The Miners

The first section of this book is labeled "A rough way to get rich." And, indeed, a miner's life could be difficult. While some miners could become rich, others went empty handed after brutally hard work. The book notes that (Page 6): "Once the great California gold strike of 1848 had shown what riches the Western earth could hold, hordes of Americans hurried to every other promising corner of the wilderness." This book is chock full of terrific photographs and of stories--of the tools of mining, of the miners themselves, of the communities that emerged as a result of mines. Pages 6-18 provide a rich set of such photos, although many others are scattered throughout this book. The book, as already noted, provides entree to the individual miners and to the companies that made mining into an industrial production. Page 23 provides a map of major strikes, whether silver or gold. The final chapter looks at the gold fields of the Klondike. While mining in the continental United States was hard work, in the Klondike, matters were even more challenging, given the weather and the topography. Many great photos are depicted in this chapter. Page 203 shows the difficult journey one would have to make to the heart of the gold country from Skagway to Dawson City. A nice, accessible, well written work on the miners of the Old West. . .

I have a number of this series and refer to them often for picture references.Great mix of graphics and text on the old west.