapidly in the American West. As gold, silver, copper, and lead mines were established, towns sprung up around them, providing a place for the miners to sleep, eat, and buy supplies. Many of these towns were later abandoned when the mines around them closed.

SOURCE: encarta.msn.com/media_461540399/Mining_Towns_...

II. Mining Boom• 1858-1880: Mining Towns = Adventure and Violence

• Thousands of settlers raced westward hoping to strike it rich. However, songs such as the one below exaggerated the riches:

“The gold is there, most anywhere. You can take it out rich, with an iron crowbar, And where it is thick, with a shovel and pick,You can pick it out in lumps as big as a brick”

• Mining attracted the people who created the territories of Colorado (1861), Arizona (1863), Idaho (1863), Montana 1864), and Wyoming (1868)

(1) Pikes Peak, Colorado (1859)

• The first major mining discovery after the California Gold Rush (1849) took place in Colorado.

• Prospectors found gold near Pikes Peak in late 1858.

• By early 1859, thousands of people had flocked to Colorado; many left in disappointment.

1859 – Gold Discovered in ColoradoVIDEO CLIP (:50)

Personal Accounts of Pikes Peak“Pikes Peak or Bust”

• Why did Green Russell travel to Colorado?

• In 1859, within a few weeks of one another, both made large gold finds about 35 miles from Denver City.

• Over the decades that followed, the region yielded more than $85 million worth of gold.

The Colorado Gold Fields – Green Russell VIDEO CLIP (1:22)

William Larimer, founder of Denver City?

• William Larimer, born and raised in Westmoreland County, PA.

• Made his first fortune in the railroad industry in Pittsburgh. He became a land speculator in the 1850s in the Kansas Territory, founding a homestead in Leavenworth where he lived with his wife and nine children.

• In 1858, he headed west when he heard that gold had been found at Cherry Creek, Colorado. He wanted to get rich by laying out a city near the mine fields.

• He had merely followed the Russell party, which first discovered gold and planted the original settlement—Auraria on November 1, 1858.

• William Green Russell and his group of Georgians headed back to the South to join the Confederate Army.

• Larimer, the claim jumper, proclaimed himself Denver’s founding father.

(2) Virginia City (present-day Nevada) 1859

• Site of the Comstock Lode, one of the world’s richest silver veins.

• Over a period of 20 years, its mines yielded more than $500 million worth of precious metals.

• John W. Mackay—emigrant from Ireland

Bought an old mine on the Comstock Lode

Used new equipment to extract large quantities of silver—(Used profits to buy other mines)

(3) Alaskan Gold Rush (1897)Seward’s Folly?

• In 1867, William Seward (Secretary of State) negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia.

• Many considered Alaska worthless (Seward’s folly)

• Seward’s confidence in the purchase proved to be correct.

The Alaskan Gold RushVIDEO CLIP (:59)

What types of methods did Miners Utilize?• What do you call mining in which gold is

separated out by washing?

• Besides using gold pans, what other elaborate tool was used for separating the gold from the gravel?

The Process of Extracting OreVIDEO CLIP (1:06)

Mining MethodsVIDEO CLIP (1:25)

Life in Mining Communities

• Usually a hastily constructed group of tents or shacks; typically almost entirely all male residents.

• Variety of nationalities gathered in the mining camps

• Competition led to discrimination in the mining camps:

Miners in the Cripple Creek camp in Colorado forcibly excluded eastern and southern Europeans, as well as Hispanics.

1882 mob of masked men drove the Chinese inhabitants of Rico, Colorado out of town.

Local newspaper:

“…one of the most shameful affairs that ever disgraced any so-called civilized country and would have met the hearty approval

of the most barbarous savage.”

Mining Camps were often Violent• Western mining camps were violent places in the late 1800s (ethnic tensions)

• Deadwood, South Dakota gained a reputation

– Final resting place of lawman Wild Bill Hickok, shot dead as he played cards

– According to legend, Hickok was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights (later became known as the dead man’s hand)

• Absence of law enforcement led people in mining camps to form vigilante committees to combat theft and violence

– oftentimes these vigilantes used violence to resolve community problems (hanging the accused after a quick trial)

Violent Mining Camps Stable Communities

• Stability came to the mining camps when they grew into towns:

– establishment of prosperous businesses eager to feed and clothe miners.

– owners of stores and saloons had a better chance of getting rich!

• Denver and Boulder, Colorado; Carson City, Nevada; and Helena, Montana, all began as mining camps before evolving into major urban centers.

Boom TownVIDEO CLIP (1:00)

Mining as Big Business• Era of the lone miner did not last long.

What do you think happened after most of the easily accessible mineral deposits were “worked out”??

• In the early 1900s, mining became the task of large companies.

• New technology changed the working conditions in the mines:

– Laborers sank shafts, built tunnels, drilled, etc.

– Temperatures deep in mines as high as 150°F.

– Poor ventilation = respiratory illnesses

– Cave-ins, rockfalls, and use of explosives = deaths

• What did miners do in order to receive better working conditions and wages?

Labor in the MinesVIDEO CLIP (1:46)