Silver rush

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A silver rush is the silver-mining equivalent of a gold rush, where the discovery of silver-bearing ore sparks a mass migration of individuals seeking wealth in the new mining region.

Notable silver rushes have taken place in Mexico, Chile, the United States (Colorado, Nevada, California, Utah), and Canada (Cobalt, Ontario, and the Kootenay district of British Columbia). Several famous tourist towns owe their existence to silver rushes.

History

Historically there were other "silver rushes", such as on the

Laurion became famous for their exploitation and helped fund the new state of Athens. The term is also widely applied to the New World. Despite the larger-than-life image of the gold rush, the history of towns and industry in the North American West revolves much more around silver. This is partly because of the other minerals usually found with it – lead, tin, copper – and the more complicated smelting process associated with it because of the chemical complexity of its ores (usually galena). The line between a smelter town and a silver mining town is very slim in many cases, although copper mining towns typically also have large smelters (such as Anaconda, Montana
) and industrial complexes associated with them.

The pursuit for silver often opens up other mineral deposits for development because of the variety of other useful ores that occur with it, especially in galena, its most common natural form. Hence the Boundary Country of British Columbia, just across the international border from Spokane, Washington, had a strong mining and smelting economy based on the non-silver components of galena, and the nearby city of Trail remains a functioning smelter town (long after the long-established industrial complex of the Boundary District has faded into a ghost town).

Hardrock mines tend to last longer than

Dawson City in the Klondike. By contrast, "silver cities" like Aspen, Colorado, and Nelson, British Columbia
, often survived as functioning economies into the era of modernization and the advent of tourism (which sometimes proves richer than any silver mine).

Examples

Canada

British Columbia
Ontario

Chile

Germany

  • First Berggeschrey, Saxony, Ore Mountains, 1168
  • Second Berggeschrey, Saxony, Ore Mountains, 1470
  • Harz Mountains
    , Kingdom of Hanover

Mexico

Sonora
  • Planchas de Plata district, 1736[7]
Zacatecas
  • Zacatecas, 1549[8]

United States

Main article: Silver mining in the United States
California
Colorado
Main article: Silver mining in Colorado
Nevada
Main article: Silver mining in Nevada
Utah

See also

References

  1. ^ "A Brief History of Nelson | Nelson, BC".
  2. ^ a b c Cortés Lutz, Guillermo (2017). Chañarcillo, cuando de las montañas brotó la plata (PDF). Cuadernos de Historia (in Spanish). Vol. II. Museo Regional de Atacama. p. 25.
  3. ISBN 978-956-324-375-8
    .
  4. OCLC 25873947
    .
  5. ^ García-Albarido, Francisco; Lorca, Rodrigo; Rivera, Francisco (2010). "Arquelogía histórica en el mineral de Caracoles, Región de Antofagasta, Chile (1870-1989)". Revista de Arqueología Histórica Argentina y Latinoamericana (in Spanish). 4: 169–194.
  6. Biblioteca Nacional de Chile. Archived
    from the original on 31 December 2013.
  7. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2004_Jan_26/ai_112545473 [bare URL]
  8. ^ Donald C. Kemp, From Quicksilver to Bar Silver, Pasadena, Calif.: Socio-Technical Publications, 1972, p.90.
  9. ^ Charles W. Henderson (1926) Mining in Colorado, U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 138, p.9.
  10. ^ "Oct. 18, 2006 - Boulder arts and culture programs for Oct. 19-25". www.ci.boulder.co.us. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
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