Rossland, British Columbia, like many other Kootenay towns was the child of a turn-of-the-century lode mining boom. As such, Rossland was a frontier settlement, but it was also part of an industrial mining complex which had been working northward out of the California gold fields of the 1840s. The period under examination extends from the discovery of ores on Red Mountain in 1887 to 1902, by which time Rossland was established as a mature mining city. I argue that there was a relationship between the level of mechanized mining on Red Mountain and the social structure of Rossland. Research indicates that the rapid mechanization of Rossland’s mines produced a stratified social structure, a specific residential pattern, and an ethnically segmented labour force. Very quickly one's occupation, one's gender, and one's ethnicity determined what one's opportunities and experiences would be. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate