Coming Clean — Baths in the Gold Rush
Water shortages and rationing are nothing new in contemporary California. Beaches and parks occasionally turn off public showers to conserve the liquid gold. The challenge to get clean was much greater and generally more expensive for California’s gold rush miners, as documented in a fascinating story by SeeCalifornia.com contributor, Craig MacDonald.
Coming Clean — Baths in the Gold Rush
by Craig MacDonald & Franklin MacDonald, Ph.D.
Digging for gold was back-breaking, laborious, tiresome, dirty work. It often meant swinging a pick all day or shoveling gravel until your body ached or slogging about in icy, muddy water, until you lost the feel of your feet. It was exhausting. It was filthy. And miners usually repeated this tedious experience day after day after day.
Relief, however, was eventually on the way for some lucky mining camps when they got their first official “bathing facility.” It usually was a circular tin bathtub, with a seat on the edge, managed by the town barber. It would cost you from 50-cents to $2.50, depending on which Sierra diggings you were in. Read more…>
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