The Nevada Central Railroad was a 3 ft ( 914 mm ) narrow gauge railroad completed in 1880 between Battle Mountain and Austin , Nevada . The railroad was constructed to connect Austin, the center of a rich silver mining area, with the Southern Pacific transcontinental railroad , at Battle Mountain.
22-430: However, by the time that the line was finished, the boom was almost over. Major silver production ended by 1887, although there was a slight revival later. Austin was founded in 1862, as part of a silver rush reputedly triggered by a Pony Express rider, William Talcott whose horse kicked over a rock. By summer 1863, Austin and the surrounding Reese River Mining District had a population of over 10,000, and it became
44-653: A gold rush , where the discovery of silver -bearing ore sparks a mass migration of individuals seeking wealth in the new mining region. Notable silver rushes have taken place in Mexico , Chile , the United States ( Colorado , Nevada , California , Utah ), and Canada ( Cobalt, Ontario , and the Kootenay district of British Columbia ). Several famous tourist towns owe their existence to silver rushes. Historically there were other "silver rushes", such as on
66-610: A former Union officer in the Civil War. The crews went to work desperately, only to bring the line within 2 miles (3.2 km) of the Austin town limits with less than a day left before the deadline. An emergency meeting of the Austin Town Board extended the town limits by two miles and the last rails were laid just minutes before the deadline. The line from Battle Mountain to Austin was 92 miles (148 km). Nevada Central
88-525: A semi-arid climate with fairly low precipitation, mild winters and hot summers. Higher elevation communities such as Greenwood, Beaverdell, Carmi, Christian Valley and Bridesville can also be considered semi-arid, but receive cooler temperatures and more precipitation, particularly snow. The Boundary Country as a whole shares a similar climate to the Okanagan Valley just to the West. The largest city in
110-553: Is the resort community of Christina Lake . The principal community of the West Boundary area is Rock Creek , which is located at the western end of the region where the creek of the same name meets the Kettle River . The area is rich with the sites of former towns and cities, most long defunct and nearly disappeared, although the names Kettle Valley , Boundary Falls , Anaconda , Phoenix and Eholt still appear on
132-586: The Attic peninsula near Athens, Greece , thousands of years ago. The silver mines of Laurion became famous for their exploitation and helped fund the new state of Athens . The term is also widely applied to the New World . Despite the larger-than-life image of the gold rush , the history of towns and industry in the North American West revolves much more around silver. This is partly because of
154-507: The Boundary District has faded into a ghost town ). Hardrock mines tend to last longer than placer gold mines, and so silver mining towns last longer and have more time to develop than placer gold rush towns, which often peak within a few years. Silver mining towns typically last a few decades, with time to develop the opulence and luxury that only left the slightest traces in placer gold-fevered places such as Dawson City in
176-541: The Klondike . By contrast, "silver cities" like Aspen, Colorado , and Nelson, British Columbia , often survived as functioning economies into the era of modernization and the advent of tourism. Boundary Country The Boundary Country is a historical designation for a district in southern British Columbia lying, as its name suggests, along the boundary between Canada and the United States . It lies to
198-713: The Okanagan—Kootenay (1966-1968), and the British Columbia Southern Interior (1997-2015) ridings. The Boundary Country is currently part of the Boundary-Similkameen provincial electoral district. Previously it had been in the West Kootenay-Boundary (2001-2009), Okanagan-Boundary (1991-1996) ridings, Boundary-Similkameen (1963-1991), and Grand Forks-Greenwood ridings (1924-1963). From 1903 to 1924 it
220-485: The county seat of Lander County . In 1871 the Manhattan Silver Mining Company had consolidated most of the claims. The company grew to have a lot of influence in the area and its secretary M..J. Farrell was the state senator for Lander County. Farrell set out to fix the lack of a railroad with a controversial project, approved only after a bitter debate in the 1874 legislature, overriding
242-661: The Governor's veto. The legislature authorized Lander County in 1875 to grant a $ 200,000 of its bonds as a subsidy to build a railroad, a time limit of five years was set to finish the project. The Nevada Central Railroad (NCRR) wasn't started until 4 ½ years later, Anson Phelps Stokes the grandson of the founder of the Phelps Dodge Corporation and a partner in the mining company came to town. With Stokes involved he brought in General James H. Ledlie ,
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#1732781017858264-673: The area Greenwood and Grand Forks . Several towns from this era have since disappeared or vanished beyond recognition, among them Eholt, Deadwood, Cascade Falls and Phoenix . Federally, the Boundary Country is now part of the South Okanagan—West Kootenay electoral district. Historically it was originally part of the Yale riding (1871-1952) and afterwards had been in the Okanagan Boundary (1952-1966),
286-583: The border in 1859 during the Rock Creek Gold Rush . In subsequent years followed the construction of the Dewdney Trail and, later on, discovery and industrialization of the area's rich mineral resources, notably copper. Copper provided the industrial base for the development of the region, with many large mines and smelters and associated mining camps and communities. These were large enough that there were two provincial electoral seats in
308-672: The east of the southern Okanagan Valley and to the west of the West Kootenay . It is often included in descriptions of both of those regions but historically has been considered a separate region. Originally inclusive of the South Okanagan towns of Osoyoos and Oliver , today the term continues in use to refer to the valleys of the Kettle , West Kettle , and Granby Rivers and of Boundary and Rock Creeks and that of Christina Lake and of their various tributaries, all draining
330-644: The largest city and heart of the Boundary. The Kettle crosses the border at the town of Midway , near the confluence of the Kettle and Boundary Creek, which flows out of the galena -rich Boundary Creek basin where the city of Greenwood is located. A small pass connects between the Kettle River basin and that of the Granby, where the town of Grand Forks lies immediately upon the border, and just east of which
352-611: The map. The Boundary Country was part of the traditional territory of the Sinixt , a First Nations people of the Interior Salish language group (also known as " Arrow Lakes " Indians). Declared "extinct" as a band for purposes of the Indian Act but not as a tribal group by the government of Canada in the 1950s. Sinixt families still reside in the region as well as neighbouring Washington . American miners poured across
374-509: The other minerals usually found with it – lead, tin, copper – and the more complicated smelting process associated with it because of the chemical complexity of its ores (usually galena ). The line between a smelter town and a silver mining town is very slim in many cases, although copper mining towns typically also have large smelters (such as Anaconda, Montana ) and industrial complexes associated with them. The pursuit for silver often opens up other mineral deposits for development because of
396-402: The region is Grand Forks with a city population of almost 4,000 and an area population of about 10,000. The incorporated municipalities in the Boundary Country are the cities of Grand Forks and Greenwood and village of Midway . The unincorporated communities are Bridesville, Rock Creek, Westbridge, Christian Valley, Beaverdell, Carmi, Kettle Valley, Anaconda, Christina Lake and Cascade. During
418-632: The south slope of the Monashee Mountains . The term Boundary District as well as the term Boundary Country can both refer to the local mining division of the British Columbia Ministry of Mines, Energy and Petroleum Resources. The Boundary Country comprises the lower valleys of the West Kettle and Kettle Rivers and the lower Granby River . The Granby and Kettle converge just north of the border at Grand Forks ,
440-496: The variety of other useful ores that occur with it, especially in galena, its most common natural form. Hence the Boundary Country of British Columbia , just across the international border from Spokane, Washington , had a strong mining and smelting economy based on the non-silver components of galena, and the nearby city of Trail remains a functioning smelter town (long after the long-established industrial complex of
462-483: Was only profitable as long as the mines at Austin were operating at full capacity. Stokes' son, James Graham Phelps Stokes , was president of the NCRR from 1898 to 1938. By the middle 1930s most of the mines that generated traffic at Battle Mountain were shut down and boarded up and the NCRR had passed into receivership for the last time in 1938. Silver rush A silver rush is the silver-mining equivalent of
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#1732781017858484-548: Was represented by two ridings, Greenwood and Grand Forks , both of which had been created from the redistribution of the older West Kootenay (south riding) (1894 only) and prior to that West Kootenay riding (1890 only). Originally it was part of the Kootenay provincial electoral district . The Boundary Country is currently part of the Kootenay Boundary Regional District . Rock Creek, Midway, Grand Forks, Westbridge and Christina Lake enjoy
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