Gambling in the Old West. Recreation in the Old West oftentimes meant betting on the turn of a deck of cards. But for many colorful Westerners, gambling was a serious, sometimes deadly, business. As towns sprouted in the 19th-century American West — outside Army forts, at river crossings along wagon trails, in mining districts and …
Cripple Creek History. Colorado became a U.S. territory in 1861 and a state in 1876. Bob Womack and his brother William emigrated from Kentucky with their parents and sister to Colorado City (now Colorado Springs), a thriving town east of Pikes Peak. The brothers bought a ranch about forty miles to the southwest, on the west side of Pikes Peak ...
James Butler Hickok lived a fast, violent life. A union scout/spy, frontiersman, buffalo hunter and lawman, Wild Bill was murdered just days after arriving in Deadwood, Dakota Territories in 1876. He was the first hero of the wild west and likely the most ruthless and famous as well. Hickok was an imposing figure, a giant of a man at 6'3 ...
The sides of the gulch are washed away into sluiceboxes where the gold is collected. By Jackson, 1871. 517433: 57-HS-909: Panning for gold near ia City, Mont. Terr. By Jackson, 1871. 517434: 57-HS-910: Man …
Baker City History. Prospectors discovered gold in eastern Oregon in 1861 and quickly sparked a rush of miners that led to the creation of Baker City. Soon a saloon, hotel, and blacksmith shop opened, followed by a quartz mill in 1864. The next year the town was laid out and in 1868 it succeeded Auburn as the county seat of Baker County.
Regardless of the risks, mining in the Old West was as common as "fleas on a dog.". For many, the lure and risks of mining represented the American dream. Mining was the ultimate form of gambling. Most miners came away from the table with little or nothing, but some who staked their own claims in gold strikes at Sutter's Mill, Cripple ...
In 1870, one of the town's new arrivals, Esther Hobart Morris, was appointed justice of the peace in the small and rowdy mining outpost, making her the first woman to hold political office in ...
1792-1804 – Captain George Vancouver explored the coast of Washington. 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase added the United States territory from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northwest. The price of the purchase was $15,000,000. The agreement was signed on May 2. The Lewis and Clark expedition began its exploration of the West.
Posted 12/06/2004. HistoryLink Essay 7162. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 sent would-be millionaires on a quest for treasure throughout the West. By 1900, major strikes had been made in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, and western Canada. Although prospectors found relatively little gold within the borders of what is now ...
New discoveries of gold diversified the Leadville mines and softened the blow of the silver collapse. One famous mine, the Little Jonny, struck vast quantities of rich gold ore in 1893 and became one of the district's most …
3. Cripple Creek. Similar to its neighbor Victor, Cripple Creek got its start as a bustling mining town, drawing in thousands of gold enthusiasts in search of their fast fortune. As Colorado's last and biggest mining boom, The Gold Rush is an important part of Cripple Creek's history.
The "Old West" conjures up all sorts of imagery, but broadly, the term is used to evoke life among the crusty prospectors, threadbare gold panners, madams of brothels, and six-shooter-packing ...
Figure 17.10 Cattle drives were an integral part of western expansion. Cowboys worked long hours in the saddle, driving hardy longhorns to railroad towns that could ship the …
The Colorado Gold Rush, originally known as the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, started in 1858 and was the second largest mining excitement in United States history after the great California Gold Rush a decade earlier. Over 100,000 people participated in this rush and were known as "Fifty-Niners", a reference to 1859, the year the rush to Colorado ...
began as a small settlement in 1859 and would eventually be Colorado's first important silver city. Many towns were founded in this region during the early 1860s - many of the became ghost towns, but some became …
Illinois Coal Mining Towns on Route 66. Kennecott Mine & Mill Town, Alaska. Quincy Smelter, Houghton, Michigan by Kathy Alexander. Keweenaw National Historic Park, Michigan. Klondike Gold Rush, …
Between 1870 and 1900 over 430 million acres were settled in the United States, most of them in the West. Mining, ranching, and farming drew waves of settlers, and cities and commerce followed. In 1873 San Francisco merchant LeviStrauss and tailor Jacob Davis patented a designfor rugged workers' pants for western wear—the first jeans ...
The earliest, and simplest method of crushing ore was the use of arrastras. When enough capital was available, stamp mills replaced arrastras at most mines. The following sections take a look at various types of stamp mills, …
The Kennedy mine, located near Jackson, was first discovered in the 1850s. The mine operated well into the twentieth century, reaching a depth of over 5,900 feet. Miners in …
The archetypical Old West period is generally accepted by historians to have occurred between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 until the closing of the frontier by the Census Bureau in 1890. ... About 4,000 black people came to California during the Gold Rush days. In 1879, after the end of Reconstruction in the South, several …
Despite these setbacks, historian John Stover notes in his book, " The Routledge Historical Atlas Of The American Railroads," the U.S. rail network grew from 52,900 in 1870 to 93,200 by 1880 (by region the Mid-Atlantic saw a 42% increase, the South 55%, the "Old Northwest" 70%, and the West 151%). By 1880, all the states, and …
From 1899 to 1918, the towns population grew from around 4,000 to a peak of over 25,000 residents (this figure includes all the towns in the district including Warren and Lowell ). In 1902, the year that Bisbee was incorporated, the population stood at around 8,000. Smelting in Bisbee started in the early 1880s.
Summary: The 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in northern California set off a mining explosion that greatly hastened the development of the American West. This new book gathers historic photographs of mining in the Old West, from "panning" for gold in the waters of California to deep mining throughout the Western Territorities.
The Value of Gold: Average for the early 1850s - $18.84 per oz. or 4.3066₵ per grain. Bullion gold was 24 Karat or 24/24 parts purity (.999 fine of above) bullion coins could be less. American gold coins at …
A gold rush town in Dakota. Deadwood, Dakota. 1876. National Archives ... 28 of 49. A saloon on the streets of an Old West town. Hazen, Nevada. 1905. National Archives. 29 of 49. The Klondyke Dance Hall and saloon. Seattle, Washington. 1909. ... Circa 1870-1879. National Archives. 40 of 49. A fishing camp set up by some Chinese …
Wells Fargo was the target of bandits both on trains and on stagecoaches. The first big train robbery occurred in 1870 when the Central Pacific out of Oakland was held up near Truckee, California, and seven masked men got away with $42,000 in gold and gold coins. As a result, Wells Fargo hired James B. Hume as its Chief Detective.
Mining towns sprang up in remote places throughout the western frontier. Colorado experienced an enormous silver boom at Leadville in the 1870's. That same decade, gold discoveries in the Black Hills of South Dakota …
Miners pose on timbers in the Copper Queen Mine at Bisbee, Arizona 1883. This early 1890s photo shows a a three-ton piece of malachite and azurite from the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee. The specimen was displayed at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Today this same specimen is known as the "Singing Stone" and is on display at the Museum of ...
By the 1870's, an uptick in hardrock mining yielded prodigious volumes of copper, lead, zinc, silver and gold ore. In 1912, the newly christened state of Arizona supported 445 active mines, 72 concentrating facilities, and 11 smelters; their gross value that year was nearly 67 million dollars - equivalent to 1.4 billion dollars in 2006.
The state and gold miners' health in Victoria, 1870-1910.. – Free … Nov 01, 2011 · … The state and gold miners' health in Victoria, 1870-1910. …Even the Royal Commission on the Old … 'Mines Ventilation Act and the West … » Free online chat! Mining Towns in the Western United States. Gold discoveries in the native american territory in the Black …
The original was a flintlock .45-caliber. Known for being a large-caliber pistol in a super-compact frame, Derringers were popular because they were so easy to carry and conceal. Women carried them in the folds of their dresses, their purses, pockets, garter belts and even in their boots. Available in both single- and double-shot models, a ...
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 sent would-be millionaires on a quest for treasure throughout the West. By 1900, major strikes had been made in …
The popular image of the Wild West portrayed in books, television, and film has been one of violence and mayhem. The lure of quick riches through mining or driving cattle meant that much of the West did indeed consist of rough men living a rough life, although the violence was exaggerated and even glorified in the dime store novels of the day.
The answer depends on which women, and the geography of their circumstances. During the post-Civil War period in the American West (1865-1910), middle-class and upper-class white women often did ...
The Old-Time Miners. By Charles Carroll Goodwin in 1913. To California during the gold rush. We all have, I hope, high and sincere reverence for the Pioneers; for those men and women who began their western march almost three hundred years ago; first in grotesque little ships across the Atlantic, and made their first stopping places on the ...
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WEBThe first form of gold-mining in these States and 1 erritories was that of diggings. The miner loosened the auriferous soil with a pick, and shoveled it into a pan, from which, ...
Until 1881, agriculture in southwestern Colorado was confined to limited areas, being basically nothing more than a service industry for mining camps and developing towns. Mining was the initial engine for …
Image via Shorpy. Miners' lives in the late-1800s were absurdly dangerous, large in part because many technologies we now take for granted hadn't yet been invented. Even outside of the mines, life was uncertain. We can see today, from the ghost towns scattered across former silver and gold country, how folks followed the bonanzas and …
Between 1870 and 1884, ... This was in many cases impractical since the railroad could not hope to reach every mining camp in the west. The trains were also susceptible to robbery. ... Wells Fargo's traditional role in the Old West slowly declined in the face of a changing technological and political landscape. In 1895, the company gave …