The Mines of Colorado

Front matter

ADVERTISEMENTS. <Ma\ o o.ija o f ■> (\>j% oft <* #ii0it § mitt fatltwi Open from Omaha to North Platte. 300 Miles West of the Missouri River. Direct Railroad connection with Chicago and the Hast. SHORTEST AND QUICKEST ROUTE From the Mountains On and aster Monday, Jan. 28th, 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad will run Two Daily Passenger Trains From North Platte, connecting at Omaha with the & Bmilnvestem 3s ailmaxl — for — Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington City, And all principal Eastern Cities. Also wiih the Council Bluffs & St. Joseph Hailroad FOR St. Joseph, Leavenworth, Kansas City, and St. Lonls. At North Platte direct connections are made with Wells, Farsro & Co.'S Overland Mail and Express Coaches from Denver, Salt Lake, and all points in Colorado, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Nevada and California.

Only One Change of Cars from North Flatte to Chicago. Passengers by taking this Route SAVE 200 MILES, STAGING, AND 4S HOURS, TIME. PULLMAN'S SLEEPING CARS ON NIGHT TRAINS. The completion of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway to the Missouri River, Passenger Trains of which run in direct connection with those of the Union Pacific Railroad, enables passengers to avoid all staging east of North Platte. Freights to and from the Mountains will receive "especial care and dispatch. Rates always as low, time quicker, and changes fewer, than by any other route. W. SXYBER, SAWE B. REEB, Gea'l Ticket and Freight Agent. Gen'l Supt. ADVERTISEMENTS. COMPLETION OF THE Council Bluffs and Omaha Line OF THE Æjficaja # Soilljteient $ailtoaj, The " Great Connecting Link" between the Atlantic Sea Board and Chicago and the Lnlon Pacific Iiallroad, Main Line.

Two Daily Trains Are rnn via Dixon, Fulton, Clinton, DeWitt, Cedar Rapids, Blairstown, Toledo, Marshall, Nevada, Boone, Jefferson, Denison, and St. Johns, FROM CHICAGO TO COUNCIL BLUFFS AND OMAHA, Without Change of Cars, This Company operating a splendid Iron Railway Bridge over the Mississippi River. Passengers taking this route avoid all staging and the tedious navigation of the Missouri River, Sailing from Twa to. Three Bays in Time Over all other Routes. Connections are made at OMAHA with "TJ.MO.V PACIFIC KAILBOAD," (Now running to North Platte, 300 miles,) and being rapidly built westward at the rate of from one to two miles per day. Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Overland Stage Coaches Run from end of Pacific Railroad to Denver, Salt Lake, and terminus of the San Francisco branch of the Pacific Railroad.

Preface

. The approaching completion of two lines of rail way between the Mississippi Valley and the Rocky Mountains, will mark an era in the history of the nearer of the mining Territories — Colorado. It will infuse new life into mining, by giving safe, quick, and reliable communication, reducing freights and risks, thus cheapening supplies and furnishing a most necessary competition in the labor market, under which the production of the precious metals will be largely increased and the value and im portance of property of all kinds proportionally enhanced. This cannot fail to arrest the attention of capitalists who are interested in Colorado gold and silver stocks, or are thinking of becoming so. It will be of yet more benefit to that large class whose capital is their muscle, because it will make accessible to them a new and large tract of virgin land, which, though far West, is still on the World's great highway, arid therefore in no sense of the word in the backwoods. This region has a pleasant and healthy climate, and while its soil is unsur passed in strength by that of the prairie States, it

PREFACE.

. IV has a superior market in the adjoining mines. It most eloquently invites settlement and improve ment. It will also give the Summer tourist a choice between the West and the East. It is not hazarding much to say that the Rocky Mountains offer the most delightful Summer resort of the New if not of the Old World. The climate is cool and bracing, the air deliriously pure and soft, the scenery both grand and beautiful, the forests full of game and the streams of trout, with hot mineral springs of high medicinal value boiling up at the root of every shade tree in the sequestered parks. The annexa tion of the Rocky Mountains to the Union by rail ways will open a new world to science, a new field of adventure to money and muscle, a new and pleasant place of Summer resort to people of leisure.

To meet the growing want of definite information concerning that interesting country, this book is put forth. It treats of the discovery of gold and settlement of the country, its geography, chorog raphy, geology, mineralogy, and agriculture, its early efforts at self-government, and the progres? and pres ent condition of mining industry, including descrip tive list of mining companies, principal improved mines, mills, machinery, and methods of treating ore — in short, it undertakes to give, as concisely and precisely as possible, and without any preten sion, all that is known on the subject. o. j. h. rial. CONTENTS

Chapter I

Glance at Pike's Peak prior to the Discovery of Gold — Discovery of Gold on Ralston Creek in 1852, and on Dry Creek in !858 — Effect of the News in the States — Crossing the Plains — Indians — First View of the Mountains — Prospecting, Hunting — Placer Camp — Auraria — Arapahoe County — Election of Delegate to Congress and Representative to Kansas Legislature — Denver Town Company, 1

Chapter II

Grand Physical Divisions of Colorado — The Snowy Range, The Foot-hills, The Valley, and Over the Range — Characteristics of the Snowy Range, of the Foot-hills — The Great Mineral Belt — Metalliferous Veins — Mode of Occurrence of Gold 22

Chapter III

Discoveries of Gold in the Mountains — John H. Gregory and the Gregory Lode — History of Discovery Claim on the Gregory — Placer and Bar Diggings — First Mining Laws — Russell Gulch — Quartz Mining — Gregory District Organized and Code of Laws Adopted, 59

Chapter IV

Visit of Horace Greeley and Party — Establishment of Newspapers — Attempted Organization of Government — Jefferson Territory — Mail, Passenger, and Express Facilities — Overland Mail — First Winter in the Mines — Quartz Mills — Wagon Roads, VI CONTENTS. FAOB.

Chapter V

Development of Mining through 1860-1-2-3 — Opening Prospects — Immigration and Emigration — Quartz-Mining and Milling— Difficulty in Saving the Gold — Placer Mining — Organization of the Territory of Colorado by Congress — Mining Legislation — Miscellaneous, 106

Chapter VI

Condition of the Mines at the end of 1803— Transferred to Eastern Capitalists— The April (1864) Panic in Stocks- Temptation to Speculation in Gold Mining — Why the Miners were generally embarrassed at the end of 1S63 — Why the Eastern Mining Companies have been comparatively unsuccessful, Ijj

Chapter VII

Gilpin County— Present Condition of the Improved Lodes — Names of Mining Companies — Amount of Development — Condition of Mines and Mills— Machinery— Processes, Sec. 141

Chapter VIII

Gilpin County continued— Swinging Round the Circle— Independent, South Boulder, Central, Wisconsin Districts, Peck and Missouri Gulches — Their Improved Mines, Mills, Companies, Processes, &c, 214

Chapter IX

Clear Creek County — General Characteristics — Idaho — Empire— The Mines of Idaho— Spanish Bar— Trail Run— Fall River — Morris and Downieville Districts — Empire Mines — Griffith and Argentine Districts— Discovery, Development, and Richness of the Silver Mines, 227

Chapter X

Boulder County, Characteristics— Mining Districts, Gold Hill, Ward, Central— Boulder Valley, Boulder City, Valmont— Geology and Topography of the Coal and Iron Region— Bellemonte Furnace and Coal Beds— Black Hawk Foundery, . . 263

Chapter XI

Park County— South Park— Towns and Mines— Salt Works- Geology— Placer Mining in the Past, in the Present— Beaver Gulch— Tarryall— Crossing the Range in Mid- Winter— Lode CONTENTS. Vii PAGE. Mining in the Past, in the Present — Climate — The Espino sas — The Reynolds Guerrilla Raid, 280

Chapter XII

Lake County — Its Characteristics, Settlements — Arkansas River — Mining Districts, Westphalian, Pine Creek, La Plata, Georgia Bar, Hope, Lake Falls, Red Mountain, Arkansas, Independent, California, and Sacramento — Approaches, . . 306

Chapter XIII

Summit County — Middle Park — Upper Blue River — Ten-mile District — Result of Assays — Work doing — The Snakes — Peru and Montezuma Districts — Lodes and Companies and Improvements Going On — Gulch Mining, Union District, Gold Run and Buffalo Flats — Western Portion of the County, 321

Chapter I

Glance at Pike's Peak prior to the Discovery of Gold — Discovery of Gold on Ralston Creek in 1852, and on Dry Creek in 1858 — Effect of the News in the States — Crossing the Plains— Indians — First View of the Mountains — Prospecting, Hunting — Placer Camp — Auraria — Arapahoe County — Election of Delegate to Congress and Representative to Kansas Legislature— Denver Town Company. It is unnecessary here to inquire into the causes of the immemorial movement westward tjf the hu man race from its cradle in Asia. It may be observed, however, as marking an era in the world's history, that the planet is at last girdled ; that the extraordinary mineral discoveries of Western North America have startled even the Orientals from their accustomed lethargy; and they are moving from China eastward, or rather westward, on the other side of the globe, to meet the historic column on this side, in the gold and silver fields of the Rocky Mountains.

Thus we have a double westward movement, each wing starting originally from Asia, and pursuing the same direction, only on opposite sides of the earth, to the same destination. There are those who think this double-action immigration pressure will essentially modify the future of the mining regions of North America. Buddhism and Polygamy will be brought into contact with Chris tianity and Monogamy; but it would seem to be the senility of age contending with the strength and vigor of youth. There can be no doubt as to which will triumph. If we could examine the old Spanish archives in Mexico and Spain, we might perhaps find detailed accounts of explorations in the region of the Rocky Mountains now comprising Colorado ; but if so, none of them is known or published to the world at large, thanks, we suppose, to the Japanese policy which formerly actuated the Colonial Governors and Captains-General of Spain in America.

About twenty years ago a work was published which con tained a full and authentic account of an expedition in the years 1540-1542, by order of the Viceroy Mendoca, and under the conduct of Vasquez Coro nado. It consisted of three hundred and fifty Span iards and eight hundred Indians. Starting from Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, they reached the sources of the Gila, passed across the mountains to the Rio del Norte, wintered twice in the Terri tory of New Mexico, explored it from north to south, and afterwards, taking a northeast course, crossed the mountains, reached the buffalo plains, which they traversed a considerable distance eastwardly and as far north as the 40th parallel. Finding no gold they returned to Mexico. The Spaniards did not CAPTAIN ZEBULON M. PIKE. 3 re-enter the country till the year 1581, and the con quest of New Mexico was not completed till about the year 1595.

There is nothing of interest con cerning this country in the published account of Coronado's long, fatiguing, resultless expedition. Had his party found the rich treasures of the Col orado Rocky Mountains, how different would have been the history of North America. But it seems that was not to be. In our day the discoverer and first chronicler of these regions was the energetic and indefatigable Captain Zebulon M. Pike, after whom the " principal peak," as he calls it in his quaint and curious "Account,"* was named. Colonel S. H. Long was * " An Account of Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi, and through the western part of Louisiana, &c, in the years 1805, 1806, and 1807 : Philadelphia, 1810." — Pike first saw the mountains from the Arkansas, November 15, 1806; November 24th to 28th he explored the north fork (Fontaine qui Bouit,) of the Arkansas, without discovering the soda springs, however, and ascended a chain south of the peak from which " the summit of the grand peak, which was entirely bare of vegetation and covered with snow, appeared at a distance of fifteen or sixteen miles from us, and as high again as we had ascended."

Pike measured the altitude of his peak by triangulation " on the base of a mile," and counting the prairie 8000 feet above the level of the sea, made it 18,581 feet. He exaggerated in both instances. Subsequently he wandered about among the mountains with his few followers for two months in search of the sources of Red River, visiting the head waters of the South Platte, the Arkansas, and at last the Rio Grande, where he was taken prisoner by the Spaniards of New Mexico. In the Ap pendix to his "Account" Pike relates an incident curious enough in view of what has since transpired. He says he met in Santa Fe one James Pursley, from Bairdstown, Ky., "the first American who ever penetrated the immense wilds of western Louisiana," and who, after many adventures with the Indians, as whose captive he got the second explorer of the country.

The surgeon, botanist, and historian of Long's expedition was Dr. E. James, the first white man, so far as we know, whose foot ever trod the summit of Pike's Peak. He also measured its altitude by triangula tion, and counting a point twenty-five miles below the springs on the Fountain, as it is now called, 3000 feet above sea level, made it 11,507.5 feet. His mistake was in estimating or calculating the elevation of his base. This was in 1820. In 1843 Fremont paid a hasty visit to the soda springs at the base of the peak. He was delighted with the beauty of the little mountain-walled cove containing the springs, remarked that the water resembled in taste the famous Selter Springs in the Grand Duchy of Nassau, and was almost of the same character though still more agreeable in taste than that of the Beer Springs on Bear River of the Great Salt Lake, and left us the following analysis of an incrustation made by the water on a piece of wood : Carbonate of lime, • • - - - 92.25 Carbonate of magnesia, - . • - 1.2 1 Sulphate of lime, \ Chloride of calcium, v - - . . . ,23 Chloride of magnesia, \ Silica, ----... 1,50 Vegetable matter, . . . . . . .20 Moisture and loss, ..... 4.61 100.00 into the Pike's Peak region, came to Santa Fe.

" He assured me," says Pike, " that he found gold on the head of La Platte, and had carried some of the virgin mineral in his shot-pouch for months , and that the Spaniards had frequently solicited him to go and show a detachment of cavalry the place, but that, conceiving it to be our territory, he had refused." Good boy. FREMONT IN THE PARKS. 5 The temperature of the water ranged through the day in one spring from 5 8° to 60. 5 °, and in the other from 61 9 to 69?. Next year Fremont returned from California via the Great Salt Lake, Bear River, the North, Middle, and South Parks. He found the Middle Park alive with buffalo and other game, and made the hight of the Ute Pass, be tween Breckenridge and Montgomery, 11,200 feet. "Here," says Fremont, "the river (Blue) spreads itself into small branches and springs, heading nearly in the summit of the ridge which is very nar row.* Immediately below us was a valley through which ran a stream (Platte,) and a short distance opposite rose snowy mountains (Lincoln,) whose summits were formed into peaks of naked rock."

The South Park was at that moment the scene of a hard-fought battle between hostile bands of Utes and Arapahoes, and Fremont was obliged to fortify all his camps. On again arriving at Pike's Peak he measured it and made it 14,300 feet above sea level, which agrees very well with the measurement of Dr. Parry made in 1862. It was about this time or a little earlier that one Rufus B. Sage passed over the same route in the dead of December with a small party of trappers. He .says the snow averaged a depth of twelve or * The Blue and Platte both rise five or six miles west of the Pass, flowing east, parallel, about iooo feet lower than its summit, and at the Pass, where the Blue sharply bends north and the Platte south southeast, only from 7000 to Sooo feet apart. This has been elimi nated by careful surveys of the vicinity, which, since Fremont's passage through or over it, has become an important mining center.

" fourteen inches, but that the valleys and sunny hill sides were generally bare. He seems to have been content to let the eternal mountains point skyward in solemn grandeur while his party humbly clung to the willow-lined streams that threaded the fertile valleys, and so in a few days they were led out of the woods and found themselves at the inevitable springs like all the rest ; where, says our friend Sage, " the ground was free from snow and afforded occasional spots of green grass." Sage also re marked the existence of a settlement of whites and half-breeds, numbering fifteen or twenty families, about thirty miles above the mouth of the Fountain on the Arkansas, evidently the present site of Canon City. There was also a trading post called the Pueblo on the site of the present town of that name, occupied at that time by ten or twelve Ameri cans living with or married to Mexican women, and carrying on a thriving trade with the Indians.

The latter were somewhat troublesome, were indeed the only drawbacks to settlement in the vicinity. The existence of gold and other minerals in the Sierra Madre mountains, now comprising Colorado, was already suspected. There was a story among the mountaineers and traders, that a few years previous an old French hunter named Duchet.had picked up in one of the principal forks of Horse Creek, a piece of rock containing native gold ; that he carried it in his hunting pouch until he got tired of it, and suspecting not its value but only regard ing it as an hour's novelty, threw it away. Subse quently, at Santa Fe, the emptyings of his pouch, RUFUS B. SAGE. 7 being in part particles of gold, attracted attention. But the old hunter could not again find the place. Sage camped on the present site of Golden City during the winters of 1843 and 1844 successively, whence on some of his hunting excursions he penetrated the mountains to a considerable distance; but he records nothing in his published account of particular interest, more than his confirmed belief that it was a mineral region.

For instance, crossing from Cherry Creek to the Fountain, he remarks : " The country hereabout for an extent of upwards of one thousand square miles, is much subject to storms of rain, hail, snow, and wind. I can ac count for it in no way but by supposing it to have some connection with the vast quantities of miner als lying embedded in its hills and valleys." Some what of a Sage by nature as well as in name. But the country in which he had long been travel ing abounds in sage. But we can scarcely pretend to give what was known of Colorado prior to the discovery of paying gold mines within her present limits, because our space will not permit. We have therefore only glanced at that period while hastening to the vastly more interesting time when the discovery and pur suit of gold invested her stupendous mountains with a more absorbing interest than even that with which science inspires her votaries.

It was the commercial collapse of 1857 that set many adventurous spirits in the then West peering into the obscurity beyond them for a new field of enterprise. A party of Cherokee Indians, traveling overland to California in 1852, via the Arkansas River and along the eastern base of the Sierra Ma dre to the North Platte at Fort Laramie, by some means found gold in the banks of Ralston Creek, a small affluent of the Vasquez Fork of the South Platte, emptying into it near its mouth ; and each year thereafter parties of Cherokees had gone out and prospected the streams in the vicinity of what is now Denver City. At last they were successful ; they obtained a few dollars' worth of the glittering dust, which they carried home late in 1857, exhibit ing it freely as they passed through Nebraska and Kansas.

The report of a new land of gold in the West spread like an epidemic through the country drained by the Missouri River, and soon traveled far be yond. These Indians appear to have gone home and told their story on the confines of the Gulf of Mexico, for Georgians were among the first to seek the new gold country. On the 9th of February, 1858, W. G. Russell, with a party of nine men, left the state of Georgia with a view of prospecting the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre along the heads of the South Platte, from Pike's Peak to the Black Hills. They arrived on the head of Cherry Creek about the 1st of June. They prospected Cherry Creek, the Platte and its affluents as far north as Cache-a-la-Poudre, without finding anything satisfactory. They returned to the Platte, and about five miles up a small dry creek which puts into the Platte seven miles south of the mouth of Cherry Creek, a fine "prospect" one GOLD STRUCK ON DRY CREEK. 9 evening rewarded their labors and enlivened their hopes.

They dug large holes in the wet sand, put their "rockers" down in them, and dipping in water with cups washed out in a few days several hundred dollars' worth of gold. As soon as they got to work, some of the party returned to Kansas with the news. Pike's Peak was the nearest notable natural object, and so the new gold field — the Do rado of many feverish dreams — took its name from that. In the last days of that Summer several small parties were organized, and left Lawrence, Platts mouth, Omaha, Florence, Bellevue, Council Bluffs, and other of the Missouri River towns for Pike's Peak.* One party from Plattsmouth, numbering forty-five men, with fifteen wagons, was threaten ingly approached near what is now Fort McPher son (Cottonwood,) by about four hundred Cheyennes and Sioux. The train mounted an advanced guard of five, and having a guard of equal number on each flank, and one in the rear, ten footmen in sin gle file on the Indian side of the train, and the fifteen teamsters all having arms in the fore ends of their wagons, they moved firmly along.

The In dians came up on the flank one hundred strong in fine style, and halted. The chief and four of his braves made a circuit, and came down square in *A Dutchman in Council Bluffs was observed gathering up a large lot of meal-bags. He was asked what he was going to do with them. " Fill them with gold at Pike's Peak," he replied. O ! he could never do that, they said. " Yes I will," returned he, " if I have to stay there till Fall " It is matter of congratulation that people have become well cured of such charming infatuation. I* front. When within about twenty paces they were suddenly covered by the five rifles, and they halted, trailed their arms, made peaceful gestures, and de manded a parley. They wanted pay for traveling through their country. They were told that their Great Father had already paid them for this privi lege.

Seeing that nothing could be got by bluster ing, and being averse to fighting, they resorted to begging. A plug of tobacco was given them, and they sneaked off, Indian fashion. Well might one of these pioneers,* in a new cru sade on the Aborigines, write as follows in his diary, upon passing through one of their decayed villages : "As I sit, in the early morning, and gaze on the ruins of this savage but once mighty people, their council-fires mere smouldering embers, a strange race overwhelming them in countless thousands, and pushing them away from the land where lie buried their fathers, I cannot but feel sad on ac count of their misfortunes ; and I think how well it may be that, in ages to come, the proud race which is now occupying their pleasant places shall in like manner be crushed out by a still stronger race."

That was before the renewal on the Plains of the desperate conflict which began on the Atlantic, and has been fought hand-to-hand between the Ameri can and the savage, the latter always pushed back, clear across the Continent. These men were so enlightened as to feel deeply the hard and inevitable fate of the Indians, and to recognize and accept * William M. Slaughter, now Mayor of Central City. DESTINY OF THE INDIAN. 11 their own destiny in the matter. The above-quoted sentences show the first, and the following the second: " Several small encampments of Indians are in sight, but we have taken precautions against a sur prise, and in case they attack many an Indian will bite the dust before it is over, for we are pretty well prepared, and mean to go through, Indian or no Indian." Thus was the last dreadful struggle between the white and red man boldly braved by this handful of pioneers, for what ?

For the chance of finding an habitable land further west. That struggle we have just fairly begun, and no one doubts that it must go on to the extinction of the savages, involv ing great sufferings on our part, of course. Grant beat the rebellion with hard knocks, and perhaps gave man for man ; having more men he was ena bled to wear it out. It is not a bad illustration of our conflict with the savages. Both were inevita ble, and both must end in the same way. The Government and the rebellion were incompatible on the same ground ; so are our people and the savages. That was a life and death struggle, ended by the death of the rebellion : this is a life and death struggle, to be ended by the death of the savage — and the sooner it can be finished the better. At the time of which we are speaking — Septem ber, 1858 — there was little of that semblance of Tartaric civilization on the Plains which now char acterizes them.

Forts Riley and Santa Fe, Forts Kearney and Laramie, Salt Lake City and Camp Floyd, were about the only inhabited points. The first hunters for gold at Pike's Peak had no smooth, hard road, with occasional stations occupied by the white man, to follow; no accompanying endless train of white-topped emigrant wagons and fleets loaded with merchandise. The Salt Lake mail passed them regularly until they struck the Califor nia crossing of the Platte.* They met a small party from Cherry Creek once in a while, all of them with goose-quills or little vials of gold dust, which some of them called "the elephant," and were carrying home to show their friends, hoping thereby to save them a pilgrimage to the Mountains to see it; others were going to use "the elephant" to ob tain reinforcements. They also met straggling par ties from Salt Lake City or California, most always packing a mule or two, and so much like Indians that the latter never molested them.

They might have been overtaken by, or come up with, an Indian trader's small train occasionally, or perhaps one of Government supplies bound to Fort Laramie or Camp Floyd; otherwise they were solitary and alone. After passing the California crossing they had no road, but picked their way along in view of the river as best they could. As they came within sight of Long's Peak, lying like a smoky thunder-head in the far and indefinite horizon, a hundred miles distant, we can imagine their exaltation of feeling. * Eighty miles above the junction of the North and South Plattes ; a town called Julesburg, in the north-eastern corner of Colorado, now marks the spot THE MOUNTAINS FROM THE PLAINS. 13 Pretty soon Pike's Peak could be seen compelling the clouds ; and then the varied outline of the en tire range of mountains between — one hundred miles in length, cutting boldly the evening sky, and doubtless exhaling the gold of the sunset, or per haps mysteriously mingling with the cloud-lands — grew upon their vision, these men of the prairies, who had never seen a hill five hundred feet high !

The grand old mountains, with their eternal and infinite solitude and solemnity, strength and repose, were appealing to their hearts, as they always do to men, the moment they came in sight. Mr. Bowles says of this view: "All my many and various wanderings in the European Switzerland, three summers ago, spread before my eye no panorama of mountain beauty surpassing, nay, none equaling, that which burst upon my sight at sunrise upon the Plains, when fifty miles away from Denver ; and which rises up before me now as I sit writing by the window in this city. From far south to far north, stretching around in huge semi-circle, rise the everlasting hills, one after another, tortuous, presenting every variety of form and surface, every shade of cover and color, up and on until we reach the broad, snow-covered Range that marks the highest summits, and tells where Atlantic and Pacific meet and divide for their long journey to their far distant shores.