Mineral Wealth/Extractive Health: Climate as Commodity in Rocky Mountain Mining Country

During Colorado’s late nineteenth-century mining boom, railroad tycoon William Jackson Palmer recognized two important things: the state’s heavy metal mining industry would need railroads and coal, and wealthy residents... [ view full abstract ]

During Colorado’s late nineteenth-century mining boom, railroad tycoon William Jackson Palmer recognized two important things: the state’s heavy metal mining industry would need railroads and coal, and wealthy residents and visitors would need a space ostensibly separate from those things. Inspired by both the innovation and the destruction he witnessed years earlier in England, Palmer founded Bessemer (now part of Pueblo) for industry and Colorado Springs for health and pleasure. Yet Palmer did not partition Colorado out of a belief that industry was bad, rather out of a conviction that all land could be put to use for specific resources, whether that was coal mining, refreshing mountain air, or mineral springs. Palmer’s business model was part of a larger attempt to market Colorado for extraction, which included the monetized value of a healing climate. This paper will use travel literature and promotional visual culture, from illustrations to fine art, to consider the ways that the mountain climate and its health benefits were sold as a commodity, in ways that cannot be separated from the logic of nearby resource extraction.