Goldfield — 1992

The Last Gold Rush on The Western

By Sally Zanjani

“The story of the last great goldrush on the Western mining frontier—in Goldfield, Nevada, peaking about 1906. Beautifully told, with great attention to the lives of ordinary people.”

Reference & Research Book News

“Those familiar only with Nevada’s 19th-century mining past an the Comstock Lode will find much of interest in Zanjani’s latest book…Zanjani opens with personal stories of discovery, beginning with a gold find by a Shoshone Indian that helped end 20 years of depression in the state. Her greatest contribution, however, lies in providing a real sense of life and death in a gold rush town that flashed and faded early in this century.”

Nicholas C. Burckel — Library Journal

“The prose is the prose of a good novelist, but Sally Zanjani’s stuff is soundly based on careful, extensive, thoroughgoing research…This book is a masterpiece of the historian’s craft.”

Joseph R. Conlin — Nevada Historical Society Quarterly

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“The discovery of Goldfield, Nevada, in 1902, along with the earlier discovery of Tonopah in 1900, marked the revival of mining in Nevada. Mining production, which had escalated after the discovery of the Comstock Lode in 1859, dropped to almot nothing with the decline of the Comstock in the 1870s. Without continued mining production, the state entered what proved to be a twenty-year depression period that ultimately led some observers to suggest that Nevada be deprived of its statehood. Nevada was saved from further abuse by the new discoveries in the southern part of the state.

The Tonopah boom was moderate, as was the early development at Goldfield. Then in the winter of 1904 a rich gold strike at Goldfield set off a boom reminiscent of the earlier days of the Comstock rush. Within a short time Goldfield was the largest city in Nevada. The boom, however, did not last and Goldfield, onfronted with a major labor dispute, was headed for oblivion.

It is the basic story of discovery, boom, and bust that Professor Zanjani recounts. Hers, however, is not hte ordinary history of a boom mining camp. It is a social documentary of Goldfield as it moved from discovery, through its boom period and into decline. Based on a massive research effort, Goldfield is more than just a recitation of facts. Zanjani gives the reader a detailed look into the lives of the people of Goldfield as they worked, played, ate, slept, and died during the various phases of the camp’s history. I know of no other mining boom camp that has been covered in this fashion. It is a unique story, well-told by a literary craftsman. It is, in the opinion of this writer, a classic of its kind.”

—Russell R. Elliott, in Prefatory Note to Goldfield

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