The landscape on which the native peoples, the pioneers, and the settlers lived is the subject of this ongoing series of monographs. Though often illuminated by the story of those men and women, the role of the land and its defining characteristics in shaping their life experiences is paramount in each volume. The importance of water to settlement and development throughout the Far West is highlighted in many of the volumes. Commercial development and exploitation of resources is also a major area of focus.
The contribution to the mining history of the United States by emigrant Cornish miners—the men called Cousin Jacks
by Arthur Cecil Todd
The hands of Cornish miners bore scars of one of the most sophisticated traditions of hard-rock mining in the world.Toughened “Cousin Jacks” brought generations of toilsome underground experience...
Hydraulic mining was, and remains, controversial.It produced great wealth from the soil of California, yet damaged the land in such a way that the scars will remain for eons. Great hillsides...
This new work for the first time relates the life of Alex Swan, and offers a complete history of the Swan companies. Lawrence M. Woods has combed the surviving corporate records and other documents held in the United States and abroad.
Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Big Horn did its part to win fame for the Big Horn Basin, and much has been written about the famous characters of Wyoming. But until now the region which is Wyoming's last frontier has not received comprehensive treatment. This new study examines the Big Horn Basin during its frontier period.
The first of a two-volume study of the heyday of gold, silver, and copper mining in the American West is unique in both scope and approach. Richard E. Lingenfelter describes how miners, managers, investors, and speculators produced enormous wealth—spurring the American economy, attracting myriads of Argonauts and settlers, and transforming the West and the nation. This tale of great expectations follows the money from rich pockets of ore and the bulging pockets of investors and speculators through mills, smelters, and stock markets. Some of the greatest stockholder losses came from insider looting and market manipulation. Bonanzas & Borrascas ties together the fortunes of East and West by exploring the impact of eastern investors and speculators on western mines, as well as the generally unrecognized impact of the western mines on Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
The most famous cattle town of the trail-driving era, Dodge City, Kansas, holds a special allure for western historians and enthusiasts alike. Wm. B. Shillingberg now goes beyond the violence for which the town became notorious, more fully documenting its early history by uncovering the economic, political, and social forces that shaped Dodge.
The second of a two-volume study of the heyday of gold, silver, and copper mining in the American West is unique in both scope and approach. Richard E. Lingenfelter describes how miners, managers, investors, and speculators produced enormous wealth—spurring the American economy, attracting myriads of Argonauts and settlers, and transforming the West and the nation. This tale of great expectations follows the money from rich pockets of ore and the bulging pockets of investors and speculators through mills, smelters, and stock markets. Some of the greatest stockholder losses came from insider looting and market manipulation. Bonanzas & Borrascas ties together the fortunes of East and West by exploring the impact of eastern investors and speculators on western mines, as well as the generally unrecognized impact of the western mines on Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
The 1859 American Fur Company Missouri River Expedition
by Lawrence H. Larsen and Barbara J. Cottrell
In 1859, the American Fur Company set out on what would then be the longest steamboat trip in North American history—a headline-making, 6,200-mile trek along the Missouri River from St. Louis to Fort Benton in present-day Montana, and back again. Steamboats West is an adventure story that navigates the rocky rapids of the upper Missouri to offer a fascinating account of travel to the raw frontier past the pale of settlement. It was a venture that extended trade deep into the Northwest and made an enormous stride in transportation.
Between 1896 and 1919, air pollution from large-scale copper smelting in northern California’s Shasta County severely damaged crops and timber in a 1,000-square-mile region, completely devastating a core area of 200 square miles. The poisons from these smelters created the nation’s largest man-made desert—a shocking contrast to the beauty of the surrounding Cascades and Trinity Alps. Offering the drama and pathos of a David-and-Goliath tale in which Goliath wins and strides on, Murder of a Landscape makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the industrial, political, and environmental history of the American West.
On March 12, 1928, a huge dam nestled in the foothills north of Los Angeles collapsed and spread death and devastation from Newhall to the Pacific Ocean near Ventura. Some 450 lives were lost,...
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