Established in 1876, Ouray, Colorado was positioned at the north end of the rugged San Juan mountains, in a box canyon that served as the gateway to many rich mining districts. The town would have been the ideal commerce and transportation center for a large part of the region of not for one problematic detail.
The western states have produced massive amounts of placer gold since the 1848 discovery of gold at Coloma, California. Placer districts throughout the West were heavily mined almost continuously for over a century by a variety of methods. Despite this previous activity, there is still plenty of gold to be discovered. Thousands of gold placer
From 1799 through 1965, the United States produced over 300,000,000 ounces of gold, which at the current price of around $1,500 per ounce (as of August 2019) would be valued at over $450 billion dollars. These are the ten states that contributed the most gold to US production during the golden era of mining in the American West.
While there is not one official definition of what a ghost town is, there has been much discussion on the subject. Wikipedia’s basic definition is as follows: A ghost town is an abandoned village, town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due
The King Solomon mine, a monolithic structure from a bygone era, stands alone atop the Rand Mountain range, a silent witness to the joys, sorrows and deaths of those who sought the riches from beneath the earth. Cindy Nunn’s new book Abandoned California: King Solomon Mine is a history of the mine from its beginnings until shut-down.
The following article describing the early history of Plumas County gold districts and a resurgence of mining in the mid-1890s appeared in the San Francisco Call on July 18, 1895. The map image was published with the article, all other images were added from separate archives. Plumas is county of rugged mountains, holding in their
While researching historical newspapers for information on Panamint City, California, I stumbled upon a series of articles that detail the murder of a man named Perasich. Perasich, a business owner in Panamint Springs, California, was allegedly gunned down by Ashim in the nearby mining town of Darwin. The articles lay out a dramatic series of events following the crime; doubt as to Ashim’s guilt, attempted revenge by Perasich’s brothers, and a trial corrupted by both money and influence of the local outlaw gangs.
Located adjacent to the Idaho ghost town of Bonanza, on a tributary of the Salmon River, is the idle Yankee Fork Gold Dredge. The dredge is described as the largest in Idaho, and one of the best-preserved dredges in the West.
Virginia City, Nevada is one of the most historically significant and best-preserved mining towns in the West. The town is #2 on our list “The Top Ten Historic Mining Towns You Should Visit Today“, and while Butte may have edged it out for historical significance, Virginia City just might be the most fun and interesting
The discovery of gold or silver in the West was usually followed by a rush of people attempting to arrive at the new district first to get established in mining or business. New mining camps were hastily constructed out of materials that could be easily transported over great distances and on difficult terrain. The most
