Author: Gregory Crouch
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501108204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
“A monumentally researched biography of one of the nineteenth century’s wealthiest self-made Americans…Well-written and worthwhile” (The Wall Street Journal) it’s the rags-to-riches frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada’s Comstock Lode. Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious “Bank Ring” monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary “Big Bonanza,” a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown. But for the ore to be worth anything it had to be found, claimed, and successfully extracted, each step requiring enormous risk and the creation of an entirely new industry. Now Gregory Crouch tells Mackay’s amazing story—how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. “No one does a better job than Crouch when he explores the subject of mining, and no one does a better job than he when he describes the hardscrabble lives of miners” (San Francisco Chronicle). Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.
The Bonanza King
Author: Gregory Crouch
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501108204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
“A monumentally researched biography of one of the nineteenth century’s wealthiest self-made Americans…Well-written and worthwhile” (The Wall Street Journal) it’s the rags-to-riches frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada’s Comstock Lode. Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious “Bank Ring” monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary “Big Bonanza,” a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown. But for the ore to be worth anything it had to be found, claimed, and successfully extracted, each step requiring enormous risk and the creation of an entirely new industry. Now Gregory Crouch tells Mackay’s amazing story—how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. “No one does a better job than Crouch when he explores the subject of mining, and no one does a better job than he when he describes the hardscrabble lives of miners” (San Francisco Chronicle). Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501108204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
“A monumentally researched biography of one of the nineteenth century’s wealthiest self-made Americans…Well-written and worthwhile” (The Wall Street Journal) it’s the rags-to-riches frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada’s Comstock Lode. Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious “Bank Ring” monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary “Big Bonanza,” a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown. But for the ore to be worth anything it had to be found, claimed, and successfully extracted, each step requiring enormous risk and the creation of an entirely new industry. Now Gregory Crouch tells Mackay’s amazing story—how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. “No one does a better job than Crouch when he explores the subject of mining, and no one does a better job than he when he describes the hardscrabble lives of miners” (San Francisco Chronicle). Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.
The Bonanza Kings
Author: Richard H. Peterson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806123899
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 191
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806123899
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 191
Book Description
Last Bonanza Kings
Author: Ferol Egan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
While the great mining bonanzas of the nineteenth-century West made eastern California and Nevada the subject of legend, much of the wealth from the mines flowed to San Francisco and made possible the growth of the city and some fabulous personal fortunes. Among the wealthiest and most powerful of the Bonanza Kings was William Bowers Bourn I and his son and successor, William Bowers Bourn II. The elder Bourn, descendant of an early New England family, arrived in San Francisco shortly after the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills. Although he eventually invested heavily in mines in Grass Valley and on the Comstock, his initial success was as a businessman in the booming port city. The younger Bourn built upon his fathers success, expanding the Empire Mine in Grass Valley into one of the largest, most productive, and most technologically advanced hard-rock gold mines in the West, acquiring additional mining properties on the Comstock and on Treasure Hill in eastern Nevada, and developing a range of business ventures, including a vast water system that was to become the basis for San Francisco's present water supply. Like many other wealthy men of his generation, William Bourn II was a generous donor to worthy causes and an enthusiastic patron of the arts, supporting such projects as the San Francisco Symphony, the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, the construction of the present quarters of the Pacific Union Club, and the creation of his own final home, Filoli, a vast Italianate estate on the Peninsula south of San Francisco.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
While the great mining bonanzas of the nineteenth-century West made eastern California and Nevada the subject of legend, much of the wealth from the mines flowed to San Francisco and made possible the growth of the city and some fabulous personal fortunes. Among the wealthiest and most powerful of the Bonanza Kings was William Bowers Bourn I and his son and successor, William Bowers Bourn II. The elder Bourn, descendant of an early New England family, arrived in San Francisco shortly after the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills. Although he eventually invested heavily in mines in Grass Valley and on the Comstock, his initial success was as a businessman in the booming port city. The younger Bourn built upon his fathers success, expanding the Empire Mine in Grass Valley into one of the largest, most productive, and most technologically advanced hard-rock gold mines in the West, acquiring additional mining properties on the Comstock and on Treasure Hill in eastern Nevada, and developing a range of business ventures, including a vast water system that was to become the basis for San Francisco's present water supply. Like many other wealthy men of his generation, William Bourn II was a generous donor to worthy causes and an enthusiastic patron of the arts, supporting such projects as the San Francisco Symphony, the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, the construction of the present quarters of the Pacific Union Club, and the creation of his own final home, Filoli, a vast Italianate estate on the Peninsula south of San Francisco.
The Cattle Kings
Author: Lewis Atherton
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803257597
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
Examines the role of the ranchers in shaping the American West and probes their contributions to the nation's cultural development
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803257597
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
Examines the role of the ranchers in shaping the American West and probes their contributions to the nation's cultural development
Mr. King's Castle
Author: Genevieve Cote
Publisher: Kids Can Press Ltd
ISBN: 1554539722
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
Book Description
Mr. King likes big things and transforms his house into a castle. But his friends have lost their favorite spots and Mr King has lost his lovely view. How can he fix the situation and make his friends happy?
Publisher: Kids Can Press Ltd
ISBN: 1554539722
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
Book Description
Mr. King likes big things and transforms his house into a castle. But his friends have lost their favorite spots and Mr King has lost his lovely view. How can he fix the situation and make his friends happy?
Kings of the Court
Author: Alison Hughes
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
ISBN: 1459812212
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 98
Book Description
When the Gladiators basketball team's nasty coach finally gets turfed midseason, things couldn't possibly get worse. The team hasn't won a game yet, and morale is at rock bottom. Sameer, who announces the games and keeps score, and Vijay, the team mascot, have their hands full keeping the team's spirits up. When they get promoted to assistant coach and manager, can they help a small, unathletic, Shakespeare-quoting drama teacher coach the team to victory, or at least to dignity? Or will the courtside drama eclipse even the school play?
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
ISBN: 1459812212
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 98
Book Description
When the Gladiators basketball team's nasty coach finally gets turfed midseason, things couldn't possibly get worse. The team hasn't won a game yet, and morale is at rock bottom. Sameer, who announces the games and keeps score, and Vijay, the team mascot, have their hands full keeping the team's spirits up. When they get promoted to assistant coach and manager, can they help a small, unathletic, Shakespeare-quoting drama teacher coach the team to victory, or at least to dignity? Or will the courtside drama eclipse even the school play?
Donahoe's Magazine
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 752
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 752
Book Description
From Manassas to Appomattox
Author: James Longstreet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 804
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 804
Book Description
Claiming the Land
Author: Daniel Patrick Marshall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781553805021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. Native American Studies. This trailblazing history focuses on a single year, 1858, the year of the Fraser River gold rush--the third great mass migration of gold seekers after the Californian and Australian rushes in search of a new El Dorado. Marshall's history becomes an adventure, prospecting the rich pay streaks of British Columbia's "founding" event and the gold fever that gripped populations all along the Pacific Slope. Marshall unsettles many of our most taken-for-granted assumptions: he shows how foreign miner-militias crossed the 49th parallel, taking the law into their own hands, and conducting extermination campaigns against Indigenous peoples while forcibly claiming the land. Drawing on new evidence, Marshall explores the three principal cultures of the goldfields--those of the fur trade (both Native and the Hudson's Bay Company), Californian, and British world views. The year 1858 was a year of chaos unlike any other in British Columbia and American Pacific Northwest history. It produced not only violence but the formal inauguration of colonialism, Native reserves and, ultimately, the expansion of Canada to the Pacific Slope. Among the haunting legacies of this rush are the cryptic place names that remain--such as American Creek, Texas Bar, Boston Bar, and New York Bar--while the unresolved question of Indigenous sovereignty continues to claim the land.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781553805021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. Native American Studies. This trailblazing history focuses on a single year, 1858, the year of the Fraser River gold rush--the third great mass migration of gold seekers after the Californian and Australian rushes in search of a new El Dorado. Marshall's history becomes an adventure, prospecting the rich pay streaks of British Columbia's "founding" event and the gold fever that gripped populations all along the Pacific Slope. Marshall unsettles many of our most taken-for-granted assumptions: he shows how foreign miner-militias crossed the 49th parallel, taking the law into their own hands, and conducting extermination campaigns against Indigenous peoples while forcibly claiming the land. Drawing on new evidence, Marshall explores the three principal cultures of the goldfields--those of the fur trade (both Native and the Hudson's Bay Company), Californian, and British world views. The year 1858 was a year of chaos unlike any other in British Columbia and American Pacific Northwest history. It produced not only violence but the formal inauguration of colonialism, Native reserves and, ultimately, the expansion of Canada to the Pacific Slope. Among the haunting legacies of this rush are the cryptic place names that remain--such as American Creek, Texas Bar, Boston Bar, and New York Bar--while the unresolved question of Indigenous sovereignty continues to claim the land.
A Great Civil War
Author: Russell Frank Weigley
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253337382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Major new interpretation of the events which continue to dominate the American imagination and identity.
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253337382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Major new interpretation of the events which continue to dominate the American imagination and identity.