Park County Colorado Gold Production
Gold production from the Fairplay (Beaver Creek) district was entirely from placer deposits and included production from the Snowstorm and Fairplay placers along the South Platte River and small placers along Sacramento and Beaver Creeks.
Gold placers were discovered in the district about 1859, and through 1872 their output was valued at about $1 million (48,380 ounces) (Henderson, 1926, p. 36-38). From 1872 through 1938 the placers were worked sporadically without any spectacular results. From 1939 to 1951, the district was rejuvenated and about 125,000 ounces of gold was produced. These operations were terminated in 1952, and the district was virtually idle from 1952 through 1959. The minimum total gold yield of the district through 1959 was about 202,000 ounces.
By far the most productive placers are outwash gravels which extend downstream from the moraines formed by the South Platte glacier; smaller deposits have been found upstream (Singewald, 1950, p. 146-161).
TARRYALL DISTRICT
Almost all the gold production from the Tarryall district has come from placer deposits along the upper reaches of Tarryall Creek and its tributaries, northwest of the town of Como. Placer gold was discovered in August 1859, probably a little earlier than the discovery in the Fairplay district. These placers are credited with an output from 1859 to 1872 of about $1 million (48,380 ounces) (Henderson, 1926, p. 36, 187). Unrecorded and probably small-scale activity continued into the early 1900's. A brief resurgence occurred in 1941-42 and again in 1947, but the district was dormant from that time through 1959. The total minimum gold production from the Tarryall placers through 1959 was about 67,000 ounces. Lode mines in the district yielded less than 250 ounces of gold.
The placer deposits are of two kinds: glacial moraines and outwash gravel deposits downstream from the moraines (Singewald, 1950, p. 147-148, 162-168). The bulk of the gold has been mined from outwash deposits where the gold is concentrated just above bedrock; however, all the gravel contains some gold.
The gold in the placers was probably derived from lodes in the mineralized area at the heads of Montgomery and Deadwood Gulches, tributaries of Tarryall Creek (Singewald, 1950, p. 148).