Did placer mining help miners who were mining in Nevada become rich?
As a general rule, individual miners did not get rich off of placer mining. In the various gold/silver rushes, the huge influx of precious metal from the individual claims drove runaway inflation. Because of this, the individual placer miners usually only broke even. If they were lucky and good at managing their money, then they might have been able to put a little bit away, but usually not enough to get rich. The people who made it rich were the merchants and those that were able to conduct mining operations on a large scale. The merchants got rich from the inflation driving up the prices of the goods they sold. The large scale mining operations were more efficient and the wealth was concentrated in the possession of the mine owners. Thus, they were able to get rich.
