Charles Miller, a resident of Fredericksburg, Texas is a lifelong student of the history of the American West. Dr. Miller earned a BA (1969) from University of Maryland, College Park, an MA (1970) from the University of Texas, Austin and a Ph.D (1990) from the Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dr. Miller is the author of two books, “Stake Your Claim! The Tale of America’s Enduring Mining Law” (Tucson: Westernlore Press, 1991) and “The Automobile Gold Rushes and Depression Era Mining” (Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1998).
Other publications by Dr. Miller include “The Spirit of the Pioneers Still Rules; the Automobile Gold Rush in 1930s Arizona,” Winter 1997, Journal of Arizona History and “Arizona’s Automobile Gold Rush,” in History of Mining in Arizona, vol. III, (Tucson: 1999).
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals relied heavily on Dr. Miller’s “Stake Your Claim!,” in its decision of the case of U.S. v. Shumway (199 F. 3d 1093).
Dr. Miller has been a high school teacher in San Antonio, Texas; an instructor in United States history at San Antonio College; an instructor of geology and environmental science at St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, and an instructor of history at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, teaching two courses per term on such subjects as the history of American Indians, the history of Colonial Latin America, and the history of Modern Latin America. Dr. Miller is a member of the Founding Faculty of Yorktown University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the history of the West: Hist205, Westward Ho! How the West was Won and Hist4301, Frontier America.
From 1990 to 1994, Dr. Miller was official historian for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he studied historic issues and sites associated with that government agency. At the Bureau of Reclamation he was responsible for a report on the infamous internment of Navajos on the Pecos River in New Mexico (1864) as well as studies of local issues in Colorado.
When Dr. Miller isn’t pursuing his professional interests he is an avid photographer, SCUBA diver and an adult leader in various youth organizations. His backpacking experience includes “rim to rim” across the Grand Canyon (4 days), climbs of Mt. Whitney (tallest in the United States outside Alaska at 14,496 ft.) as well as Long’s Peak, Blanca Peak, and several others over 14,000 ft. in Colorado. Dr. Miller’s mountain climbs often require three day’s effort.
Charles Miller, a resident of Fredericksburg, Texas is a lifelong student of the history of the American West. Dr. Miller earned a BA (1969) from University of Maryland, College Park, an MA (1970) from the University of Texas, Austin and a Ph.D (1990) from the Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio.