NBMG Mining District File Collection with Index and Search Engine

The Mining District Files consist largely of historical and current maps, reports, articles, photographs, correspondence, assays, production reports, and reserve information on all aspects of mining in Nevada. These have largely been donated to the NBMG over the years from individuals, companies, and other government agencies. The files were originally created, named, and numbered using NBMG Map 37, Metal Mining Districts of Nevada (Schilling, 1976), as an index. In this system, the files are divided alphabetically by county and then alphabetically by district name within each county. The districts are numbered from 1 to 344. Each district has a file, and each county has a general file for things that cannot easily be included in a district file. Map 37 has been superseded by NBMG Report 47, Mining Districts of Nevada, (Tingley, 1998), which is much more complete than Map 37 and is very useful in conjunction with this database. The current mining district naming convention used in this index is based on Report 47. See Map of Mining Districts in Nevada, dated 1946, for a more historical reference on Nevada mining district locations.

Over the last several years NBMG has undertaken the digital conversion of these paper documents into scanned images. The files contained here are in Arcobat PDF file format. The digital file conversion project at NBMG is ongoing. If you have questions about this project contact David Davis at 775-682-8767 or via email at ddavis@unr.edu.

To search the index for district, county, title, author, date, PMC, and/or commodity enter your search string in the appropriate field above. You can search all fields (including notes) simultaneously by entering a search string in the "All Fields" box.

If a scanned PDF file exists for the document it will be linked to the identification number in the first column of the search results table, and can be viewed in Adobe Reader by clicking this number. Some of these files are large (up to 500 megabytes) so you should be on a high speed connection if you wish to view the scanned version of the documents

Field Descriptions:

No: Unique number that identifies each item in the collection. Items that have been scanned and converted to Acrobat PDF file format are linked to this field. Clicking on the item number will download the PDF file.

District: Name of the mining district. Many districts have more than one name. These other names are cross referenced in NBMG Report 47. Documents that describe areas outside of an established mining district are assigned as county general files. County general files are identified by having the county name followed by the word “general.”

County: The present name of the county the mining district is in. Some districts span more than one county and are usually included in the county containing the bulk of the district. Also, in old items, some counties did not yet exist. Examples include Clark County, which was split from Lincoln County in 1908, Mineral County, which was split from Esmeralda County in 1911, and Pershing County, which was split from Humboldt County in 1919. Also, some counties have changed names. Examples include Roop County, which became part of Washoe County in 1883, and Ormsby County, which was consolidated with and renamed Carson City in 1969.

Title: Title of the document or map. Many items do not have a formal title, and an informal title was created.

Author: Author(s) name or it may list the name of the agency that prepared the report or map if the authorship was not apparent on the document. If the author and the publishing agency are not known, then the field contains "unknown" or is left blank.

Date: Date the document or map was published. If the date is not known, then the field contains "unknown" or is left blank.

File_Size: Shows number of pages, file size in megabytes, and identifies if the document is a flat file (map).

PMC: Includes property, mine, claim, and company names when identified.

Commodity: This field lists commodities and/or minerals that were identified in the document.

Notes: This field includes miscellaneous information not given in other fields and additional information that may not have fit in to other fields because of field length limitations.

Location: This field contains an abbreviation that identifies the agency that now houses the original paper document.

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This information should be considered preliminary. It has not been thoroughly edited or checked for completeness or accuracy.