For mining, films often attempted to capture the era of the rugged individual that generally spanned from 1849 to roughly 1860, when corporate mining tended to replace the small time operator or small group of prospectors seeking to develop a small claim. "Paint Your Wagon" idealizes this period, although I'm not sure if there are specific references in the film that could date it (it's been decades since I saw it, and I not about to endure it again). The television show "Bonanza" premiered in 1959 (as an NBC vehicle for color television), celebrating the 1859 strikes that founded Virginia City and the Big Bonanza. The show's first year, especially, featured the first year or so of that mining district's history. Later seasons (14 in all!) focused more on a later period and particularly on ranch life.

The Wild West films featuring the wide open spaces and cattle barons can be regarded as largely post Civil War (i.e. 1865) and extending through the 1870s. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 contributed to the organization of many "feeder" lines linking to the transcontinental, and notable, many wild west films include classic steam RR engines (many of the early ones of which were appropriate engines from the Virginia & Truckee Railroad, which flourished from 1869 through 1880). Coincidentally, the TV show "Wild, Wild West" took place during the Grant administration, 1869-1876.