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Events/Rush · 1877

Schieffelin finds silver at Tombstone

Rush, 1877, United States.

What happened

Ed Schieffelin found silver in the San Pedro Valley in 1877. The NPS landmark file says Tombstone had 6,000 people in 1881 and perhaps 10,000 around 1885, making it the largest town in Arizona Territory. By 1884 the mines had produced 25 million dollars.1,2

Why it matters

The NPS file says Tombstone became the largest town in Arizona Territory.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Tres Puntas silver is discovered in Chile

    The find kept Atacama silver output up as Chanarcillo began to tire.3

  2. Caldera-Copiapo railway opens its first section

    Chile first railway, built with Atacama capital, ran 41 km from Caldera port to Monte Amargo.4,5

  3. San Francisco ships US$724 million of treasure in 16 years

    Eastern ports took US$462 million, England US$168 million and China US$68 million.6,7

  4. General Mining Law of 1872

    The law remains the basis for claims to locatable minerals on US federal land.8,9

  5. Leadville silver boom

    Leadville shows how fast a silver camp could outgrow a state capital.10,11

  6. Broken Hill Proprietary Company formed

    BHP grew from this mine into one of the largest mining companies in the world.12,13

  7. South Broken Hill silver mine airblast

    The regulator uses it as a case study of ground failure at Broken Hill.13,14

  8. Broken Hill Central Mine falls of earth

    The regulator ties the deaths to creep caused by shrinkage of mullock fill.13,15

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Where next

Mines

Located inBisbee copper minesA mine from the same area and mineral story: Bisbee copper mines.1

Events

Inspired byComstock Lode strikesComstock's district reached 25,000 people by 1874. Tombstone had 6,000 in 1881.16

Places

Located inTombstoneSee the place where this happened: Tombstone.1

Sources

  1. Tombstone Historic District, National Historic Landmark nomination US National Park Service
  2. Tombstone (item Q79873), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Los ciclos mineros del cobre y la plata (1820-1880) Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile
  4. Ferrocarril Caldera-Copiapo Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile
  5. Wikidata item Q3708 (Caldera, Chile)
  6. Peabody A., Early voyages to California (treasure shipped from San Francisco 1854-1869) Library of Congress (Essex Institute Historical Collections)
  7. Wikidata item Q62 (San Francisco)
  8. Mining Claims and Sites on Federal Lands (PDF) US Bureau of Land Management
  9. Washington, D.C. (item Q61), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  10. Leadville Colorado Encyclopedia
  11. Leadville (item Q286702), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. History of Broken Hill Broken Hill City Council
  13. Broken Hill (item Q270734), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  14. 1895 South Broken Hill Silver Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  15. 1902 Broken Hill Central Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  16. Virginia City Historic District, Nevada US National Park Service

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Pictures: South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Falu gruva, Lundberg, Bengt A / Europeana (CC0 1.0); Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); The laboratories of Marie and Pierre Curie, Paris: room where experiments on uranium ore took place. Photograph, ca. 1900., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).