have written concerning Louisiana, that mines of gold and silver exist in that part
200 HISTORY OF COLORADO
of the country of whieli we are speaking. . . . We are informed in Schoolcraft,
that granite exists about the sources of the St. Francis, which are situated near
those of White river. Of the extent and character of this formation of granite we
have not yet been able to form any definite ideas. It is, however, by no means
improbable that to its plates of yellow and white mica we are to look for the
origin of the fabulous accounts of the precious metals in those regions. Like the
country of the gilded king, the El Dorado of South America, it is probable the gold
and silver mines of the Arkansa territory will recede before the progress of exam-
ination, first into the wildest and most inaccessible parts, and at length, disappear
entirely. We by no means intend to assert that the region in question will not
prove of immense importance on account of its mineral treasures. Valuable mines of
lead and iron are certainly frequent in many parts of it, and w'e can assign no reason
why silver, and other metals should not be found in the argillite with quartzy veins,
and in the other rocks of the transition period which are known to exist in these
mountains. We only intend to give it as our opinion, that there has as yet been no
foundation in actual discovery for the belief that such mines do exist."
The traders and the trappers of the fur-trading period in the Colorado
country learned of the presence of gold in the section drained by the
headwaters of the South Platte and by its mountain tributaries within a
few years after the first American trading-post upon Colorado soil had been
built. Some of the trappers gathered small quantities of the metal from
the beds of streams that put out from the mountains between the Platte
Canon and the Cache a la Poudre Eiver as early as 1832, but neither they
nor the traders regarded the yellow dust with any greater interest than that
of passing curiosity.
Sometime in the "30s, a French-Canadian named Du diet, while
trapping in the South Park, picked up from the bank of a stream, supposed
to have been Horse Creek, a branch of the South Platte, a piece of crumbling
rock that was rich in grains of gold. He carried the ore in his hunting-
pouch until he became tired of it, when, without realizing its vahie and
signiiicance, he threw it away. Du C'liet went to Santa Fe a few months
later, and while there told of the piece of rock with yellow specks in it. Tlie
pouch was shaken out, and in the dust that came from it were many small
particles of gold. Several Mexicans of some experience in mining induced
Du diet to lead them to the locality in which he had found the mineral.
But, much to their disappointment, as the story runs, he was unable to
identify the creek, and therefore his Mexican friends, after some fruitless
prospecting at random in the South Park, went home empty-handed.
It was told in after-times that during the years in which Yasquez
maintained his trading-post, which stood upon, the right bank of the South
Platte River, opposite the mouth of Clear Creek and near the present
northeasterh" limits of Denver, it was not an uncommon thing for men con-
nected with his station to bring in bits of gold which they had gathered
from the beds of creeks in the vicinity. But. as with others of the kind,
these suggestive incidents passed unheeded.
Josiah Gregg, who was identified with the Santa Fe trade over the his-
toric Santa Fe Trail from 1831 to 1840, heard, during those years, of
discoveries of gold and silver in the Colorado country and elsewhere in the
West. Of these he says, in his Commerce of the Prairies:
"Of metallic minerals, iron, lead, and perhaps copper, are found on the [east-
ern] border of the Prairies ; and it is asserted that several specimens of silver ores
have been met with on our frontier, as well as about the Wichita [River] and the
Kooky Mountains. Gold has also been found, no doubt, in different places ; yet it is
niSTOEY OF COLOEADO 201
questionable whether it has anywhere been discovered in sufficient quantities to make
it worth the seeking. Some trappers have reported an extensive gold region about the
sources of the [South] Platte River; yet, although recent search has been made, it
has not been discovered."
Antoine Eoubideaii, the French trader among the Indians upon the
western slope of Colorado, and who had a trading-post on the Gunnison
River, near the site of our town of Delta, in the second quarter of the nine-
teenth centuiy, found some gold in the southwesterly section of our State
during that period. He spent much time and a considerable sum of money
in prospecting that region for remunerative '"diggings", but it appears that
he failed to find any that were profitable.
Among the pioneer American writers on the Far West was Eufus Sage,
who visited the Colorado country in the early '"40s of the last century, and
afterward published an account of his travels in the West in a volume en-
titled Rochy Mauntain Life. He had some of the qualities of a philosopher,
and was a close if not always an accurate observer. In explanation of the
causes of certain climatic conditions he had encountered upon the divide
between the headwaters of Cherry Creek and those of the Fontaine qui
Bouille, he recorded the following unique theon' :
"The country hereabouts, for an extent of upwards of one thousand square
miles, is much given to storms of rain, hail, snow, and wind, — and it is rarely a
person can pass through it without being caught by a storm of some kind. I can
account for this in no other way than by supposing it has some connection with the
vast quantities of minerals lying emljedded in its hills and valleys.
In the spring of 1844, Sage picked up on the site of our town of Golden
several pieces of rock which he suspected were gold-bearing, but did not
regard them with the eager interest of an experienced miner.
While officers of Colonel Dodge's command, when it was encamped
upon the site of Colorado City, in 1835, "found a number of fine specimens
of minerals of different species" in that vicinity, the reports of his expedi-
tion contain no hint of a suspicion that the precious metals might exist
in the mountains. Fremont, in his several explorations of the Eocky
Mountain region, gave scant attention to its minerals; and, with respect
to gold and silver, his accounts of his expeditions are barren pages.
William Gilpin, whose name is a familiar one in the political history
of Colorado, was one of the many who knew before the middle of the nine-
teenth century that gold was present in the Pike's Peak country, and was
the first of our countrjinen fully to recognize the significance of that fact
and to anticipate the greatness of the region's mineral resources. When
with Fremont, in 1843, he searched for traces of the yellow metal after
the party had reached the mountains, and found "colors" in the beds of
some of the foot-hill streams. Having knowledge of Captain Pike's account
of Purcell's discover}' in the South Park, as well as of the later stories of
like tenor, he now became convinced that rich deposits of gold eventually
would be brought into light within sight of Pike's Peak. Upon his return
to civil life after the close of the Mexican War. he again took up his
residence in the town of Independence, Missouri, and devoted much of his
time to enlightening the people of that State as to the great and varied
resourc'cs of the Far West. During the '50s, he made public addresses on
this subject in several of the ^lissouri towns. In one of these, delivered
203 HISTORY OF COLORADO
at Kansas City, in 1858, he said that his personal experienc^e in the West,
down to the year 1849, had not been "without value"'.
"The facts then and since collected by me are so numerous and so positive, that
I entertain an absolute conviction, derived from them, that gold in mass and in
position and infinite in quantity will, witliin the coming three years, reveal itself
to the energy of our pioneers. All the precious metals and precious stones, will also
reveal themselves in equal abundance in this region so propitious to their production.
Such a development has nothing in it speculative or theoretical. It comes of neces-
sity in the order of time, and as an inevitable sequence to the planting of empire
In Texas, in California, in Oregon, in Kansas, and in Utah."
Although vagrant rumors of the presence of gold in the Pike's Peak
countrj' had been drifting to the Missouri River for a number of years.
Colonel Gilpin's convictions — to which he had frequently given expression
earlier in that decade — that they were not without foundation may be said
to have afforded such reports tlieir first substantial footing along the Mis-
souri border.
"Old Bill" Williams, the famous trapper and Indian fighter who was
Fremont's guide in the winter of 1848-49, and was known everywhere from
the Gila River to the headwaters of the Yellowstone, claimed to have found
some nuggets of gold in the South Park while trapping there in the autumn
of 1848. But he did not think it worth while to give up his old business
to become a commonplace toiler with a pick and a shovel and a pan.
In the same year, when a party which included the family of William
Bent, the noted trader, bound from Fort Bridger to Fort Bent, was en-
camped on Crow Creek, a Weld County tributary of the South Platte, Bent's
children are said to have gathered several small nuggets of gold from the bed
of that stream. However, its basin never developed into a gold-mining
district.
Among the stories of early discoveries of gold within the boundaries
of our State is one that tells of such a find by some sportsmen from
northern Georgia who went to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, in 1849,
for a sea - ;on"s hunt for "big game"'. According to this tale, these men re-
ported while on their way home and after their arrival there that they
had found gold in the channel of a small creek near the mouth of the
Cache a la Poudre, where they were encamped in August of that year. It is
probable that this ston- was the basis of the following statement made in
some of the memorials which were sent to Congress by our pioneer settlers.
in the winter of 1859-60, asking that body to establish a new Territory in
the Pike's Peak region:
"Eleven years ago, in the month of August, a party of Cherokees and their
allies, in search of game, but prepared for war, discovered, by mere accident, on the
banks of the Cache a la Poudrg, near its discharge from the canons of the mountains,
small quantities of quartz, partially studded with gold, which, being exhibited on
their return, induced another and more peaceful expedition the following season,
•which resulted in still further, though limited, discoveries in other localities."
I have been unable to find any other record of this "more peaceful
expedition", which is here said to have resulted in still further discoveries
of gold in the nest season, which would have been that of 1849.
Many trains of the host of gold-seekers who went overland to California
in that year, having crossed the plains by way of the Arkansas River route,
followed the old trail from Fort Bent up to the Pueblo and tlience north
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 203
to Fort Laramie, and which skirted the foot-hills from the Arkansas to
Long's Peak. Some of these fortune-hunters made superficial investiga-
tions in the beds of the mountain affluents of the South Platte, and found
gold. But as they expected to take out such metal by the shovelfull when
they had reached the coast, they passed on without attempting a more
thorough examination.
Next we have another company of Cherokee Indians, some of whom
formerly had dwelt in Georgia, figuring among the early discoverers of
gold in the land of Colorado. These enlightened red brethren, accom-
panied by two white men named Ealston, who were of Cherokee connec-
tion by marriage, having followed the Arkansas to the mountains, en-
camped upon the site of Denver late in the spring of 1850, while on their
way to the California gold-diggings. During their halt of several days
at the mouth of Cherry Creek they prospected the vicinity and found a
little gold in the bed of the South Platte and in Cherry, Clear and Ralston
creeks, but not enough to induce them to remain longer and search for
more. It was from these people that Ralston Creek, a small tributary of
Clear Creek, received its name — in honor of the two white men of the party.
A Cherokee Indian, probably a half-breed, named Parks, wliile passing
from the Arkansas Eiver to Fort Laramie with a drove of cattle, in 1852,
halted at Ralston Creek to rest his stock, and while tarrying there w\ashed
out some gold from its sands. Parks, who was said to have heard from
Indian relati\es that the yellow metal had been discovered near Pike's
Peak, afterward expressed the belii^f that "rich diggings"' might be de-
veloped upon the banks of the Ealston. In the first year of Colorado's
permanent American settlement the course of that stream became the
scene of much activity in the feverish search for gold by amateur miners,
but with rather indifferent results.
When William N. Byers was going from Iowa to Oregon, in 1852, to
engage in the survey of public lands in that Territory, he and his asso-
ciates stopped at Fort Laramie to refit for the remainder of their journey;
and while there he was told that several old hunters and trappers who
frequented tlie fort, occasionally had taken gold from the beds of creeks
"near Pike's Peak".
In the summer of the next year, a man named Norton, who was a
member of a company bound for California, exhibited at Fort Laramie
some gold-dust which he said he had "washed out down at Pike's Peak".
Beyond causing a little speculation among the soldiers and a few others,
this fresh proof that the peak country contained gold excited no interest
at the fort. The older of the Laramie people said it had been known for
years that there was "some gold scattered around down there", but that
no one ever had seen enough of it to appear to make a trial at mining
worth while.
Although it had now been about fifty years since the first discovery
of the more valuable of the two precious metals in the mountains of Colo-
rado by an American, nothing whatever had been done toward making a
thorough exploration of them by experienced men to ascertain the value
and extent of the deposits. About the time when negotiations for peace
with Mexico were begun, and when it was generally understood that the
United States had determined to acquire a vast area of Mexican territory
in the adjustment of affairs Ijetween the two countries, the newspapers
204 HISTORY OF COLOEADO
along what then was the American frontier of civilization west of the
Mississippi revived and jiut into circulation more or less exaggerated
versions of the earlier fugitive tales of "gold discoveries at the eastern base"'
of the "Eockies"'; or, as more commonly expressed, '"out at Pike's Peak".
However, as the published stories were lacking in definite details as to
times, places and results, and as none of the "virgin gold" of these
alleged "diggings" ever had appeared in the border settlements, the news-
paper accounts failed to command serious attention sufficient to start a
movement of prospectors to the mountains.
But these newspaper discussions of vaguely-known things soon were
totally eclipsed by the wonderful golden news from California, in 1848;
and in the excitement raised throughout the States by the reports from
that part of the newly-acquired possessions the Pike's Peak "gold-fields"
passed from public notice and remained in obscurity for nearly a decade.
During the fierce political embroilments that racked Kansas in the middle
'oOs and kept the Nation at large in a state of uneasiness, and at which time
the California "gold-fever" had become reduced in temperature, new but
still indefinite rumors of "gold discoveries" in the neighborhood of Pike's
Peak again occasionally drifted into the border settlements in the eastern
parts of Kansas and Nebraska. But, as the thoughts and interests of the
people there largely were concentrated upon the issue of tlie Kansas tur-
moil, these received next to no attention. In the meantime, as I have
related in a preceding chapter, the fur business in the region of the peak
had declined so nearly to extinction that there was but one trading-post
and comparatively a small number of frontiermen now remaining in the
country. Moreover, the Indians, influenced by the Kansas rumpus, were
becoming restless and disposed to be troublesome ; and there was a talk
among some of them about uniting and taking to the war-path to drive
the white men who were yet lingering upon their lands back to the Missouri
Eiver, with orders to keep out of the Indian hunting-grounds thereafter.
Up to that time, none of the fur-gatherers ever had made any serious
attempt at even the simplest form of placer-mining. The traders had
stuck closely to the management of their posts, and it had not occurred
to the hunters and trappers that there might be more profit in the work
of digging for the yellow metal than in that of killing wild animals for
their pelts. However, the drudgery of mining was not to the taste of the
frontierman of the West, though he thought nothing of making a tramp
of fifty miles between sleeps. So the "discovery" of gold in Colorado still
was left slumbering in a chamber of the future.
Public attention was not again turned to the golden possibilities of
the Pike's Peak region until the spring of 1857, when reports of the
precious metal having been found in significant quantities in the vicinity
of our famous mountain-landmark once more were floating from one to
another of the towns and hamlets in eastern Kansas and Nebraska and
western Missouri. It appears that army gossip and tales told by men
latelv returned from the mountains were the immediate causes of this
revival, but whether they were based upon recent revelations or were mere
repetitions or variants of the old stories now would be hard to determine.
Nevertheless, the border newspapers eagerly took them up, and as their
embellished versions of the drifting rumors traveled eastward they grew
in grandeur and spread the "germs'" of gold-fever wherever they went. But
HISTOEY OF COLOEADO 205
as there was no immediate development of the contagion, that year passed
to its close without having brought on an actual initiation of a raovenient
to the mountains to explore intelligently and thoroughly the birthplace of
these alluring tales.
It is highly probable that if conditions in the States had teen ditfer-
ent at that time the beginning of the permanent American settlement of
Colorado would have been made a year earlier than it was. The financial
panic of the summer and autumn of 1857 swept over the country, from
the Atlantic seaboard to the farthest lodgment of civilization in the West,
precipitating disaster upon individuals, corporations, municipalities, coun-
ties, States, and even the Nation. Wreck and ruin were spread every-
where. The flimsy, trouble-breeding banking system of that period — if
such a weak and makeshift fabric properl\- niay be termed a system — was
chiefly responsible for the memorable economic revulsion of that year, the
severity of which has not been surpassed by that of any similar misfortune
in later times. Back of the banks and depending on them were inflated
credits, overbuilding of railroads, wild speculations, the "booming"" of un-
necessary "cities" in imi>ossible places, and all of the other castles in the
air that usually precede and also usually cause a financial collapse of far-
reaching evil consequences. State banks with their families of "braneli'"
establishments, and hundreds of private banks, had flooded the country
with their trashy "currency'"; and when the strain could no longer be
borne these concerns tumbled down aheap, leaving the bulk of their prom-
ises-to-pay of no more value than that of waste paper. Public and private
credit and resources suffered alike, and treasuries were empty, with nothing
in sight to replenish them. The weak national administration was about
as badly off as that of any of the States, and was impotent either to help
itself or to be of service to the people. The paralysis aft"ected every avenue
of business and occupation, nearly every man had its grisly effects brought
home to him, and the wreckage so littered and obstructed the paths of
enterprise that industry was almost prostrated.
During the winter of 1857-58, the newspapers of the States teemed
with gi-eatly magnified forms of the fresh vagabond stories that had come
from the western frontier, and with wild speculations as to the opulence
of what they termed, with hearty pul)lic approval, "the Pike's Peak Gold
Eegion", which was so called from spontaneous enthusiasm rather than
from any definite and certain knowledge. Furthermore, all the old theories,
predictions, rumors and travelers' yarns bearing upon the subject were
recalled and again put into commission.
In the spring of 1858, the people of the States were in the depths of
the "hard times" which the recent panic had entailed. Thousands were
out of employment, thousands out of business and bankrupt beyond hope,
thousands out of homes; and there was neither money, credit, nor op-
portunity. Although the placer-mines of California had seen their best
davs and now were in decadence, "the chances for a poor man" which they
had afforded were not forgotten. So the public mind was open and eager
for new golden sensations from the Great West, the eastern wild edge
of which was at no long distance on the farther side of the 95th meridian.
The gilded newspaper-accounts of what had been done and the published
discussions of what might be developed at Pike's Peak spread a contagion
that took a firm hold upon the public iuuigination : and in popular argu-
206 HISTORY OF COLORADO
ment it was insisted that there must be some fire at the sources of all this
smoke.
Additional evidence tliat tended to confirm such a belief was passed
eastward from the Kansas frontier at that time. Early in the spring of
that year, two Delaware Indians, named Little Beaver and Fall Leaf,
whose fjeople lived upon a reservation in the eastern part of that Territory,
appeared at the then primitive town of Lawrence on their way home from
the far West, having with them some gold-dust and a few small nuggets
which they said they had collected while near Pike's Peak in the summer
and autumn of the year before. Fall Leaf asserted that he had served as
a scout and guide in one of Fremont's expeditions, and that while in that
service he had found gold in the beds of streams at the eastern base of
the mountains. As the reader has seen, Fremont mentions that he had
two Delaware Indians — "a fine-looking old man and his son" — with his
expedition of 1843. Fall Leaf may have been the son of the "Pathfinder's"'
old guide.
Another discovery of the yellow metal within sight of Pike's Peak
was made a few weeks after Little Beaver and Fall Leaf had shown their
gold and told their story at Lawrence. General Marcy, in his Thirty
Years of Army Life on the Border, relates that in the fore-part of ilav,
1858, when he was encamped upon the site of Denver, while upon his
return march from New Mexico to Fort Bridger with supplies for General
Johnston's Army, he saw gold that one of his men had taken from the
bed of Cherry Creek. Of this circumstance, he says:
'•We found the river [the South Platte] at such a high stage, and so rapid,
that we were compelled to encamp here for four days and construct a flat-boat, in
wliich we crossed our entire party. . . . While our ferry-boat was being con-
structed, one of our civilian empbyees washed out from the sands of Cherry Creek
a small amount of gold dust, which he showed to me."
This citizen employee was George Simpson, who, as I have stated in a
foregoing chapter, claimed to have been — and probably with truth — the
builder of the "Pueblo", which stood upon the site of our city of Pueblo.
Some actual mining — the first in Colorado in which a citizen of the
United States took part — ^had been done in the vicinity of the mouth of
Cherry Creek in the year before General Marcy and his command halted
upon the site of Denver. John S. Smith, an old plainsman, and at that
time one of the roving traders among the Indians, .in partnership with a