Steep Trails - Chapter 16

John Muir

"Nevada's Dead Towns"

(paragraphs 1-3)


John Muir is considered the father of our national park system. He wrote many books, letters, and essays about his adventures in nature. The following excerpt comes from the book Steep Trails. In it, Muir describes his own observations about early towns in America.

1 Nevada is one of the very youngest and wildest of the states; nevertheless, it is already scattered with ruins that seem as gray and silent and time-worn as a century old civilization. All these ruins are results of mining efforts made within the last few years. Throughout the wilderness of Nevada, you come upon these dead mining towns everywhere.

2 While exploring the mountain ranges of the state during three summers, I have seen at least five of these deserted towns and villages. Some of them were probably only camps built by bands of prospectors, inhabited for a few months or years, and then carelessly abandoned for more promising fields. Many were real towns, regularly laid out and incorporated, containing well-built hotels, churches, schoolhouses, post offices, and jails, as well as the mills on which they all depended.

3 A Californian prospector would discover some rich ore. The news fell among excited seekers after wealth like sparks in gunpowder, and in a few days the wilderness was disturbed with the noisy clang of miners and builders. A little town would then spring up, and before anything like a careful survey of any particular lode would be made, a company would be formed, and expensive mills built. Then, after all the machinery was ready for the ore, perhaps little, or none at all, was found. Meanwhile, someone reported another discovery, and the seekers abandoned the young town.

Why were mining towns built? (paragraph 3)