Silver rush

A silver rush is the silver-mining equivalent of a gold rush, where the discover of silver-bearing ore sparks a mass migration of individuals seeking wealth in the new mining region.

Notable silver rushes have taken place in Mexico, Argentina, the United States (Colorado, Nevada, California, Utah), and Canada (Cobalt, Ontario, and the Kootenay district of British Columbia). Several famous tourist towns owe their existence to silver rushes.

History

Historically there were other "silver rushes", such as on the Attic peninsula near Athens, Greece, thousands of years ago. The silver mines of Laurion became famous for their exploitation and helped fund the new state of Athens. The term is also widely applied to the New World. Despite the larger-than-life image of the gold rush, the history of towns and industry in the North American West revolves much more around silver. This is partly because of the other minerals usually found with it – lead, tin, copper – and the more complicated smelting process associated with it because of the chemical complexity of its ores (usually galena). The line between a smelter town and a silver mining town is very slim in many cases, although copper mining towns typically also have large smelters (such as Anaconda, Montana) and industrial complexes associated with them.