History of public land law development

page 710

710 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT cently it has been noted that many of the codes were quite similar to the regulations promulgated by Lt. Martin Thomas in the Galena lead district."4 By the late fifties, the placer mines in California had been largely worked out, and the average miner was not equipped to engage in the type of mining necessary to extract ore from veins penetrating far into the mountains. Throughout the period of 1848-80, he was rescued from "unemployment" when the West witnessed a series of mining rushes in all directions, with >the lonely miner rushing from one part of the country to the other. Most of these rushes followed the California pattern in a general way. A discovery soon produced wild rumors of the vast wealth awaiting any honest miner who had enough gumption to stop looking for his mule and start prospecting; then, the period of the rush-often characterized by tragic disillusionment; later, if minerals were discovered, a fairly stable mining camp emerged. This was usually followed by an influx of shifty-eyed bartenders, hurdy-gurdy girls, untrained lawyers, the wildest outlaws imaginable, and peripatetic preachers, all (or most) of whom sought to prey upon the luck of the miner. The lawless element eventually produced the vigilante committee. Order was usually restored about the time the mines were worked out. The rapid exodus produced the "ghost town"63 which, along with the "lost bonanzas,"66 is the perennial subject of popular writers. w Wright, The Galena Lead District: Federal Policy and Practice 1824-1847 102 (1966) . 65 Gold Rush Country: Guide to California's Mother Lode and Northern Mines (2d ed. rev. 1963) ; Nadeau, Ghost Towns and Mining Camps (1965) ; Wolle, The Bonanza Trail: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of the West (1953) ; Wolle, Montana Pay Dirt: A Guide to the Mining Camps of the Treasure State (1963) ; Stegner, California's Cold Rush Country, 24 Holiday 64 (August 1958). "Controtto, Lost Desert Bonanzas (1963); Drago, Lost Bonanzas (1966) ; Miller, Arizona Cavalcade: The Turbulent Times (1962). Two contemporary historians have carefully considered the mining frontiers of the West. Rodman W. Paul's superb treatment of the mining rushes is part of the "Histories of the American Frontier" series and is especially valuable for his insight into the technical aspects of mining.*57 William S. Greever has given us a colorful account of life in the mining districts."** The mining frontier was quite different from the systematic western advance of the fur trapper and the farmer. The pattern was dictated by a series of discoveries in the West which sent the hapless prospector scurrying off to remote areas which offered an almost impossible challenge to human existence. After the decline in placer mining in California, miners were lured to the Pike's Peak area in Colorado in 1859 in what has been described as one of the "wildest and least rational rushes in the nation's history."69 Many disillusioned prospectors returned home, but those who stayed on made discoveries in the Gregory Gulch area and later in the early sixties substantial finds near Boulder and Denver. Leadville and Cripple Creek became famous in the seventies.70 At the same time as the early Colorado rushes, miners were attracted to the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in Nevada. In 1859, two lucky Irishmen made discoveries in Davidson Mountain which turned out to be part of the richest of all veins, 67 Paul, supra note 56. 8S Greever. supra note 56. See also The Mining Frontier: Contemporary Accounts from the American West in the Nineteenth Century (Lewis ed. 1967) for interesting material taken from the newspapers of the boom towns and mining camps. *• Billington, Westward Expansion 621 (3d ed. 1967) . An excellent bibliography on western mining history will be found on 864-68. For a general description of the early frontier, see Bii.lington, Thk Far Western Frontier 1830-1860 (1956). 70 Lee, Cripple Creek Days (1958); Sprague, Money Mountain, The Story of Cripple Creek Gold (1953) .