Arizona Mining
While understanding how rocks form is important, certain rocks, minerals, and ores have uses in everyday life. Gold in jewelry, lithium for batteries, and copper for piping are just some examples of the uses of natural materials. To remove these minerals or rocks from the Earth, they must be mined. Arizona has a long history of mining. While mining provides opportunities to make money, there are also many costs to the environment—namely pollution and habitat destruction. This gallery presents images from the history of Arizona mining.
This 1950s photo is from the Goldfield mine shaft. It looks down into a mine shaft that has wooden supports along the walls. These supports are used to prevent collapse of the mine, which could injure or trap miners. The tight shaft of the mine make working within it very difficult.
This photo is from the 1970s at the Crowned King Mine near Crown King in Central Arizona. The process of mining for gold is dirty, hard, and dangerous. This photo provides a view of the working conditions of the average miner in Arizona during the 1900s.
This is the most recent photo in this group, a 1980s picture of the Ash Peak Mine. Technology has made mining much easier. For example, the use of the front-loader (pictured above) allows much faster movement of dirt and other rocky materials. The large entryway shown allows miners to bring in larger pieces of machinery to the mine.
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