Part 4: Ten Facts About the Gold Rush, the Silver Rush, and the Great Depression

     Hello everybody and welcome back to my 300 Fast Facts series! In this edition, we will be looking at the goldrush, the silver rush, and the Great Depression. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get straight into it!

     The Gold Rush:

1. California did not actually have the first gold rush. That honor goes to North Carolina, where fifty years prior, a seventeen-pound nugget was found, sending the state into a gold rush.
2. For thirty years, all gold coins produced by the U.S. mint were made only from North Carolina gold.
3. The gold rush was the largest mass migration in U.S. history. 300,000 new people had come to the state, not all of them there for the gold rush, but just to live there.
4. The gold rush attracted immigrants from all over the world.
5. The gold rush was a male-dominated event; 92% of all prospectors were men.
6. Early sections of San Francisco were built out of boats long abandoned by their passengers and crew. 
7. Searching for gold was a very, very costly expedition. Replacing a pair of worn-out boots could set you back $2,500.
8. More fortunes were made by merchants than by miners simply.
9. Thousands of prospectors got rich, but not John Sutter. He was a Swiss immigrant who fled his country to escape his debt in the 1830s.
10. Many prospectors arrived by boat and very few had a ticket back home.

     Source(s): https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-california-gold-rush

     The Silver Rush:

1. The actual silver rush began in 1858, shortly after the gold rush.
2. Nevada produces the second-largest amount of gold, after Alaska. 
3. From the years 1912 to 1914, the Rochester District produced 6.4 million troy ounces (200 metric tons) of silver. 
4. They also produced 52,000 ounces of gold.
5. Unlike the gold rush, silver was only formed on the surface, making it very easy to obtain by even the most amateur miners.
6. At some points in the ground, you could take a shovel and literally dig up chunks of silver.
7. A large silver bed could be tens of meters wide and more than a kilometer long.
8. Silver was worth about $27,000 a ton in 1860s dollars. 
9. The surface veins were gone very quickly, leaving barely any time for towns to be established. Oftentimes only a few ramshackle saloons could be put up before the vein dried up.
10. This ultimately created many ghost towns.

     Source(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_mining_in_Nevada

     https://www.thoughtco.com/nevada-silver-rush-1440699

     The Great Depression:

1. During the Great Depression, miniature golf was wildly popular due to the low operating costs.
2. Nearly 50% of children didn't have enough to eat, proper housing, or adequate healthcare.
3. People who lost their homes often ended up living in Hoovervilles, or shantytowns. As you may have guessed, the name Hooverville was derived from President Hoover.
4. Al Capone opened a soup kitchen during the Great Depression to feed the hungry.
5. After the initial crash, there was a wave of suicides in New York's financial district. It is said that the clerks of one hotel had to ask patrons if they were getting a room for sleeping or for jumping.
6. As news of the crash spread, people rushed to withdraw their money from the bank. This resulted in "bank runs", usually causing the bank to fail.
7. Scholars believe that the Great Depression may not have been as serious if the banks hadn't failed.
8. One sheep farmer discovered that he would not make money off his sheep if he continued to feed them. Rather than watch them all starve to death, he cut all their throats and threw them in a canyon.
9. The board game "Monopoly" became immensely popular because players could become rich, even if it was just their imaginations.
10. During the Great Depression, a record number of Americans attended the movies every week, with between 60-80 million moviegoers. 

     Source(s): https://www.factretriever.com/great-depression-facts