A passage in Jessica Bruder’s book Nomadland describes the unlikely birth and hard death of the life of Empire, a mining town in northwest Nevada. “In 1923,” Bruder writes, “laborers established a tent colony on the site of what later became the town. By some accounts, Empire boasted the longest continuously operating mine in the country, excavating a claim first established by Pacific Portland Cement Company in 1910. On December 2, 2010, that history came to a sudden stop. Workers in steel-toed shoes and hard hats gathered in the community hall at 7:30 am for a mandatory meeting. Mike Spihlman, the gypsum plant’s soft-spoken manager, delivered a grim edict to a room full of stunned faces: Empire was shutting down. Everyone had until June 20 to leave. First came silence,…
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Cinema Scope (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 85 - Winter 2021