Reusable Drill Bits As A Chronological Marker At Nevada Mining Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Hard-rock mines in the 19th- and early 20th- century employed full-time on-site blacksmiths who sharpened massive numbers of drill bits each day. The archaeological and architectural traces of on-site blacksmiths at Nevada mine sites are relatively easy to identify during field surveys, although they may be overlooked when surrounded by an array of more impressive but chronologically ambiguous mining features and structures. The initial introduction of removable drill bits in the 1920s, the refinement of the technology during the 1930s, and the full maturation of the technology in the 1940s led to mine blacksmiths becoming redundant over the course of several decades. Nevada census data indicates the number of blacksmiths declines by 75% between 1920 and 1950. It is suggested that this change likely reflects the introduction of removable drill bits as the decline occurs before the widespread adoption of open pit mining methods in Nevada.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow