US History

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The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

Labor History

This collection uses primary sources to explore twentieth-century mining in the Mojave Desert.

Teaching Guide: Exploring Twentieth-Century Mining in the Mojave Desert

A 1905 photograph of Tonopah, Nevada.

A photograph of Tonopah, Nevada ca. 1915.

A photograph of late-nineteenth-century silver mining in Tonopah, Nevada.

A photograph of people and mining equipment in early-twentieth-century Tonopah, Nevada.

A postcard image of downtown Tonopah, Nevada ca. 1907.

A 1912 map of mining in Tonopah, Nevada.

A page from a 1912 newspaper, the *Tonopah Miner*.

A 1906 document listing taxpayers in Tonopah, Nevada.

A 1957 letter from a former mining employee to a friend in Trona, California, describing memories of working in Goldfield, Nevada. 

A photograph of a twenty-mule team used to transport metals and minerals prior to the development of railroads in the Mojave Desert.

A 1925 photograph of magnesium bagged for transport by train near Death Valley, California.

An excerpt from a 1915 booklet called “Borax the Magic Crystal.”

A 1946 photo of a mineral processing plant in Trona, California.

A 1989 photo of dry lakes used for mineral harvesting in Trona, California. 

A 1989 photo of the Kerr McGee plant in Trona, California.

Resources

1. [Southern Nevada: The Boomtown Years](http://digital.library.unlv.edu/boomtown/), University of Las Vegas. 
2. “[Boomtown, USA: An Historical Look at Fracking](https://notevenpast.org/historical-perspectives-on-the-fracking-boom/),” Not Even Past. 
3. “[Preserving Decay: Exploring the Ghost town of Bodie, California](https://savingplaces.org/stories/preserving-decay-exploring-the-ghost-town-of-bodie-california#.Vucw75MrK7Y),” National Trust for Historic Preservation. 
4. “[11 Abandoned Old West boom towns](http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/stories/11-abandoned-old-west-boom-towns),” Mother Nature Network. 

Overview

Spanish conquistadors sought gold in the desert of what is now the Southwest US, and the prospectors who hurried to California in the post-1849 gold rush also mined this area. However, the Mojave desert truly boomed as a destination for miners when the price of silver escalated quickly in the 1890s. Boomtowns such as Tonopah, Nevada, in the eastern Mojave, became the nation’s prime source of this precious metal. Some of these boomtowns, such as Ballarat, California, became ghost towns when mines closed after the panic of 1907, but others thrived through the 1930s. In addition to silver and copper, vast deposits of minerals useful to the nation’s burgeoning industries were discovered and mined throughout the Mojave Desert of California and Nevada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Large reserves of potash, soda ash, sodium sulfate, salt, and borax found in the earth around the dry Searles Lake gave rise to the twentieth-century boomtown of Trona, California. Rail lines were constructed through the desert to transport goods to markets and industrial centers around the US, as well as to ports where minerals could be shipped around the world. 

A second, mid-twentieth-century boom period was fueled by the need for raw materials during the World Wars and the Cold War. Mining in these years was “big business” rather than the work of smaller, independent prospectors. Post-1920 mining in the Mojave Desert typically saw corporations running mines and processing centers, and company-run towns developing around these industrial centers.

English

Boomtimes Again: Twentieth-Century Mining in the Mojave Desert

boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-mojave-desert_02_91bd63c9cceae6af0ea190b7b8ebb40a.jpg

Courtesy of University of Nevada, Reno, University Libraries via Mountain West Digital Library.

“Tonopah, Nevada,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/91bd63c9cceae6af0ea190b7b8ebb40a.

A photograph of Tonopah, Nevada ca. 1915.

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Tips for Students

Item 2 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Boomtimes Again: Twentieth-Century Mining in the Mojave Desert