Randsburg, CA.
Rand Camp began as a tent city, erected by eager miners rushed to the Mojave desert following a major gold discovery in April 1895.
A year later, the town of 1,500 had been renamed "Randsburg."
Saloons sprouted, a U.S. Post Office was established, and the communities first newspaper, "The Randsburg Miner," appeared.
By 1900, Randsburg's 3,500 inhabitants had a 30-stamp ore crusher, bank, churches and theaters.
Railroad tracks soon connected the nearby town of Johannesburg to Kramer's Junction, some 25 miles to the south.
At the turn-of-the-century, when gold was worth only $12-$16 an ounce, Randsburg's famous Yellow Aster Mine recovered $3 million in gold.
In 1911, to take was $6 million. Most of the visible, or free gold, in the Rand Mining District already had been found before World War II, when gold mines nationwide were classified as "non-essential" industries, and closed.
Technological developments now overshadow earlier methods of extracting free gold and make recovery of microscopic gold from low-grade ores economically feasible.
During boom and bust, fires and war, smallpox and influenza epidemics, Randsburg tenaciously has clung to life.
It still does.
source - BLM
