20 OCTOBER 2023 WorldWide Drilling Resource® The Toughest Pants in the West Compiled by Editorial Staff, WorldWide Drilling Resource® The boom-and-bust cycle of the California Gold Rush era is a well-known chapter in American history. However, there was one product that boomed during this time and never busted: blue jeans. Although denim pants have become a staple of modern attire, their rugged beginnings reflect a time much different than the fast-fashion culture of today. The birth of blue jeans is a story about Levi Strauss, Jacob W. Davis, and all the miners who wore denim trousers to make a living in unforgiving environments. California, Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona were all places where miners flocked in the late 1800s. Populations exploded, and businesses sprang up to supply a new demand for raw materials. As workers regularly tore through their pants in harsh conditions, the market for rugged work clothing remained untapped. Given the short supply of new garments, many miners had their old pants repaired out of necessity. This created a tailoring boom, and a savvy businessman embraced an opportunity. In 1853, Levi Strauss founded his company Levi Strauss & Co. as a wholesaler of dry goods including fabric. When mining started to boom out West, Strauss began to import heavy denim and duck canvas. He sold these materials to local tailors who made products from scratch. Jacob W. Davis was a tailor in Nevada with a small but bustling shop where he made pants for miners who blew through them nearly as fast as he could make them. According to legend, one of his customers ripped his pockets so many times carrying rocks back and forth, his wife became fed up with the price of repairs. Davis was inspired to reinforce the “points of strain” with copper rivets like the ones used on saddles. His garments performed so well he became inundated with orders. To safeguard his brilliant idea from being stolen, Davis contacted his fabric supplier, Levi Strauss, for help securing a patent. On May 20, 1873, Davis received patent number 139,121 for an “improvement in fastening pocket openings.” This enhancement consisted of “the employment of a metal rivet or eyelet at each edge of the pocket opening to prevent the ripping of the seam at those joints.” The new, long-lasting product was so well-received, Davis and his partner Strauss charged a premium price, and it still flew off the shelves. Fast forward 150 years later, and Levi’s are still perhaps the most recognizable name in denim wear. Today’s blue jeans are descendants of an invention created for panning gold in a river or maneuvering down into a mine shaft. They represent a culture of grit, reliability, and resourcefulness belonging to people who first made and wore them. Although denim is virtually everywhere in the modern world, jeans surviving from the 19th century are a rare find. Every now and then, these denim garments are discovered in mines where they were worn. A pair of Levi’s from 1893 set the record as the world’s most expensive pair of jeans when they sold for close to $100,000 in 2018. In 2022, a pair sold at auction for $87,400. As it turns out, precious metals and gems are not the only treasures found in mines today. Some are made of denim, dirty, and spotted with wax from candles held by miners long ago. MIN At an auction in 2022, this pair of Levi’s from the 1880s, discovered in an abandoned mine shaft, sold for $87,400. Photos courtesy of liveauctioneers.com Miners in the Mohawk Mine in Goldfield, Nevada, around 1900. Many are wearing denim trousers and holding lit candles.
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