1. Section 1 – pg 452 Mining and Railroads
Chapter 13
Section 1 – pg 452
Mining and Railroads

2. Boom and Bust Settlement in the west came in a rush Pg 452
Especially true where gold or silver was found
Many new towns sprang up but didn’t last long

3. Pg 452
The Comstock Lode
Just before the Civil War, prospectors began searching for gold in the Sierra Nevada
In 1859, two Irish guys found a gold vein
A third guy, Henry Comstock, said it was on his land
Became known as the Comstock Lode

4. Pg
At the Comstock Lode, a blue-tinted sand stuck to all the equipment, making it harder to mine gold
Turned out to be silver loaded mud
The silver turned out to be more valuable than the gold
This was one of the richest mines in the world
In the next 20 years, produced $300 million worth of silver and made Nevada a center of mining
The tent city near the mine turned into Virginia City, Nevada

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The Boom Spreads
After the Civil War, prospectors fanned out over the West
Valuable ore found in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Alaska
Few prospectors got rich
Ore was deep underground and expensive to extract
Comstock gave up and sold their claim for $11,000 and 2 mules
Many others sold their claims to large mining companies
By the 1800s, western mining became big business

6. Boomtown Life Tent cities often arose around mining
Pg 453
Boomtown Life
Tent cities often arose around mining
Soon hotels, stores, and other wood framed buildings appeared
Mining camps turned into boomtowns
Merchants followed prospectors as they moved
Used mule teams to haul their tools, food, and clothing
Nothing was cheap in a prospecting town
Would pay high prices for bottles of clean drinking water
Streams were polluted with chemicals used for mining, like arsenic

7. Women could easily make a good living
Pg 453
Women could easily make a
good living
Opened restaurants, wash
clothes, took in boarders
One woman became very wealthy in a year just from baking pies
Most miners were foreign born
Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese,
and others
Foreign miners often faced hostility
Laws restricted Chinese miners to claims abandoned by others
Mobs often drove the Chinese from towns

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Frontier Justice
Mining towns were put up so fast that often there was no law and order
Miners formed groups of vigilantes, self-appointed law keepers
Hunted down bandits and imposed their own rough form of justice

9. Pg 454
As towns grew and became more permanent, sheriffs, marshals, and judges replaced these groups
1861: Colorado, Dakota, Nevada organized into territories
1863: Arizona, Idaho
1864: Montana
Soon all ore was extracted in some towns
Mines shut down and miners moved
Businesses failed and merchants left
Boomtowns often turned to ghost towns

10. The Railroad Boom Railroads raced to lay track to mines and boomtowns
Pg 454
The Railroad Boom
Railroads raced to lay track to mines and boomtowns
Got help from the federal gov’t

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Aid to Railroads
Before 1860, railroad lines ended at the Missouri River
Federal gov’t began to offer subsidies (grants of land or money)
For every mile of track, the gov’t gave the railroad 10 square miles of land next to the track
Got more than 180 million acres (the size of Texas)
Also received federal loans

12. Spanning the Continent
Pg 455
Spanning the Continent
Westerners dreamed of a transcontinental railroad (a railroad line that spanned the continent)
1862, Leland Stanford and his partners won the right to build a line eastward from San Francisco
Central Pacific
Another railroad, Union Pacific,
would build west from Omaha
The tracks would meet,
stretching across the nation

13. The railroads hired thousands of workers
Whites, Mexican Americans, African Americans
Workers immigrated from Mexico, Ireland, and China
The Central Pacific brought 10,000 Chinese to the US
Work was dangerous with low pay
While cutting through the Sierras, workers were met with snow, fierce wind, and avalanches, which often buried weeks of work in minutes and killed dozens of workers
Pg 455

14. May 10, 1869, the two lines met at Promontory, Utah
Leland drove in the final spike in with a silver mallet
Pg 455

15. Effects of the Railroads
Pg 455
Effects of the Railroads
New towns sprang up in the west
People and supplies poured in, gold and silver poured out
Rapid population growth brought political changes
Nevada became a state in 1864
Colorado – 1876
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington -1889
Idaho, Wyoming

16. Pg 455