We Won’t Be Here Long: A Study of Anticipated Mobility in the Rabbithole Mining District, Nevada

Abstract

In response to the hardships many Americans faced during the Great Depression, a small subset of the population turned to small scale placer mining for gold in order to survive. The Rabbithole Mining District in Pershing County, Nevada was one area where placer gold deposits were worked by a small community of miners and their families. However, these families did not intend to make permanent homes in the remote desert landscape of the Rabbithole Mining District. Through examining the community’s anticipated mobility, or how long individuals think they will stay in an area, it is possible to discern how long these placer miners intended to stay. The analysis of the residential architecture, patterns of trash disposal, and recovered artifacts reveal the mining community in the Rabbithole Mining District fits within the nomadic category of anticipated mobility, further supporting the idea that the miners and their families intended to stay only for a short period of time.