Lesser known than the gold and silver mines of Western lore, Southern Colorado�s extensive coal mines fueled the engines for Western industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of the numerous companies operating the mines, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was king. With a total of 62 mines, the majority of them in Colorado�s Las Animas, Huerfano, and Fremont Counties, CF&I ruled the lives of countless miners in company towns scattered throughout Southern Colorado...

Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness—and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch.When Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and their fifteen children appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy, their new neighbors saw them as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal. But behind the family's pr...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Revenant—the basis for the award-winning film starring Leonardo DiCaprio—tells the remarkable story of the worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history.A half-hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than two thousand feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrint...

While copper seems less glamorous than gold, it may be far more important. Copper proved vital to the industrial revolution and indispensable for electrification of America. Kennecott Copper Corporation, at one time the largest producer of copper in the world, thus played a key role in economic and industrial development. This book recounts how Kennecott was formed from the merger of three mining operations (one in Alaska, one in Utah, and one in Chile), how it led the way in mining techno...

As the oldest continuously active U.S. Air Force military installation, it's no wonder Francis E. Warren Air Force Base is one of the most haunted military bases in the nation. Rumor has it that residents keep a log of unnatural incidents, like early morning phantom maneuvers on the parade grounds. A long-deceased cavalryman refuses to leave his post, while another specter prefers to linger in the Missile Museum. Writer and guide Jill Pope offers up a chilling tour through this historic ba...

Nevada’s Comstock Mining District has been the focus of legend since it first burst into international prominence in the late 1850s, and its principal settlement, Virginia City, endures in the popular mind as the West’s quintessential mining camp. But the authentic history of the Comstock is far more complex and interesting than its colorful image. Contrary to legend, Virginia City spent only its first few years as a ramshackle mining camp. The mining boom quickly turned it into a thriving...

The Pacific of the early eighteenth century was not a single ocean but a vast and varied waterscape, a place of baffling complexity, with 25,000 islands and seemingly endless continental shorelines. But with the voyages of Captain James Cook, global attention turned to the Pacific, and European and American dreams of scientific exploration, trade, and empire grew dramatically. By the time of the California gold rush, the Pacific's many shores were fully integrated into world markets-and wo...

When it comes to Nevada history, men get most of the ink. Comstock Women is a collection of 14 historical studies that helps to rectify that reality. The authors of these essays, who include some of Nevada’s most prominent historians, demographers, and archaeologists, explore such topics as women and politics, jobs, and ethnic groups. Their work goes far in refuting the exaggerated popular images of women in early mining towns as dance hall girls or prostitutes. Relying primarily ...

Nevada: A History of the Silver State has been named a CHOICE Outstanding Title.Michael S. Green, a leading Nevada historian, provides a detailed survey of the Silver State’s past, from the arrival of the early European explorers, to the predominance of mining in the 1800s, to the rise of world-class tourism in the twentieth century, and to more recent attempts to diversify the economy.Of the numerous themes central to Green’s analysis of Nevada’s history, luck pla...

Downwind is an unflinching tale of the atomic West that reveals the intentional disregard for the inhabitants and the environment in nuclear testing by the federal government and in uranium extraction by mining corporations during and after the Cold War.Sarah Alisabeth Fox interviews residents of the Great Basin region affected by environmental contamination from the uranium industry and nuclear testing fallout. Those residents tell tales of communities ravaged by cancer e...

Winner of the Mining History Association Clark Spence Award for the Best Book in Mining History, 2017-2018Brian James Leech provides a social and environmental history of Butte, Montana’s Berkeley Pit, an open-pit mine which operated from 1955 to 1982. Using oral history interviews and archival finds, The City That Ate Itself explores the lived experience of open-pit copper mining at Butte’s infamous Berkeley Pit. Because an open-pit mine has to expand out...

Montana comes alive from 1840 to 1870 in this mesmerizing second volume of the state's history, Priests and Prospectors.Montana in 1840 was a very quiet place. Indians roamed about as they wished and there were few white men around. The 1850s saw some increased activity, but things largely stayed the same. Then on a hot summer day in 1862 one man struck gold and everything changed.Discover the journey that Montana took from a sleepy backwater of less than 700 people to a th...