The discovery of gold in California in 1848 put in place a migration that
fueled the economic development of the American west through the end of
the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Tens of thousands of
largely single men trekked to California from all over the globe hoping to
strike it rich while panning for gold in the Northwest's icy streams. In
the very early years of the gold rush "placer" mining was the norm.
"Placer" mining required little skill, relatively small investment and
simple tools—a pick axe, shovel and flat pan. By 1849, however, most
of the "placer" gold had already been removed—one report estimated
ten
million dollars worth—well before the critical mass of miners had
even arrived. As early as 1852, the mining process had changed
significantly. Quartz mining and hydraulic mining quickly replaced placer
mining. Mining of this type required crushing mills, substantial
industrial machinery and significant amounts of capital and labor to
extract ore from the mountainsides. Investors from the East and abroad
quickly formed corporations and staked thousands of claims that
essentially ended the ability of an individual prospector to make any
considerable amount of money. Instead, these men became day laborers for
mining companies. [1]These illustrations of the pick, shovel, pan,
and scoop, which appeared in Hutchings. California Illustrated Magazine
in 1857, demonstrated to the potential miner how few tools he needed
to extract his fortune.
1. Clyde A. Milner II et al., The Oxford History of the American
West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 197-208; Robert V.
Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American West; A New Interpretive
History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000
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