The urban settlements we inhabit today exist in their present form due to a host of reasons. There are cities that have grown due to their proximity to water – such as the growth of Dar es Salaam to the major port city it is today. There are the planned capital cities scattered around the world, governments of countries such as Brazil and Nigeria building cities from scratch from the input of acclaimed architects. There are also the settlements that exist and grow because of certain industries, such as Silicon Valley in the American state of California being home to giants of the technology industry. There’s an industry, however, that has spawned both pulsating cities and abandoned towns – the mining industry.
Mining towns and communities usually have their origins around a particular location where a valuable mineral deposit was discovered – which then led to the construction of mines and quarries for extraction of the resource. The United States is home to a large number of these mining towns, most of them formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the country industrialised and underwent the Gold Rush, with fortune seekers – mainly young, single men – flocking to the site of newly discovered gold deposits.
