Colorado Gold Production Summary

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Colorado Gold Production Summary

In the spring of 1858, the Russell brothers, placer miners from Georgia and later from California, led a party who prospected along Cherry and Ralston Creeks and the South Platte River near the present site of Denver. They were guided to the area by Cherokee Indians. Although they only found gold in very small quantities, news of the discoveries spread and a rush to the "Pikes Peak Country" followed. By Christmas of 1858 about 1,000 men had arrived, and several settlements were founded in the Denver area. In January 1859 the first commercial gold placers in Colorado were discovered by George A. Jackson near the mouth of Chicago Creek near Idaho Springs. This news spread and precipitated a rush of prospectors into the surrounding mountains. In May 1859, John Hamilton Gregory found outcrops of veins with residual deposits of gold in the drainage basin of North Clear Creek near Blackhawk, and in early June, W. G. Russell discovered placer gold in Russell Gulch near Central City. Throughout 1859 prospectors spread to many of the streams emerging from the Front-Range, to the headwaters of the South Platte River and its tributaries in South Park, and up the Arkansas River and its tributaries as far as California Gulch to what was to become the Leadville district (Henderson, 1926, p. 1-9; Finch and others, 1933, p. 761-768; Bastin and Hill, 1917, p. 67-69). This activity led to many rich and significant discoveries in the following few years. Placers generally were found first; then gold-bearing veins or disintegrated oxidized residue of gold-bearing veins, the "mother lodes," were found soon afterward.

In the first few years frenzied activity reigned in the newly discovered gold fields. During 1858-67 Colorado produced about $14,924,000 in placer gold and about $10 million in lode gold (Henderson, 1926, p. 69). When mining had depleted the rich placers and the free-milling oxidized ores and reached the underlying sulfide ore, which was not amenable to amalgamation or simple devices of concentration, many mines closed and mining waned (Bastin and Hill, 1917, p. 153-163). This condition was in part remedied in 1868 when the Hill smelter opened in January at Blackhawk in Gilpin County. It successfully treated sulfide ores from many districts, and the lode-mining industry in Colorado was revived (Henderson, 1926, p. 69).

Railroads also stimulated mining in Colorado during the 1860's and 1870's with the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad to Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1867, the Denver Pacific from Denver to Cheyenne in 1870, the Kansas Pacific to Denver in 1870, and a narrow-gage railroad to Blackhawk in 1872 (Henderson, 1926, p. 61).

Prospectors soon spread to all parts of the State and discovered in rapid succession many of Colorado's most famous mining camps. Discovery of gold in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado in 1870 triggered a stampede of prospectors into this region—to Summitville in 1873 and Silverton in 1874. In 1875 major ore discoveries were made at Lake City, Ouray, and Telluride. In the middle and late 1870's rich ore deposits were discovered on the east side of the Sawatch Range in the Monarch and Chalk Creek districts, in the Rosita Hills in Custer County, in the Kokomo and Breckenridge districts in the Tenmile Range, and at Aspen on the west side of the Sawatch Range. The placer deposits in California Gulch were depleted in 1867, and the area was abandoned, but in 1877 rich lead-silver ore was discovered and the Leadville district at the south end of the Mosquito Range was founded. In 1891 rich gold ore was discovered at Cripple Creek and lead-silver ore was discovered at Creede; these were the last of Colorado's famous gold-mining camps to be established.

Western Mining History

Colorado Gold Production Summary

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