It is a curious and little appreciated fact that the miner is the scout of  civilization. He braves the savage, the desert's heat, the Arctic's cold. Alone, he fearlessly penetrates regions wherein his foot is the first to tread. It was the pursuit of golden dreams that sustained the weary marches of the Spanish explorers of America. Thus it was with Arizona. Coronado's quest, four hundred years ago, was for the gold of the Seven Cities. Though the Spaniards found no gold in Cibola, they found it elsewhere, and for centuries the greatest revenues of the Spanish Crown were from mines now included in Southern Arizona. The Spaniard mainly confined his operations to the valleys of Pimería Alta among peaceable Indian tribes.

The Anglo-Saxon went even farther when he came into possession of the land. There is not a valley in Northern or Eastern Arizona that has not its tale of prospectors ambushed by the Apache. Yet, step by step, the Apache were driven back. Following the prospector and the miner, came the trader, the cattle rancher, the farmer, the home seeker, until Arizona's civilization, based upon the mine, is as sound and as modern as is that of much older commonwealths. No longer is mining the only industry, but it is still the chief. It is well that it is so, for the dollar from under the ground is a new dollar and a whole dollar. The bright golden bar from the assayer's den in the stamp mill means so many more actual dollars added to the money in circulation; every drop of the fiery stream from the converter's lip, means just so much more permanent wealth brought into being for the good and use of mankind. And mining has passed the experimental stage. "Luck" counts for little in the business. Nearly every great fortune of the West has been made in mining, and nearly every fortune, has been made by men of good, hard horse sense, who went in on their judgment and not on their hopes and enthusiasm.

Though many of the people of Arizona for years, clung in affection to the 16-to-1 theory, it was a fact that the demonetization of silver really had little effect upon Arizona. Broadly stated, almost every silver mine within the territory had closed before silver had sunk below a dollar an ounce. The famous mines at McCraeken, Tombstone, Silver King, Richmond Basin, Mack Morris and in the Bradshaw Mountains had about all been closed down and there remained very little exploration for silver outside of Mohave County.