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Listen to a conversation between a student (S) and an American history professor (P).
S: Professor Farrington, may I ask a question about something you said in class yesterday?
P: Sure.
S: You mentioned that... about how Park City in Utah went from a boomtown in the 1800s to a ghost town and then became prosperous again. I was, well... that’s an interesting cycle, and..., well, perhaps it might be suitable topic for my research paper?
P: Sure, that might make a good topic since similar things happened at other mining towns.
S: So, comparing them might be interesting?
P: Yeah, absolutely!
S: So, what triggered the economic downturn in Park City?
P: Well, in 1870 there were fewer than 200 people living in the Park City area. After silver was discovered there the population grew very quickly. I think it reached around 10,000 by 1900, but soon after that the silver that was close to the surface had all been mined, so they had to dig deeper and deeper, which reduced the profit margin not just because it’s time consuming, but going deeper led to problems with flooding. It’s time consuming and expensive to pump water out of mines. So, that was one major factor. I mean there were other factors that contributed too like the recession and a stock market
panic in 1907. If you do write about this, you have to get into that.
S: Ok, and it was what... tourism that brought it back again?
P: Basically, yes. The ski industry kind of started about the same time in the 1920s. At first it was only a few folks hiking up to the top of the mountain and then skiing down. As the sport became popular, so did the mountains around Park City. By the 1960s, it was a major ski resort with thousands of skiers.
S: And the same with the other abandoned mining towns?
P: Well, some, but some became tourist attractions not because of skiing, but because people were interested in the history. Actually, one old mining town in the middle of the California desert... Bodie, that’s now a state park. It’s popular because the buildings have been preserved as they were in the 1940s.
S: Wow! So, maybe I could choose a couple of towns that went through that whole cycle and talk about them in some depth as a way of illustrating the general boom and bust phenomenon... maybe find some first-hand accounts?
P: Well, for this, sure, it’d be better to go into some depth about specific towns rather than talking about a lot of them in broad terms. Definitely give it a shot. But you probably won’t be able to find many diaries or personal accounts. Not many people who lived in mining towns could read or write, Oh, and also remember the impact of national events.
S: Ok, that’s understandable, the local and the national. Thanks!