AA-2026-DB0E00
On the image
A man in khaki work clothes and a wide-brimmed prospector's hat stands beside a freshly built wooden sluice box wedged into a narrow canyon, posing with the quiet pride of someone who has just solved a problem that the nineteenth century had already solved. The 1950s produced a small but earnest revival of small-scale placer mining across the American West, driven by men who had read too many paperback histories and calculated, incorrectly, that the gold the big operations left behind was theirs to collect with enough elbow grease and lumber. The sluice he's built is well-carpented and properly angled, which suggests he knew what he was doing, or at least had read the right chapter. Behind him the canyon wall rises in pale, water-cut rock, and the surrounding spoil of timber, screening mesh, and hand tools maps out a one-man operation that probably ran on optimism and a two-week vacation. The camera was pointed at him rather than at any recovered gold, which, in retrospect, tells you everything about how the venture concluded.
Visually related — by likeness
Prospector with Sluice Box at Rocky Canyon Mine, 1950s American West. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-DB0E00. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/prospector-with-sluice-box-at-rocky-canyon-mine-1950s-american-west.
@misc{aaAA2026DB0E00,
title = {Prospector with Sluice Box at Rocky Canyon Mine, 1950s American West},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-DB0E00},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/prospector-with-sluice-box-at-rocky-canyon-mine-1950s-american-west}
}TY - ART TI - Prospector with Sluice Box at Rocky Canyon Mine, 1950s American West PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-DB0E00 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/prospector-with-sluice-box-at-rocky-canyon-mine-1950s-american-west ER -
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