Word: boom
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Seven Cities of Cibola, drills sink into the earth in search of uranium. The Mountain States hold vast deposits of the nation's coal, oil and uranium; they are at the heart of any U.S. energy program, and thus of the nation's future. The boom is sweeping far beyond the coalfields and oilfields. Construction cranes pierce the skies over Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Boise, cities that already bristle with high-rises undreamed of ten years ago. Modernistic electronics plants sprout alongside gleaming shopping malls and clusters of ranch houses. The new pioneers keep streaming...
These soaring prospects fill many Westerners with a Panglossian sense that the boom provides the best of all possible worlds. "It's great," says Charles Page of Colorado's Gunnison County Chamber of Commerce about a planned molybdenum mine. "It will diversify the economy and give jobs to people who really want to work." But this same growth begets among other Westerners a fear that they may be witnessing not only the ravaging of their landscapes but also the destruction of values that they cherish: the unhurried pace of traditional Western life, the neighborly feeling of the small...
...molybdenum, a blue-gray mineral used primarily in strengthening steel. Mines in the Coeur d'Alene district of Idaho led the Mountain States in production of lead ($49 million) and zinc ($24 million) last year. Silver and gold, those minerals that helped build and bust 19th century boom towns like Goldfield, Nev., and Silver City, Idaho, are still being mined in great quantities. The Mountain States produce 70% of the nation's gold and 50% of its silver. Not all of the companies streaming into the Rockies come with drilling equipment and mining machinery...
...similar transformation, on a much larger scale, has brought the boom to downtown Boise. One example: the Idanha Hotel was an 80-year-old turreted monstrosity that once boasted visits by Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan but eventually deteriorated into...
...people in 1960 to 12,125 in 1975. House trailers crowded in among the billboards and ramshackle storefronts, water supplies dwindled, the schools bulged with students. Crime, alcoholism and violence were commonplace. The town officials were simply unprepared to cope with the ugly side of the boom...