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Article: Mining Towns
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MINING TOWNS
MINING TOWNS.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mining towns were central to industrialization and the economic growth of the United States. Mining towns grew up around numerous ores, and the particular minerals and the technologies required to remove them from the earth had different impacts on the development of social relations with in the towns.
Mining towns arose quickly once a mineral deposit was discovered. This was particularly true in the case of gold and silver because people understood the direct link between the amount one could extract and one's wealth. "Gold Rush" towns were notorious for a quick rise and, often, an equally dramatic fall. These ...