Rocky Mountain Mining Camps: The Urban Frontier

by Duane A. Smith

Trade Paperback. Western American History. This book is a happy combination of scholarly research, thoughtful interpretation, and lucid exposition. It is a significant contribution to the literature of the mining frontier in this decade when more worthwhile books on the subject have been published than in the entire last century.

Genres: History

316 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1973

About the author

Duane Smith received his academic degrees from the University of Colorado and completed his Ph.D. in 1964. That year he began to teach at Fort Lewis College where he is a Professor of Southwest Studies. His areas of research and writing include Colorado history, Civil War history, mining history, urban history and baseball history. He is an extremely popular professor at Fort Lewis, and he is the author of over thirty books on a variety of subjects including Rocky Mountain Mining Camps: The Urban Frontier; A Colorado History; Horace Tabor: His Life and the Legend; Silver Saga: The Story of Caribou Colorado; Colorado Mining: A Photographic History; Fortunes Are for the Few: Letters of a Forty-niner; Rocky Mountain Boom Town: A History of Durango; A Land Alone: Colorado’s Western Slope; Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914; Mining America: The Industry and the Environment, 1800-1980; Mesa Verde National Park: Shadows of the Centuries; The Birth of Colorado: A Civil War Perspective; and Sacred Trust: The Birth and Development of Fort Lewis College.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Despite the frequently overdrawn picture of the rugged individualist pitting himself against the forces of nature and man, the miner relied upon his government for aid and succor. He cried for mail service, lenient federal policies toward mining and land, military protection, and territorial government. Aroused protests greeted any dereliction of responsibility or failure to meet expectations. Up to a point, uncle Sam was welcome, but the miner and townsman did not want the government to interfere too much” (244).

[Kendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixing in a little non-fiction so you folks think I might know something about something.