The Quicksilver Rush (ca. early 1930s) was a mining rush for cinnabar in southwest Arkansas and the Ozarks, mostly in Pike and Clark counties, beginning around 1931, in the early days of the Great Depression when people were desperate for jobs.
The mining of cinnabar sparked a brief but immediate employment boom for the towns of Amity, Murfreesboro, and Graysonia. The latter was at the end of being a booming mill town, and was in the process of closing its mills, with its population of over one thousand people now being unemployed. For a brief time, it appeared that the discovery of cinnabar would save that town.
The rush also caused an influx of around one thousand people not from the area, which increased the local economy in the way of supplies and whiskey sales. Miners rushed to lay claims for mining rights, mostly in a mountainous area about five miles south of Amity in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. Two companies, "Southwestern Quicksilver Company" and the "Arkansas Quicksilver Company", were the main employers. The rush was short-lived, but did provide employment in the area for almost a decade. With cinnabar being more readily available from other sources, the mines eventually closed, and by the beginning of World War II all mining of any significance had ended, and by this time the rush itself had been over for a number of years. [1]
The Pike's Peak gold rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history.
The City of Idaho Springs is the statutory city that is the most populous municipality in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. Idaho Springs is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,782. Idaho Springs is located in Clear Creek Canyon, in the mountains upstream from Golden, some 30 miles (50 km) west of Denver.
The California gold rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood in the Compromise of 1850. The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation, and the California genocide.
Pike County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,171. The county seat is Murfreesboro. Pike County is Arkansas's 25th county, formed on November 1, 1833, and named for Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, the explorer for whom Pikes Peak is named. It is an alcohol prohibition or dry county.
Clark County is a county located in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,446. The county seat is Arkadelphia. The Arkadelphia, AR Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Clark County.
Amity is a city in Clark County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 723 at the 2010 census. The city began on the Caddo River in the mid-19th century when William F. Browning and others, including A.B. Clingman, at various times moved to the area.
Terlingua is a mining district and census-designated place (CDP) in southwestern Brewster County, Texas, United States. It is located near the Rio Grande and the villages of Lajitas and Study Butte, Texas, as well as the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The discovery of cinnabar, from which the metal mercury is extracted, in the mid-1880s brought miners to the area, creating a city of 2,000 people. The only remnants of the mining days are a ghost town of the Howard Perry-owned Chisos Mining Company and several nearby capped and abandoned mines: the California Hill, the Rainbow, the 248, and the Study Butte mines. The mineral terlinguaite was first found in the vicinity of California Hill.
New Idria was an unincorporated town in San Benito County, California. It was named after the New Idria Mercury Mine, which closed in 1972, resulting in a ghost town.
The Sulphur Bank Mine is located near Clearlake Oaks and Clear Lake in Lake County, California. The 150-acre (0.61 km2) mine became one of the most noted mercury producers in the world.
New Almaden, known in Spanish as Nueva Almadén, is a historic community and former mercury mine in the Capitancillos Hills of San Jose, California, located at the southwestern point of Almaden Valley in South San Jose. New Almaden is divided into two parts: the mines and much of their immediate surroundings, including historic ghost town settlements in the Capintancillas, which together form the Almaden Quicksilver County Park, and the largely residential historic district surrounding the Casa Grande.
Graysonia is an unincorporated place in Clark County, Arkansas, United States.
Old Colorado City, formerly Colorado City, was once a town, but it is now a neighborhood within the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Its commercial district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was founded during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1859 and was involved in the mining industry, both as a supply hub and as a gold ore processing center beginning in the 1890s. Residents of Colorado City worked at some of the 50 coal mines of the Colorado Springs area. It was briefly the capital of the Colorado Territory. For many years, Colorado Springs prohibited the use of alcohol within its border due to the lifestyle of Colorado City's opium dens, bordellos, and saloons. It is now a tourist area, with boutiques, art galleries, and restaurants.
Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.
Wonder, Nevada, is a ghost town in Churchill County, Nevada, approximately 39 miles (63 km) east of Fallon.
Mining in the United States has been active since the beginning of colonial times, but became a major industry in the 19th century with a number of new mineral discoveries causing a series of mining rushes. In 2015, the value of coal, metals, and industrial minerals mined in the United States was US$109.6 billion. 158,000 workers were directly employed by the mining industry.
Treasure Hill is an east-jutting spur of the White Pine Range of White Pine County in the east central region of the U.S. state of Nevada. It lies to the east of Mount Hamilton and to the northwest of Mokomoke Hill. It is noted for a silver mining boom in the late 1860s: between 1867 and 1880, the total production from area mines was valued at $20 million. The rush drew thousands to new towns such as Hamilton, situated at the northern base of the hill, and Treasure City, located near its peak, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Hamilton.
Maitland, originally called Garden City and sometimes misspelled Midland, is a ghost town in Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. It was a mining community that boomed during the Black Hills Gold Rush, but was abandoned by about 1915.
The Washington oil field is an oil field and in Washington County, Pennsylvania. It also produced natural gas.
In the mid-19th century, Colorado Springs was a center of mining industry activity. Coal was mined in 50 mines in the area and towns, now annexed to Colorado Springs, were established to support residents of the coal mining industry.
The Stanley Shale, or Stanley Group, is a Mississippian stratigraphic unit in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma. First described in Arkansas in 1892, this unit was not named until 1902 by J.A. Taff in his study of the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma. Taff assigned the town of Stanley in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma as the type locality, but did not designate a stratotype. After introduction into Arkansas in 1909 by Albert Homer Purdue, the unit was redefined in 1918, when the formation known as the Fork Mountain Slate was abandoned and partially combined into the Stanley Shale. As of 2017, a reference section for the Stanley Shale has yet to be designated.