John Jenkins Designs: upcoming Gold Rush sets

The discovery of gold or silver in the West was usually followed by a rush of people attempting to arrive at the new district first to get established in mining or business. New mining camps were hastily constructed out of materials that could be easily transported over great distances and on difficult terrain. The most common early structure in these camps was the canvas tent.

THE CASH STORE

Tents were used for both shelter and to operate early businesses in the camps. The entrepreneur with the tent could be in business weeks before his rivals who attempted to build a more elaborate structure, and those first few weeks were a lucrative time to be selling goods or services to the hundreds or even thousands of people pouring into a new camp.

An advantage of tents is that they could be packed up and moved to the next camp in the event that the rush to the current camp turned out to be a bust. Many mining rushes were the result of misinformation or outright fraud. People who’s only investment in the camp was a tent on the ground could pack up and move on to the next rush with little trouble.

Tent cities usually didn’t last more than a year. Any camp that proved to have rich enough mines to last longer than a season would usually transition to wood buildings fairly quickly.

Once the gold had been mined, the next question was what to do with the natural gold. With so many thousands of new prospectors entering the areas, there was really no sufficient infrastructure to accommodate all this new prosperity, and a great deal of improvisation took place.

Initially a great deal of bartering for goods and services took place. People became quite skilled at assessing and weighing gold dust and nuggets for its rough value. Therefore it initially became a basic means of exchange.

Certain individuals and institutions began minting gold coins from miners gold dust, so a basic currency started to develop.

In 1854 the US Mint opened in San Fransisco which provided a more stable and agreed upon currency, which quickly dominated the new state and adjacent territories.

The early economy that developed relied upon entrepreneurs who arrived with sufficient financial resources to become merchants and bankers.

GOLD RUSH TENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE LATER THIS YEAR.