diary that are dated January 8th and 9th contain the following :
"Pleasant day. Well, Tom, old boy [Golden], I've got the diggings at last.
. . . Dug and panned to-day until my belt-knife was worn out, so I will have to
quit, or use my skinning-knife. I have about a half-ounce of gold, so will quit and
try and get back in the spring.
"Filled up the hole with charcoal from the big fire and built a fire over it;
marked the big fir tree with belt-axe and knife; cut the top off a small lodge-pole
pine on a line from fir tree to hole, 76 steps from big tree in a westerly direction;
all fixed now; will be off down the creek to-morrow."
Although Jackson had secured no large quantity of gold, the results
of his work together with his knowledge of gold-mining convinced him
that mines of great value could be developed in the locality. Upon his
return to his winter quarters, he told Golden of the discovery; and the
two agreed to keep the matter a secret until spring, as winter conditions
in the mountains rendered it impracticable to attempt further prospecting
in their recesses at that time. Sanders, the third man of the party, seems
meanwhile to have dropjjed out of the little organization, as he does not
figure in Jackson's narrative after he had taken to elk hunting.
A few weeks later, John H. Gregory, wlio had had some experience in
the thin gold-mines of northern Georgia, went alone into the mountain
valley of Clear Creek upon a prospecting venture. He had left his home
in Gordon County, Georgia, in the spring of 1858, intending to go to the
then new gold-field on the Frazier River, in wliat is now the Canadian
Province of British Columbia, and some four thousand miles distant from
his starting-point. As he was poor in purse, he made his way westward
slowly, arriving at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, late in the summer of that
year. Here, after a few weeks of waiting, he was employed to serve as a
teamster in a military train bound from that fort to Fort Laramie, and
with which he reached the last-named post about the middle of tlie following
autumn. Finding here no opportunity to continue his westward journey
in some such capacity as that in which he had crossed the plains, and being
financially unable to proceed upon his own account, he tarried at Fort
Laramie, supporting himself by such jobs of common labor as he could
find to do. Having heard, while thus stranded, of the "Pike's Peak Gold
Excitement", and that parties of miners had made settlements on the South
Platte, near the mountains,' he expended his very slender means for pro-
visions and a simple mining-kit, and with this outfit started southward
afoot, early in January, upon what he termed, in a statement made by him
in the following summer, "a prospecting tour on the east slope of the
Rocky Mountains". According to his account, he had no associate; nor
did anyone ever turn up with a valid claim to having been with him. He
said he prospected the foot-hill streams from the Cache a la Poudre River
to Clear Creek. But as this search had yielded him no reward for his labor.
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 251
he went into the mountains by way of Clear Creek and its North Fork.
About the middle of that month he was upon the site of the town of Black
Hawk, wliere he panned out some "colors"', the first he had found since
leaving the foot-hills. He now went up a side gulch to the mouth of a
small ravine, where he used his pan with better results, obtaining modicums
of actual gold-dust in several places, from material taken from the surface
of the ground. He was almost upon the lode the discovery of which less
than three months later gave him great local fame and also a moderate
fortune. But as a heavy fall of snow now set in, he was forced to leave his
excellent prospect and return to the foot-hills. He was almost out of
provisions, and quite out of means with which to procure a fresh supply.
Among the parties that arrived at the mountains rather early in that
spring, and went into camp at Arapahoe, was one which was called the
"Chicago Company", because most of its members were from the city of
Chicago. Becoming acquainted with our pioneer mountain-prospector,
George H. Jackson, of whose discovery in January neither he nor Golden
had dropped even so much as a hint to anybody, the Chicago men, after
learning that he had been a miner in California, asked him to become their
associate, guide and counsellor in a prosjjecting expedition into the moun-
tains, agreeing to furnish him with provisions and other essentials from
their outfit. Having required them to include Golden in the membership
of the party, Jackson accepted the proposal; but when he suggested to his
friend that the Chicago men soon should be told of what he had found in
January, Golden objected, their disagreement resulting in their permanent
separation and in the elimination of the latter from the enterprise.
The Chicago organization, which, including Jackson and a few other
recruits, now numbered twenty-three men, started into the mountains early
in April. The guide and counsellor withheld liis secret from his associates
until he became better acquainted with them and was convinced that they
were "on the square". Some sections of the mountain way were extremely
rough for teams and wagons. In several localities the vehicles had to be
unloaded, taken apart, and the loads and wagon-parts carried over places
that otherwise were impassable. In consequence of the hard and trying
conditions that were encountered upon the route, it was about the middle
of April when the party arrived upon the scene of Jackson's discovery. All
hands staked out claims immediately, two of which, according to law and
time-honored custom, being assigned to the discoverer. At a formal meet-
ing held on the 17th of April, this band of pioneers organized the first
mining-district formed in the Pike's Peak country and adopted regulations
for it. The small stream, to the mouth of which Jackson had led the com-
pany, then received its present name, "Chicago Creek", in honor of the
Illinois city from which the greater number of the members of the organ-
ization had come.
Having no lumber, these resourceful men knocked apart the box-beds
of their wagons, and with the boards thus made available they set up some
sluice-boxes, which served their purpose temporarily. With these make-
shift contrivances they washed out gold values amounting to about $1,900
during the first seven days of their operations. Jackson's notation in his
diary, "I've got the diggings at last", had been proved to be true.
In the meantime, John H. Gregory, who appears to have kept silent
as to his prospect on the North Fork of Clear Creek and to have made no
252 HISTORY UF COLORADO
effort to return to it, was loitering in a destitute condition among the
throng assembled at Arapahoe. Toward the end of April, he struck up an
acquaintance with David K. Wall, a member of a small party from South
Bend, Indiana, and which had arrived at the mountains some three or four
weeks before, and was encamijed at Arapahoe. Gregory told Wall of the
results of his pros|3ecting on the North Fork, but without seeming to attach
much significance to them. Becoming interested in Gregory and his story,
and sympathizing with him. Wall, who had been a miner in California,
proposed that he join the other members of the South Bend party and guide
them to the locality of his cUscovery, and to which Gregory finallv assented.
Of the circumstances that led up to this agreement, Mr. Wall contributed
to my Historif of Denver the following account:
"John Gregory heard of my being an old Californian, and came to see me. In
our conver.sation he told me that he had been in the mountains and had found light
prospects in which was some fine gold, in the little creek at the foot of what is now
known as Black Hawk Mountain, but not in sufficient quantity to induce him to
think that it would pay for the toil of looking further. From his report I was
induced to believe that it would be expedient and perhaps pay to have him return
and make a new search, but he was rather despondent and refused to go, giving as
the most important reason that he was out of provisions and that he had been living
on venison for ten days. I told him that my commissary was at a low ebb and more
precious than gold, but in this case I would supply his needs in that respect if he
would return and take the South Bend boys witli him, and make a new search, which
he finally concluded to do ; more, perhaps, for the opportunity of filling his stomach
than faith. The result of it was that one of the best, if not the best, gold leads tliat
was ever discovered was done by the western eloquence that I gave him, and resulted
in the early development of the mines of our great State. It was found by pros-
pecting with a pan, and that from 50 cents to $.5 to the pan could be washed out
from the decomposed quartz, clay and gravel right from the top."
The "South Bend boys", together with a few others whom they had
taken into their confidence, lost no time in preparing for the expedition.
Led by Gregory, the party, which consisted of eleven men, set out from
Arapahoe on an early day of May, conveying their supplies and other
equipment partly upon pack-horses and partly upon the front truck of a
wagon, which was di'awn by two yoke of oxen. They entered the mountains
by a route on the northward side of the gorge of Clear Creek, and on the
6th of May arrived at the gulch in which Gregory had worked. While some
of the party were making camp the others began to investigate for gold,
finding at first nothing more than good "colors" ; but presently the search
was rewarded richly. From a shovelful of sand and silt that half-filled
Gregory's mining-pan four dollars' worth of gold was washed; and from
successive pannings of like material from the same spot almost equally good
results were obtained. The lode from which this gold had been eroded by
the elements soon was located and the surface staked off in claims, with
two for the discoverer. Since that day, the Gregory Lode has given up
gold to the value of several millions of dollars, and its metallic resources
are yet unexhausted. In commenting upon this disclosure, the most im-
portant made in the Pike's Peak region during that year, and which revealed
the presence of the yellow metal in the original position in which Xature
had placed it, Hollister, in his Mines of Colorado (1867), says:
"Tlie discovery of the lode called after himself, by John H. Gregory, would
seem to rank among those great events whereby the race at large have profited.
That in a section of broken mountains, extending the whole length and one-third
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 253
the ^vidt!l of the United States, a man enroute for a distant country, should liave
been diverted in the midst of his journey, two hundred miles to the south, should
have proceeded directly to the spot — a ravine two or three miles in lenu^th — and in
it and on its hordering hills have struck the heart of as rich and extensive gold, silver
and copper mines as are known in the world, is indeed marvellous."
The initial revelations unnerved Gregory and caused him to hehave in
the manner of a half-crazy man. Through the night following the dis-
covery he could not sleep, but passed the hours in muttering to himself
about what he should do for his family back in Georgia witli the great
wealth which he Ijelieved he would soon possess — and which, as the event
proved, he acquired in fair measure before the end of the summer. His
wife should be a lady, his children educated, and all should live in comfort.
Some members of the Gregory-South Bend party now returned to
Arapahoe to bring up supplies and additional equipment for mining; and
also to apprise certain acquaintances of the successful outcome of their
expedition into the mountains, and thus give them an opportunity to locate
upon the ground before the coming of a swann of "outsiders'", which all
knew must soon follow. Claims were staked Ijy these favored ones, and a
mining-district — the second in the Pike's Peak country — was organized,
before the discovery was made pul)lic.
Full knowledge of what had been going on in the mountain valley nf
Clear Creek did not become commonly known among the multitude of
waiting and anxious men then at and in the neighborhood of the foot-hills
until after the middle of May. Meanwhile, however, there were vague
floating rumors of a "strike" having been made somewhere, and a general
impression that there was "something in the wind".
Jackson had come from his party's diggings to the Cherry Creek towns
about the beginning of that month, bringing with him some two thousand
dollars' worth of placer gold, which lie deposited with a prominent Aurarian.
with whom he arranged to have it expended in buying surplus supplies from
disappointed and disgusted immigrants who were preparing to leave the
scene of tlieir brief and most unsatisfactory sojourn and return to their
homes. After several such purchases with virgin dtii?t by Jackson's agent,
it became evident to those wlio had taken critical notice of the transactions
that a new and important discovery had Ijcen made and developed. The
finger of conjecture soon was pointed at Jackson, but it was not until a
week or ten days had passed that his connection with the purchases was
identified and that he, in response to the many a|)]ieals for information,
told of what had been done at Chicago Creek. At almost the same time
publicity was given at Arapahoe and in the Auraria-Denver settlement to
the Gregoiy-South Bend party's richer discovery.
The news produced a profound and enthusiastic excitement among the
thousands wlio had been hoping for and awaiting some such tidings, and
electrified the Cherry Creek towns. Instead of the pottering in the bed
of the South Platte and in the troughs of its foot-hill branches, real mines
were to be worked, and which held out a jiromise to every man. A pell-
mell race into the hills now began, each individual, each group of partners,
striving to be aliead of the others, and all confident that their fortunes
were about as good as made. Within a month thereafter the mountain
district that is drained by Clear Creek and its tributaries literally swarmed
with miners and prospectors — mostly the latter. The valleys and gulches.
254 HISTORY OF COLORADO
which had been primitive solitudes when winter gave way to spring, now
were crowded with strenuous human life. Large bodies of these men had
made directly for the Gregory camp and for Chicago Creek, but as the great
majority of those who iiocked into these localities were too late to get
possession of working-places in the near vicinity of the diggings, they were
compelled by the pressure of circumstances to move on into untried places.
Inasmuch, however, as scarcely one in fifty of these prospectors ever had had
even rudimentary experience in mining for gold, and hardly would have
recognized a gold-bearing vein had such a thing been in plain view before
them, nearly all were wholly dependent on the chances of finding a placer.
Bands and companies of Pike's Peakers still were trooping into the
country. Among those which arrived at Cherry Creek about the end of
May was one from Georgia, with a large wagon-train laden with supplies
and equipment, and numbering one hundred and seventy men. These were
headed by William G. and J. Oliver Russell, who, as the reader will recall,
had returned to their homes in that State in the autumn of the preceding
year for the purpose of bringing out a large party and adequate supplies
for thorough prospecting in the mountains. They conducted their men to
the Gregory District and thence into the ravine that has ever since been
known as "Russell Gulch". Here, in a locality about two miles southwest of
the scene of Gregory's discovery, they opened diggings which, during that
summer, were next to those of the Gregory District in obtained results.
Six of the men took out seventy-six ounces of gold, valued by the miners
at twenty dollars per ounce, in the first week. After the members of the
Russell party had staked their claims there was still room in the gulch for
many others. Before the end of June, some nine hundred miners were
digging and sluicing there, and, according to Hollister's record, "producing
an average weekly of $35,000". Upward of two hundred men were delving
at the same time in the adjacent "Illinois Gulch", in "Nevada Gulch",
and in the district of "Missouri Flats", and were getting gold at the rate
of about $9,000 weekly.
But the Gregory District was the center of popular attention and in-
terest. In that locality almost every claim that carried any gold was
yielding enough of the metal to make the work profitable, and from many
of these the values taken out ran into high figures. While the lioldings
of the Gregory-South Bend party continued to be coveted by thousands of
the less fortunate, some of the later comers had been doing about as well
as the discoverers. In the first week in June, a combination of twelve men
cleaned up a thousand dollars' worth of dust in one dar s work. A number
of other partnership claims were producing from one hundred to four
hundred and fifty dollars in gold values daily; and it was not hard to
find men who were "going it alone" and adding to their wealth at an aver-
age daily rate of twenty-five dollars to each. Several claims, which had
been worked by their locators but a short time, were sold before the middle
of that month for large sums, and upon terms that enabled the buyers to
pay all, or the major part, of the purchase-price with gold taken from the
properties.
Meanwhile the diggings at Chicago Creek had been greatly extended,
and other placers had been discovered in that section of the Clear Creek
Valley. Upward of three hundred men were at work on and in the imme-
diate vicinity of Chicago Creek; but, as the natural conditions in many
HISTORY OF COLORADO 255
places were rather troublesome, the daily compensations of most of these
toilers were low, ranging from three to five dollars. The more important
of the newer developments on the iipper reaches of Clear Creek at that time
were at "Spanish Bai-" — so called because it had been discovered by a small
party of Mexican miners — some three miles above Chicago Creek; and at
"Illinois" and "Grass Valley" bars about the same distance below the
mouth of that historic stream. Between five hundi-ed and six hundred
men were working in these bars, the majority of them taking out very
remunerative values ; but the labor of those at Spanish Bar was made more
than ordinarily difficult by the gi-eat number of large boulders in the trough
of Clear Creek at that place.
Yet there were still thousands of would-be miners then in the mountain
valleys of Clear Creek and its tributaries who had failed to find working-
places either in the established districts or in fresh localities, and who were
complaining loudly as they lingered at the diggings or wandered along
the streams and over the hills. Toward the close of June, some cheering
news came from Boulder Creek to this host of impatient and disappointed
men. On the 13th of that month, David Horsfal, William E. Blore and M.
L. McCaslin discovered another gold-bearing vein — which subsequently be-
came locally famous as the "Horsfal Lode" — in Gold Hill, the elevation
in which J. D. Scott had found a gold-seam earlier in the spring. The
accounts of the Horsfal discoverj', made more and more florid by every
repetition, induced hundreds of the idle men on Clear Creek to scurry to
the scene of the new "strike". But for most of these the conditions there
were no better than those from which they had migrated.
The extent of the field on Boulder Creek in which gold had been found
up to that time was small in comparison with that of Clear Creek, and had
a full quota of unemployed Argonauts. The placers of Gold Run and in
Deadwood Gulch were producing generously, but the entire surfaces of
these localities as well as much unproved ground in their vicinity already
had been cut up into claims. The disintegrated quartz of Scott's discovery
and of the Horsfal Lode yielded highly profitable returns during that
summer by the use of sluices. But as these really were stamp-mill propo-
sitions, which were developed later into valuable lode-mmes, the practicable
limits of the processes of placer work in dealing with their gold-bearing
material soon were reached.
Before the end of June, the congested conditions on the upper waters
of Clear Creek and on Boulder Creek had caused the thoughts of some of
the drifting and waiting fortune-seekers to turn to the possibility of finding
new fields of gold. Perhaps the metal existed on the western slope of the
main range in quantities as great as on the eastern ; and now stories about
dust and nuggets having been found in the South Park country by frontier-
men in early times were in circulation. Early in July, two or three small
parties passed over the Continental Divide into what is at present our Grand
County, which then was a part of Utah Territory. But these came back
early in the autumn without having had "luck" sufficient to induce them
to remain in that section. The South Park had been entered by prospectors,
of whose identity no definite knowledge has survived, late in March, and
who were followed by others in April. Kit Carson, then United States
Indian Agent in charge of the Ute Indians, heard of these early in May, and
understood that they had discovered gold somewhere in the Park. He
256 • HISTOEY OF COLORADO
believed that "if sucli is the case tlae Utahs will be dissatisfied", inasmuch
as that mountain basin was "the only place in their countiy where game
of any consequence can be found"; and he feared that if the miners and
the Utes came into contact there would be trouble. In a report dated June
8th, he said that these or some other white men had killed a Ute in that
section of the mountains. However, I have found no definite record of oold
having been discovered there during the spring months of that year.
About the close of June, a party, in the formation of which W. J. Cur-
tice appeared to have been a leader, was organized in the Gregory District
to prospect the country lying in a southwesterly direction from upper Clear
Creek, and with an intention to extend the exploration beyond the Conti-
nental Divide in the event of failure to find gold on the easterly side of
the range. Going to Chicago Creek, these prospectors proceeded up that
stream to its head, the course being south by west, and, at Mount Eosalie,
crossed over the dividing ridge to the headwaters of the Xorth Fork of tlie
South Platte Eiver, whence they passed on into the northern border of the
South Park. Here they fell in witli a small party of Wisconsin men. who
appear to have entered the park by way of the Soutli Platte Caiiou. The
two groups joined fortunes and moved on through the westward side of the
park, prospecting as they advanc-ed, and three days later established a
camp on a branch of the South Fork of the South Platte to which they
gave the name "Tarryall Creek'', an appellation that it still retains. It has
been understood tliat tlie creek so was named by the inemljers of the
company because all had agreed to tarry at this camping-place, which was
not far from the site of the modern town of Como, long enough to make
a thorough examination of the general vicinity for gold, as tlio surface
indications in and near tlie lied of the stream seemed to be promising.
Whether the halt was due to judgment or to chance, the outcome proved
it to have teen fortunate. Within a few days the party found rich de-
posits of placer gold in the creek's bed. In generosity born of their success,
the tarriers gave to their camp the same name that they had bestowed
upon the stream, thus inviting all comers to sto]) and take a share of the
wealth they had discovered, provided it were obtained outside the lines of
their claims.
Ere this time, other bands of prospectors, coming by way of tlie foot-
hills, had entered the South Park; one of which consisted of George A.
Bute and five other residents of the pioneer settlements in the locality
of the present Colorado City. Most of these Argonauts, hearing of the
"strike" on Tarryall Creek, soon were gathered at the camp of the discover-
ers. But not many days had elapsed lx>fore there was an uproar of disputa-
tion and wrangling over conflicting claims, the new men alleging that
the meml)ers of the pioneer party were attempting to "grab everything",