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Gold mining changes in California
Gold mining changes
As the gold became more difficult to
extract, profound changes in California took root. By the early 1850s, a
single miner could no longer work his claim alone. He needed help and he
needed technology.
At first, miners banded together in informal companies to dam the
rivers, reroute the water and expose the gold underneath. But soon even
more capital-intensive measures were needed to extract the gold and the
loose knit groups of miners were replaced by corporations. By the mid
1850s, most of the miners who remained were employees, a way of life
they found distasteful but necessary.
The new mining corporations developed extraction techniques that were
frighteningly efficient-- techniques that destroyed the rivers and
caused California's first environmental disasters. Massive derricks
lifted rock and sand--obliterating the formerly pristine rivers.
The worst of the large scale mining techniques came in 1853: hydraulic
mining. Huge jets of water tore apart the walls of the riverbeds--jets
so powerful, they could kill a man two-hundred feet away. By the 1860s
it was clear that hydraulic mining was destroying the landscape, but
little was done to stop it. Californians still had an attitude of
exploitation--an attitude the miners had from the beginning.
It took over thirty years to ban hydraulic mining--thirty years to
change California's attitude of exploitation. The rivers of northern
California would never return to their pristine state. But then no part
of California would be the same after the gold rush.
More information about the history of gold in California:
California gold history : In the early 1840s, California was a distant outpost that only a handful of Americans had seen. The sleepy port that would become San Francisco had just a few hundred residents.
California gold rush history: Most of the world's gold is locked deep underground--embedded in hard rock. But California gold was different
Gold mining changes: As the gold became more difficult to extract, profound changes in California took root
Gold rush impact on California: Although the gold in the California hills eventually ran out--the impact of the gold rush era lives on