Hard Places: Reading the Landscape of America's Historic Mining Districts

Chapter Two: Interpreting the Landscape

INTERPRETING THE LANDSCAPE THE ART AND SCIENCE OF INTERPRETATION The traces of[underground] mining are not so pretty. ... All the work goes on below the surface. But what we see is still bad enough-a desolate landscape ofshafts and mine dumps, tailing ponds and railroad tracks. -Spiro Kostof, America by Design We know that mining districts have a distinctive look. Although no two mining districts are identical, the site, layout, and architecture may be similar enough from place to place to imply interconnections . The headframes and ore dumps we see in virtually all mining landscapes are not random features; they tell us a great deal about an aggressive system of winning metals and materials from the earth that originated in Europe and transformed the New World. The housing styles we see tell us much about the control of power and the persistence of community in rapidly settled places where minerals are exploited . The very locations that these communities occupy say as much about decision-making as they do about environment. When we find three towns in three states-Colorado, Utah, and Nevada-named Eureka and all of them look similar, we have to ask ourselves why. The name "Eureka" is appropriate, for it implies discovery. In the case of three silver/gold mining towns in canyon settings, almost 500 miles apart, it means "I have found it"-a cry of triumph. It also implies cultural diffusion, for the name is said to have originated with the adoption of the exclamation as California's motto in 1850 and spread from the Golden State. For those wanting to discover the reasons why places have certain visual and cultural characteristics, the discovery comes through interpretation, a word with three separate meaningsone scientific, one artistic, and one somewhere in between. Interpretation can be the act ofexplaining the meaning of something 66 : INTERPRETING THE LANDSCAPE (elucidating), of construing something in the light of individual belief, or of representing something by means of art. Interpreting a landscape may at first appear to be a scientific endeavor, and it is to some extent, for it involves a search for truth based on rational abstraction. However, since the interpreter cannot be separated from the subject, in this case the landscape, our objectivity is partial at best. This is so because landscape-a multifaceted, three-dimensional tapestryhelps shape our identity before we learn the power of deduction. If, as David Lowenthal and Hugh Prince claim, "landscapes are created by landscape tastes," 1 then we are interpreting both a work of utility and a work of art. Interpreting landscape is akin to art history, and perhaps art criticism , for landscapes can only be analyzed in terms of the social forces and aesthetic preferences that created them. We interpret landscapes because we are intrinsically interested in their form as well as their content. Thus, we call upon two rich traditions, the artistic and the scientific, that are artificially separated in our culture. Furthermore, when we set out to interpret a particular landscape, or group of landscapes , we become artists ourselves in that we create something, either verbal or diagrammatic, by abstracting the essence of the real world. Mining itself, that most businesslike of earth-altering professions, has an aesthetic component. In describing the surface mining of the porphyry copper ore deposits in the West and the iron mines of Minnesota 's Mesabi Range, the president of the Homestake Mining Company wrote: "Even from an aesthetic standpoint, the result is not distasteful , for the terraced walls resulting from the removal of ore in successive benches have a peculiar beauty of their own. Indeed, the great man-made pit at Bingham Canyon excites high admiration, as do many other similar workings on somewhat smaller scale."2 The creators of mining landscapes have provided us settings that are difficult to view with neutrality, for these landscapes appeal and repel simultaneously. The fact that we judge landscapes aesthetically and moralistically makes their interpretation all the more interesting. Mining landscapes are the legacy of several processes. These may vary from place to place, but overall they explain the distinctive look of mining country. 67 ISOLATION Men put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness. They open shafts in a valley away from where men live; they are forgotten by travelers, they hang afarfrom men, they swing to andfro. -Job 28:3-4 So...