Industry Economic Human Landscape
Industry
From the mid-1800s onward, an explosion of technological developments made natural resource extraction at scale possible. Mirroring the United States government’s Westward aspirations, artists of the day favored scenes of man-made innovations, such as the railroad, which made the region and its resources more accessible than ever. Mechanization and technological developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have decreased the number of laborers required by extractive industries. It is unclear how alternative sources of power, such as solar and wind, will change the future of mining in the American West.
