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Hard rock mining is when miners blast open large boulders to look for gold inside. They used a rock drill to put holes in the rocks. Then they would put the dynamite in. They had three minutes to run out of the mine before the dynamite went off. A worker got paid 50 cents a day for 12 hours. Miners said where their was quartz there was gold; we have quartz in the rocks around here! |
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| When gold miners found a rock that they thought had gold, they would take it to the stamp mill. The stamp mill would crush the rock. The crushed rock moved across the plate that had mercury on it. The gold dust would stick to the mercury. They would squeeze the mercury out and reuse it. Out of one ton of rocks they only found one ounce of gold. Back then gold was worth $17. Out of that you had to pay Bill Keys $5 for crushing the rock. Now the gold is worth about $290. That was for two months of work. Mining was hard work. | ||
| Click here to see a picture of the stamp mill. | ||
| How much did things cost back then? | ||
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Shoes |
$1.98 |
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| http://www.nps.gov/jotr/{url} last modified: 00/00/02 web editor: Sandra kaye |