Interesting stuff Mega.
Mining museums are great places to visit. I was just in Idaho, and went to the mining museum there, but it was closed due to staffing shortages, so visited the old Idaho State Penitentiary next door.
They have a great arsenal museum inside with quite a collection of weapons from the civil war up to WWII. It was cool to see a few valuable pieces that I own myself and have hanging in my own home being used as wall art.
There were so many mining boom towns that sprung up across America over the past 150 yrs or so. Boom to bust.
Most of the people who got rich in the California Gold Rush, were the people who sold the miners the supplies at ridiculously high prices, be it tools, food, drink, or lodging, and the land speculators.
The miners themselves mostly got wages. If one did manage to hit a pay streak, he had to run a gauntlet of claim jumpers, drygulchers, swindlers and gamblers. It’s always interesting to get a look at the artifacts they worked with back then.