US History

Science and Technology

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.

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. 

Transcript:

Anderson, Ind. Jan. 15, 1957 <br>
Mr. Bill Myers <br>
Trona, Calif. Box 4 


Dear Friend: <br>
Your letter received and you will find enclosed another bunch of prints. Some of these are different from the ones I sent you. You can trade if there is anything in this bunch you would rather have. 

We had planned to be on way to Florida by this time but my wife received word from Calif that her Bro. was in hospital with severe heart attack and would have to be in hospital for three weeks. 

We are having a severe touch of winter here. Two days ago it was down to 10 below Zero. Now have about three inches of snow. I knew several assayers in Goldfield. Can't remember their names now. I done a little business with one of them in Hy-Grade ore. Had him smelt me two gold buttons that I brought back home and had rings made. I worked in office of MacMaster and MacMaster (two brothers) as stenographer for about one year. They floated the Rochester-Goldfield Mining Co., and had a Supt. at diggins called Tom Short. They never hit anything. I later worked for Davis and Shoemaker who operated a lease on the Mohawk and they did get considerable high grade ore. This was not Diamondfield Jack Davis but Lincoln Davis from Chicago. Diamond Field Jack Davis had his office directly across the street from MacMaster and MacMaster in Goldfield. Jack would always ride his horse inside the office before he dismounted. Usually carried two rifles and two six shooters. I also saw a shooting scrape between an assayer near our office and another man. The assayer jumped back in his office after both shot several times and came back out with a sawed off shot gun and got the other fellow. I would sure like to see that book of Frank Crampton's. Do you know where he is located? I do not remember Al Anderson "Big Swede" but may have bumped into him at Goldfield. I don't remember many of the names now. The next time my daughter comes thru your part of country, will have her stop to see you. She has promised Seldom Seen Slim a colored picture of him she took while at your place. It was good. She was out in Death Valley again last Fall at the Flap Jack contest. 

CAE Rinker <br>
Sent 20 Prints.


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. 

Minerals can be extracted after water is pumped into a dry bed. 

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

Questions

1. Look at the two photographs of Tonopah, Nevada. How did this boomtown change over a period of about ten years? When you look at the [postcard image of Tonopah](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/865), what activities do you see taking place in the downtown area of this boomtown? How does the [letter from a former mining company employee](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/869) reminiscing about his days working in the boomtown of Goldfield, Nevada characterize the town?
2. Look at the [photograph of people and mining equipment](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/864) in Tonopah, Nevada and consider the [list of taxpayer names](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/868). Based on the last names in Tonopah, where do you think people were migrating and emigrating from to work in the Mojave Desert as miners? Did women have a sizable presence in these twentieth-century boomtowns? What is your evidence of this?
3. Look at the artifacts from mining of metals such as silver in Tonopah, Nevada in the early twentieth century and from the mining and processing of minerals in Trona, California in the mid-to-late twentieth century. How did mining change in the Mojave desert over the course of the twentieth century?
4. Using the [photograph of a twenty-mule team](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/870) and the [photograph of magnesium](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/871), explain how the development of small railway lines throughout the Mojave Desert supported mining as an industry and the development of boomtowns.
5. Although Western mining started with quests for gold and silver, minerals and metals used for industrial production proved to be more important to the industry of mining in the Mojave Desert. Read the [booklet on borax](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/boomtimes-again-twentieth-century-mining-in-the-mojave-desert/sources/872) and list the ways in which this mineral could be used by an average household consumer.


Activity

The economic cycles inherent in the mining industry often lead to a boom and bust pattern, generating quickly constructed towns which then fall into neglect or become ghost towns after a mine closes. Ghost towns dot the landscape of the American West as well as Australia, which shares a similar history of boom-and- bust mining cycles. Ask students to find and research a boomtown or a ghost town in the American West (for example: Kennecott, Alaska, St. Elmo, Colorado, Bodie, California, or Rhyolite, Nevada) or in Australia (for example: Cook, South Australia, Silverton, New South Wales, Joadja, New South Wales, or Broad Arrow, Western Australia), and to share their findings with the class in a poster or oral presentation. 


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

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_13_3abdadc61e98e4a37b24afa5b300a652.jpg

Courtesy of Pomona Public Library via California Digital Library.

Frasher, Burton, “Trona Service Station with Pyrobor Section of Chemical Manufacturing Plant of American Potash and Chemical Corporation California,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/a0518124c16a0ecf32b583f51de1bc59.

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

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 13 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Boomtimes Again: Twentieth-Century Mining in the Mojave Desert