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38 38 thrEE IndustrIAlmInIngAndrIsk The only drawback to the San Juan region is its excessive snow-fall and consequent loss of life and property from the deadly avalanche . . . of course there is no absolute safeguard against floods, avalanches and cyclones, but the Lord provides us with intelligence and expects us to use it. . . . Protection may be had against the snow that lays heavy on the hills. —Silverton Standard (April 14, 1906) t hE gold and SilvEr StriKES that propEllEd proSpEctorS westward also attracted corporate investors who had the capital and technical capabilities to extract the minerals from underground. Of the 75,000 hopefuls who rushed to Colorado after the 1859 strike, most found their expectations of striking it rich dashed. Some turned to other occupations, others went home, but many went to work for the growing number of corporate-owned mines. By the early 1860s placer and surface mining began to give way to hard-rock underground mining. New technology that included dynamite (invented in Europe in 1866), power hoists, pumps, machine drills, and electricity all facilitated the growth of hard-rock mining in the mountains.1 Gold and silver mining towns grew as underground mining techniques improved, and workers came from all over for jobs in the mines. Railroads, vital to large-scale mining, replaced the wagon roads in importance in bringing supplies to and carrying riches out of the camps. The building of spur lines to mountain communities signaled an important transition in the networks of communication and travel available to the people who lived and worked there, too. The railways also allowed for large-scale development. For example, the arrival of the Denver and Rio Grande line from Durango to Silverton in 1882 brought outside investors , corporate-run mines, underground mining, and men and women to do the work in the San Juans. Between 1880 and 1890, the populations of Ouray and San Juan Counties grew from 3,756 to 8,082, an increase induStrial mining and riSK § 39 induStrial mining and riSK § 39 of 215 percent.2 Newcomers became part of the network of knowledge exchange when those with experience passed on their skills and understanding about how to reduce risk in Avalanche Country.3 The arrival of corporate mining and railways significantly increased the number of people in harm’s way. Trains that could carry large quantities of ore could also bring supplies year-round to the mountains—and this meant mining companies could hire more people and keep production going throughout the winter. Both the railway employees and the miners who worked in the mountains found themselves confronting more than the usual dangers of their jobs; they also had to contend with the deep snows, freezing temperatures, and avalanches. Not surprisingly, the number of people killed by avalanches increased as the year-round population of the Mountain West grew. Between 1882 and 1893 in San Juan County, avalanches killed twenty-one people, injured four, buried thirty-five who survived, and damaged at least forty different buildings, including seven bunkhouses. This proved a dramatic comparison to the fifteen dead men and ten injured by avalanches between 1875 and 1882.4 In Alta and the surrounding mine districts, the prerailroad years from 1860 to 1874 saw the death of twenty people by slides. In the decade after the railroad’s completion , from 1875 to 1885, snowslides killed at least eighty-six people!5 As the death toll rose, so did the profits. Between 1882 and 1918, the mines of Silverton alone produced more than $65 million worth of silver .6 In Utah, between 1870 and 1883, silver mines yielded nearly $46 million .7 As the mine owners raked in the profits, those who worked in the region throughout the winter found themselves directly in the paths of avalanches. Although slides sometimes interrupted production, the economic imperatives of the corporations pushed managers to operate as continuously as possible. Aerial tramways that could carry men, supplies, and ore turned into one of the most important devices used in the mountains. Instead of trying to build roads over difficult terrain, tramways’ primary function was to carry ore to smelting sites or railroads; they also carried men and materials across gullies, streams, rocky terrain, and snowdrifts. Various tower, cable, and pulley systems were used. Although tramways were not unique to the Mountain West, certain adjustments to their maintenance and construction became essential in Avalanche Country. At the Sunnyside Mine in Colorado, the “company eventually built a fifty-foot tunnel into...

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