The Film and More

The New Year 1900 - couldn't have looked very exciting to the people of the Silver State. The country's economic depression had hit Nevada especially hard. The value of silver, once the state's leading commodity, had declined. Mining overall had been in a slump for 20 years since the fabulous Comstock Lode had played out.

Without the financial energy of mining, Nevada's population dropped by a third; agriculture and commerce declined; and the dominant railroad interests controlled what little economy the state could muster. Nevada was faltering, staggering some would say.

But the new century proved to be a turning point. A central Nevada rancher named Jim Butler doing a bit of prospecting in a remote pocket of the state found what turned out to be the next bonanza. The story says he picked up a rock to throw at his burro and saw that it held promising ore. Whether that's how it really happened is debatable. That it did happen when the state needed it most is remarkable.

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