"Connections to the Old Comstock Lode Remain Strong"

"'Mining was hard, dirty, and repetitive, like digging an endless ditch,' he writes.
"Mining also bred competition, hatred and violence. In 1870, 'a white mob attacked Chinese laborers' in Empire City, Nev., and 'destroyed their huts and property.' No one was arrested or prosecuted.
"And mining wrought terrible environmental degradation and the pollution of San Francisco Bay that continues to this day."

Jonah Raskin at the San Francisco Chronicle reviews Gregory Crouch's The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches in the American West.