Historically there were other "silver rushes", such as on the
Attic peninsula near
Athens, Greece, thousands of years ago. The silver mines of
Laurion became famous for their exploitation and helped fund the new state of
Athens. The term is also widely applied to the
New World. Despite the larger-than-life image of the
gold rush, the history of towns and industry in the North American West revolves much more around silver. This is partly because of the other minerals usually found with it – lead, tin, copper – and the more complicated
smelting process associated with it because of the chemical complexity of its ores (usually
galena). The line between a smelter town and a silver mining town is very slim in many cases, although copper mining towns typically also have large smelters (such as
Anaconda, Montana) and industrial complexes associated with them. The pursuit for silver often opens up other mineral deposits for development because of the variety of other useful ores that occur with it, especially in galena, its most common natural form. Hence the
Boundary Country of
British Columbia, just across the international border from
Spokane, Washington, had a strong mining and smelting economy based on the non-silver components of galena, and the nearby city of
Trail remains a functioning smelter town (long after the long-established industrial complex of the
Boundary District has faded into a
ghost town). Hardrock mines tend to last longer than
placer gold mines, and so silver mining towns last longer and have more time to develop than placer gold rush towns, which often peak within a few years. Silver mining towns typically last a few decades, with time to develop the opulence and luxury that only left the slightest traces in placer gold-fevered places such as
Dawson City in the
Klondike. By contrast, "silver cities" like
Aspen, Colorado, and
Nelson, British Columbia, often survived as functioning economies into the era of modernization and the advent of tourism. ==Examples==