Gambling on Ore

The Nature of Metal Mining in the United States, 1860–1910

Kent Curtis

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781607322344
• eBook ISBN: 9781607322351
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Gambling on Ore examines the development of the western mining industry from the tumultuous and violent Gold Rush to the elevation of large-scale copper mining in the early twentieth century, using Montana as representative of mining developments in the broader US mining west. Employing abundant new historical evidence in key primary and secondary sources, Curtis tells the story of the inescapable relationship of mining to nature in the modern world as the United States moved from a primarily agricultural society to a mining nation in the second half of the nineteenth century.

In Montana, legal issues and politics—such as unexpected consequences of federal mining law and the electrification of the United States—further complicated the mining industry's already complex relationship to geology, while government policy, legal frameworks, dominant understandings of nature, and the exigencies of profit and production drove the industry in momentous and surprising directions. Despite its many uncertainties, mining became an important part of American culture and daily life.

Gambling on Ore unpacks the tangled relationships between mining and the natural world that gave material possibility to the age of electricity. Metal mining has had a profound influence on the human ecology and the social relationships of North America through the twentieth century and throughout the world after World War II. Understanding how we forged these relationships is central to understanding the environmental history of the United States after 1850. 

Index

Adelberg, Julius, 86

Agricola, 91

Agriculture, as part of mining, 45

Alder Gulch, 16, 42, 44, 52, 57, 179; described by James K. Fisk, 46; discovery of gold at, 38; gold production statistics, 46; hydraulic mining on, 55–56; naming of, 39; stampede, 41

Alice Company, 104, 105–106, 107, 119, 122

Alice group mines (Walker brothers), 103

Alice Mine: groundwater removal, 104–105; importance of Daly’s experience at, 124

Allen and Arnold, 76

Alternating current, 139

Amalgamated Trust, 144, 149, 152, 154, 164, 172, 175; air pollution lawsuit, 191–197; water pollution lawsuit, 174, 188–191

American Bureau of Mines, 86–87

American Fork, 21, 22–23, 25, 27

American Institute of Mining Engineers, 92, 122, 151

American Mining Journal, 63, 87. See also Engineering and Mining Journal

Anaconda, Montana, 127, 130–131, 133, 144, 154, 172

Anaconda and Pacific Railroad, 144

Anaconda Commercial Company, 135

Anaconda Company (Daly and Haggin), 133–136

Anaconda Copper Company, 144, 149–152, 154, 164, 174, 191; apex litigation, 149–152

Anaconda Mine (Butte Hill), 117, 122, 130, 134, 144; discovery of copper in, 125; Marcus Daly’s purchase of, 122–123; as model mine development for Daly and Haggin, 133; stimulating timber development, 131; systematic development by Marcus Daly, 123–124

“The Anaconda Plan,” 122

Anaconda smelter: plans for size and scale, 131–132; as a production strategy, 131; siting of, 130

Anaconda smelter: Lower Works, 133–134, 134, 144, 192; Upper Works, 131, 133, 192

Anaconda Town Site Company, 135–136

“An Act Granting the Right-of-Way to Ditch and Canal Owners through the Pubic Lands, and for Other Purposes,” 78. See also Mining Law of 1866

“An Act to Promote the Development of the Mining Resources of the United States,” 99. See also Mining Law of 1872

Apex litigation, 146–152

Apex rights, 100, 145, 150

Appalachian Mountains, 18

Argenta, Montana, 76, 82, 95, 128

Arizona, 116, 138

Arsenic: calculated daily emissions, 194; as a constituent of Butte copper ores, 168; geological origins of, 2, 167–168; production of, 192

Arsenic poisoning: Clark Fork Fish Kill, 1, 9; USDA studies of, 1...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Mining the American West
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION Arsenic in the Wilderness, or Knowing Nature through Mining
• ONE Producing a Mining Landscape: Gold Rush Uncertainty in Proto-Montana
• TWO The Value of Ores: Knowledge and Policy in Lode Mining Development
• THREE Turning Copper into Gold: The Dynamics of System Building
• FOUR The Ecology of Ore Processing: Pollution and the Law in the Deer Lodge Valley
• CONCLUSION Producing a Mining Society
• Bibliography
• Index