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HARD
ROCK
EPIC
 HARD
ROCK
EPIC
Western Miners and the
Industrial Revolution,
1860-1910

MARK WYMAN
 University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
Copyright © 1979 by
The Regents of the University of California
ISBN 0-520-03678-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-54805
Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
This book is for my family
 CONTENTS
Preface ix
Part One: Impact
Chapter I. Machinery on the Route to the Mines 3
Chapter II. Who Will Work? 32
Chapter III. Payday—Perhaps 61
Chapter IV. Betrayed by the New Technology 84
Chapter V. The Question of Blame 118
Part Two: Organized Responses
Chapter VI. The Union Impulse 149
Chapter VII. Responses to the Dangers Below 175
Chapter VIII. The Dilemma of Political Action 201
Chapter IX. Radicalism and the
"Red-Hot Revolutionists" 226
Chapter X. Epilogue: End of the Pioneer Era 256
Notes 261
Bibliography 301
Index 323

vii
 PREFACE

his book is an attempt to examine the impact of the

Industrial Revolution upon the men who mined
gold, silver, and other metals underground in the
West in the 1860-1910 period. Believing that some previous
studies have emphasized the spectacular and violent at the ex-
pense of historical understanding, I have sought to approach
the topic from many angles while avoiding favoritism to, or
condemnation of, any specific group.
At every step of my research and writing there were
persons who—like those who grubstaked prospectors in the
mountains a century ago—provided encouragement and assis-
tance. Chief among these was Professor Vernon Carstensen of
the University of Washington, whose ideas and suggestions
regarding Western workers as part of larger economic processes
have been absolutely crucial in the genesis and development of
this book. Robert Romig and Merle Wells of the Idaho Histori-
cal Society have repeatedly shared their extensive knowledge
of mining with me, including in Romig's case a trip to his Boise
Basin mine. Professor Rodman Paul of the California Institute
of Technology offered numerous suggestions from his broad
background in mining history, and took the time to read the
finished manuscript. Encouragement and suggestions also
came from Professor Melvyn Dubofsky of the State University
of New York at Binghamton, and Professor Vernon Jensen of
Cornell University.
Earlier there were others who helped stimulate my concern
for workmen caught amid fast-changing technology. During
my stint as labor reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, my in-
terest in this was especially developed by two men: Clarence
ix
 PREFACE

Meter, then regional director of the National Labor Relations

Board, and Professor John Flagler of the Department of Indus-
trial Relations of the University of Minnesota.
Many institutions provided assistance, chief among them
being Illinois State University. My colleagues in the univer-
sity's Department of History have willingly offered criticisms
of my writing, just as Milner Library staff members have al-
ways been helpful despite my unending demands on them.
The university has provided assistance through financial aid,
released time for writing, and typing.
I am also indebted to the following: the state historical
societies of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Wiscon-
sin; Colorado State Archives; University of Washington li-
braries and Northwest Collections; University of Illinois li-
braries; University of Nevada Library Special Collections and
Mackay School of Mines Library; Western Historical Collec-
tions of the University of Colorado (special thanks to curator
John Brennan); Colorado School of Mines Library; Bancroft
Library of the University of California; Beinecke Library of Yale
University; Western History Collections of the Denver Public
Library; Boise Public Library; Helena Public Library; Seattle
Public Library; and the Washoe County Library in Reno. Offi-
cials of St. Peter's Hospital (Helena, Montana) and St. Vincent's
Hospital (Leadville, Colorado) permitted me to scrutinize their
records of the 1880-1910 years. Teller County, Colorado, rec-
ords were made available through the courtesy of Mrs. Grace
Sterrett. Thanks are also extended to the Western Historical
Quarterly for permission to use material that originally ap-
peared in my article, "Industrial Revolution in the West: Hard-
Rock Miners and the New Technology," in Vol. V, No. 1 (Jan-
uary, 1974), 39-57, of that journal.
Finally, many near and distant relatives have encouraged
and helped me over the years; this includes Emil and Edith
Goldschmidt, my parents-in-law, who have aided me in many
ways. My debt is especially great to my parents, Walker D.
and Helen B. Wyman, and to my brother Bryant and his wife
Barbara. During the writing of this book the main burden, of
course, has fallen on my wife Eva and our children Daniel,
Ruth, and Miriam. This book is for all of them.
M. W.
Illinois State University, Normal
x
 CHAPTER I
Machinery on the
Route to the Mines

irst the huge machines were transported up the

rivers, forcing steamboats to struggle against the
currents of the Sacramento, the Missouri, and the
Columbia. When the fall line was reached, or when the water's
course diverged from the route to the mines, the mechanical
devices were landed and transferred to sturdy wagons. Then
they were carried up into the mountains.
These mammoth pieces of mining and milling equipment,
moved in steamboats and wagons, were among the mechanical
wonders of an age that prided itself on technological innova-
tions. Both this fact and their sheer immensity attracted atten-
tion along the way. From San Francisco in 1864 came a steam
engine and shaft bound for the Gould & Curry enterprise on
the Comstock Lode in Nevada; the 300-horsepower engine was
"said to be the largest high-pressure" engine ever made in Cal-
ifornia, and the shaft was described as being "as large around
as an ordinary man's body." When the ship Yosemite landed
the shaft at the Sacramento docks, the reporter for the Bee
called it simply "an immense affair," but he was left little time
to scrutinize it, because "it was at once passed along toward
the mountains," bound for the Comstock across the Sierras. 1
Other routes provided entry for the gigantic and intricate
machinery which Western metal mining required from the
1860s onward. It took from thirty to fifty wagons to transport
3
 HARD-ROCK EPIC

Major Centers and Districts

W E S T E R N LODE M I N I N G
1860-1910

Slocan
_ Roastond
«• - * * Your \ :
)
i j.COEUR D'ALE N C 3

\ Marysville
Granite *•• Helena
wramxe newriu

-'"Butte
. BLACK HILLS
/ S .^l pi-Lead
S »oisc """
i
<, WOOD RIVER i
i

If
•OWYHEE

' 1
Nevada took; white Bingtvam» Central I __
City Austin Hamilton
RINE
Canyon City
I City Black Hawlc i
Grass* Georaetown.T [daho S p T i r g s
Valley ¡Virginia Éureiia; *Ely Leadvtte* '
\City Treasure City Gunnison
BodieV . >1bnopäh ! Laie City * Victor
Candelaria Tetturide * »Creede
\ •Qoldfield ! T I N T I C I
\ Rhyottte I
" J
A

Globe prenci
CUftoS
2 CO I
MILES ^ Tombstone .
^ '.BisbeeJ

ALASKA

Fairtanks^
I
I

4
 MACHINERY ON THE ROUTE TO THE MINES

a quartz mill across the plains to the Montana mines, or from

Fort Benton on the Missouri after a steamboat trip from St.
Louis. The Idaho World eagerly announced in 1865 that "the
forty stamp power crusher belonging to the Pittsburg & Idaho
Gold & Silver Mining Company is within a few days journey
of us." Eighteen wagons were used in this haul, which was
marred by the engineer's death from "complications following
a gunshot wound." When a new eleven-ton roaster made its
way into the Grass Valley district of California in 1869, it was
transported in specially constructed wagons brought from San
Francisco, over bridges that had been strengthened in anticipa-
tion, and pulled by ten yoke of oxen which were aided in turn-
ing corners by blocks and tackles. This slow-moving spectacle
"resembled a circus coming to town" in Grass Valley, where
"an immense crowd" watched the roaster make its way to the
Rivot Company works on Canada Hill.2
Such were the devices that traveled, and occasionally
clogged, the routes to the Western mines. They were the ad-
vance agents of the Industrial Revolution, helping conquer the
mountain fastness of a primitive frontier. While it is true that
the basic changes involved in industrialization occurred over
decades or even centuries, when industrialization entered this
Western frontier the clash of old and new was dramatic. Span-
iards who had moved into the West in the colonial era were not
accompanied by the massive paraphernalia of industrialism;
nor were the early groups of other Europeans and Americans
who came later. Explorers, priests, hacendados, soldiers, fur
traders, placer miners—the noise they knew was the roar of a
gun, the bellow of an injured animal, the shouts of drunken
revelry. Their basic mechanical equipment was limited to fire-
arms, wagons, and traps. 3
More than machines went into the creation of that histori-
cal transformation known as the Industrial Revolution. Atti-
tudes of businessmen, governmental leaders, inventors, and
workmen were also crucial in the shift from animal to machine
power, as was the availability of natural resources, labor, and
paying customers.
The workman was located at a key point in this transfor-
mation. Usually drawn into industrial enterprises from a non-
industrial tradition, the new worker was beset by changing
demands in job skills and work discipline which frequently led
5
 HARD-ROCK EPIC

to severe tensions. These new industrial workers carried with

them habits and values "not associated with industrial neces-
sities and the industrial ethos," in Herbert Gutman's words. 4
Such tensions were not limited to workers in the throbbing
industrial centers of the East. They were present as well as the
industrialization of underground metal mining proceeded on
the Western frontier from the early 1860s through 1910. By the
latter date the basic transformation was completed in tech-
nology, work organization, union formation, and protective
legislation. The changes in lode mining over this fifty-year
span were especially dramatic because of the juxtaposition of
the world's most modern, complex technology alongside con-
ditions matching the most primitive anywhere.* By 1880,
Nevada had thirty-seven mines sunk beyond 1,000 feet in
depth and five below 3,000 feet; outside the West, no American
mine went as deep as 1,000 feet. That same year, Colorado's
growing mine kingdom used 118 steam engines, and Nevada's
used 90. These were outposts of modernity. Short distances
away, however, were unconquered peaks, wild game, and
Indians whose childhood memories included no white men or
steam engines. 5
The brQad impact of this transformation for the Western

*Lode mining refers to underground mining below bedrock, the term

being derived from the lode that occurs where several veins of gold, silver,
or other metals run closely together; these and the ground between them
contain metal-bearing rock, or ore. This differs from placer mining, which is
the recovery of flakes, nuggets, and other particles of gold or silver that
were freed when a vein was exposed to the elements and eroded. A lead
(pronounced leed) is synonymous with a lode, although the term is also
used to refer to an unexplored vein.
Other key mining terms include the following: In a lode mine, a shaft
is a vertical opening from the surface. Occasionally a shaft follows a vein
and is off the vertical; this is called an inclined shaft. Tunnels are horizontal
passageways; adits are tunnels from the surface. Drifts are tunnels that follow
a vein or ore body; crosscuts are tunnels that cross the trend of the ore or
rock structure. Passageways that connect on the same general horizontal
plane constitute a level. Ore is generally extracted in a stope, which is any
enlargement of a drift or crosscut penetrating an ore body. Raises are passage-
ways driven upward from one level to the next; winzes are passageways
driven downward, usually to explore continuation of the ore.
Protection from cave-ins is provided by timbering, which consists of placing
posts, caps, and lagging in excavated areas. Stulls are timber props or
timbers wedged between the walls of a stope; planks laid across the stulls
provide a platform for miners working higher up the sides of the stope.

6
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