To get greater efficiency out of their time and work, miners eventually built what were called sifter or rocker boxes to save their backs. Here we see a man around 1910 using a rudimentary rocker box. He'd use his "pan on a stick" to scoop up the sediment, then would shake the box to sift out any gold.
Many had no time or taste for lugging around a large wooden contraption, so they stuck with what they knew. Here we see an Alaskan miner in 1916, enjoying a day of panning with his trusted companion.
As the stories of great riches shifted to great loss for most miners in the 1920s, many plots were abandoned completely throughout the West, leaving ghost towns in their wake. Further, large-scale mining operations quickly made it difficult for the smaller miners. That said, many men and families continued the tradition of panning for gold over the next forty years, as we see in this photo from Pinos Altos, New Mexico around 1940. Indeed, there are many places in the West where you can still pay a small fee to spend a few hours panning for gold!
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The Amazing Story Behind this 1945 Photo