OPENING THE DOORS TO THE WEST

LOOKING FOR GOLD

• People rushed to California in 1849 to find gold
• By mid-1850s the California Gold Rush was over
• But miners still wanted to "strike rich."
• So they began looking for gold in other parts of the west
• In 1859, miners found one of the world's richest deposits

LOOKING FOR GOLD II

• It was found along the Carson River
• People called the discovery the Comstock
• Lode after Henry Comstock one of the owners
• Thousands of mines opened near the Comstock
• Lode, but few were profitable

BOOMTOWNS

• Gold and sliver strikes created boomtowns
• Towns that seemed to pop up
• Almost overnight near mining sites
• Few boomtowns had police or jails
• So citizens took law into their own hands

BOOMTOWN II

• The population in a boomtown where mostly men
• Some women also opened business
• They worked as cooks or entertainers
• When the ore was gone they became ghost towns