The Gold Miners Illustration collection includes customized woodcuts depicting historical scenes from the United States gold rush of the mid to late 1800’s in the American West. Mining in the American West began with the California Gold Rush of 1848 and spread to Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Montana. Miners were also drawn to the West in 1859 because they found gold and silver in western Nevada. This became known as the Comstock Lode which was named after Henry Comstock. The wealth was real this time and the Comstock Lode became a bonanza, or a large deposit of precious ore.