January, the owner of a placer claim in Nevada Gulch, using a rocker,
washed out gold to the value of $2,400.
The large quantity of the metal that had been taken from the beds of
streams and from gulches and lodes since the discoveries in the mountains
by Jackson and Gregory was not a more potent factor in stimulating confi-
dence and enthusiasm than were the prospects for a wide extension of the
mining-field, and a still greater production of gold in the developed districts,
during the new year.
CHAPTEE XIV.
EXTENSION OF THE PIKE's PEAK GOLD-FIELD IN 1860. INITIAL GOLDEN
KEVELATIONS IN THE MOUNTAIN VALLEY OF THE ARKANSAS RIVEE. ā
DISCOVERT OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA GULCH. CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING
IT. OPULENCE OF THE GULCH MINES. ā STAMPEDE OF FORTUNE-SEEKERS
TO THE NEW DIGGINGS. MULTITUDE OF PIKE"s PEAK IMMIGRANTS IN
THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1860. VISIONARY ANTICIPATIONS AND
HARSH EXPERIENCE OF THE MAJORITY. FURTHER DISCOVERIES ON THE
UPPER ABKANSAS. ^ACTIVITIES IN THE SOUTH PARK. HAMILTON CITY.
NEW DISTRICTS OF BUCKSKIN JOE AND GEORGIA GULCH. MINING
OPERATIONS ON THE BLUE RIVER. "LONG'S PEAK MINES"'. CONDITIONS
ON UPPER CLEAR CREEK. ā SILVER-VEINS FOUND AT GEORGETOWN. ā IN-
EFFICIENCY OF THE EARLIER STAMP-MILLS IN EXTRACTING GOLD FROM
QUARTZ. DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE LODE MINERS. THEIR
IGNORANCE OF SOME FEATURES OF SUCH MINING. ā IMPROVED SERVICE
AND RESULTS BY THE STAMP-MILLS. LIVELINESS OF THE CLEAR CREEK
MINING TOWNS. FOUNDING OF CENTRAL CITY. ITS ABSORPTION OF
MOUNTAIN CITY. ADVENT OF EMPIRE CITY. EXHAUSTION OF BOULDER
CREEK PLACERS. INCREASED DEVELOPMENTS OF QUARTZ MINES IN
THAT DISTRICT. SIGNS OF DEBILITY IN SOUTH PARK PLACERS. CON-
DITIONS IN THE CALIFORNIA GULCH LOCALITY IN THE AUTUMN OF
1860. RISE AND METEORIC CAREER OF ORO CITY. ā GENER.iL PROS-
PERITY IN THE LOWLAND TOWNS. RAPID GROWTH OF DENVER CITY IN
POPULATION AND BUSINESS. PIKe's PEAK GOLD COINS. DAILY NEWS-
PAPERS ESTABLISHED. COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE EAST. .AGRICUL-
TURE NEAR DENVER CITY. RETARDATION OF BOULDER CITY. ā FLOURISH-
ING STATE OF GOLDEN AND COLORADO CITIES. NEW CANON CITY. ā PRO-
JECTED TOWNS OF THE WESTERN SLOPE. FOUNDING OF PUEBLO CITY.
MAGNITUDE OF ITS SITE. FOUNTAIN CITY AND ITS AGRICULTURISTS.
EXODUS OF DISAPPOINTED AND DISILLUSIONED MEN IN THE AUTUMN
OP 1860. ā OUTPUT OF THE MINES IN 1859-60. GOLD DISCOVERIES IN
THE SAN JUAN REGION. GOVERNMENTLESS CONDITIONS IN THE PIKE'S
PEAK COUNTRY.
The prevailing sentiment among the steadfast of our pioneers at tlie
close of the winter of 1859-60 was expressed in the declaration that "never
spring dawned upon a region of country, of brighter future, than now dawns
upon this our chosen land of Jefferson"'. Apparently in direct confirmation
of this sanguine view, a great extension of the mining-tield was made
earlier in the new j-ear than had been anticipated. This was a district
lying in the mountains, on the far-upper waters of the Arkansas Eiver. The
Eocky Mountain News, in its issue of March 28th, said "a flying rumor that
a party were making from twenty to twenty-five dollars each per day, on
a tributary of the Arkansas Eiver, south of the [South] Park, has been
prevalent for a few days past, but we deem it too good to be true, though
we have no doubt good mines are being worked in that region". The rumor
was true so far as it implied that a discovery had occurred in the mountain
valley of the Arkansas, but not as to the com]:>ensations it wa,s yielding to the
discoverers.
Several small bands of prospectors had been in that part of the country
in the autumn of 1859, but were not successful in their search. On February
;.'78
HISTORY OF COLORADO 279
15th (1860), a party of twenty-five men, among whom were L. Dow. J. B.
Earl, William Fields, F. Hopkins, and A. G. Kelley, left Auraria-Denver
for the upper Arkansas, where Kelley "had prospected last fall". Entering
the South Park by way of the Ute Pass, they crossed the range that forms
the park's westerly boundary, and on March 9th halted on the Arkansas, in
a locality about twenty miles below the site of the city of Leadville. On
two or three of the next preceding days, "several pans of dirt had been
washed in the different ravines, and we never failed to get a good color".
The party organized "Kelley's Mining District" ā the first on the Arkansas
Elver ā on March 10th, so naming it for Kelley, who appears to have been
the party's guide. J. B. Earl was elected President of the district, and
William Fields Secretary and Recorder. In a published letter wi'itten by L.
Dow on March 25th, he said :
"There are no other diggings discovered except the bar or river diggings. There
is so much ice in the river at present that it cannot be prospected to advantage, but
the banks and high bars will prospect from one to three cents per pan on the surface.
The bed-rock has not yet been found, but everyone is confident of a good thing in the
bed of the river. Men are now making from two to five dollars per day, with small
rockers, being obliged to thaw the dirt and carry it in buckets from ten to twenty
yards. People already begin to flock in here, and there will, no doubt, be three or
four hundred men here before the first of April. The snow is fast disappearing, and
there is nothing to hinder people from coming in with wagons or carts, and one or
two thousand pounds load."
Prospecting in the river-bed soon was extended over a distance of some
miles, with more encouraging results, which ranged from four to eight
cents to the pan on the surface, and from five to twenty-five cents at a depth
of five or six feet. Hopkins, a member of the party, carrying the first definite
account of the new diggings, arrived in Denver on the 3d of April, having
visited Russell Gulch and the Gregory District while upon his way. News
of his company's discoveries had preceded him there, and he found many
of the miners offering their claims for sale and making other preparations
for an immediate flight into the new field. A stampede from all the older
mining-districts to the Kelley Diggings, similar to that in which thousands
of men went into the South Park and to the Blue River in the previous
year, began in the first week of April. There were many instances of miners
abandoning claims from which they were obtaining daily from fair to good
remuneration, to take the chances of finding something better in the fresh
territory.
In the last half of that month, another discovery was made in the
moxmtain valley of the Arkansas, near the highest sources of that river, and
which soon led to golden revelations that produced a frenzy of excitement
among the population of the Pike's Peak country. According to the usual
account of the circumstances attending the first strike of gold in that
locality, a party of miners, consisting of T. L. Currier, Abraham Lee, Isaac
N. Rafferty, S. S. Slater, and George W. Stevens, left Russell Gulch on the
19th of March pursuant to a plan they had formed thorouglily to prospect
the section of the country near the head of the Arkansas. I quote the fol-
lowing from a popular version of the story :
"While they were at work in Russell Gulch the previous year, a man had come
into the camp after an exploration of the region lying between Leadville and the
Gunnison, and reported a very rich find in the neighborhood of what is now [1880]
supposed to be Colorado Gulch, He had incurred so many hardsliips, however, having
280 HISTOKY OF COLOEADO
been nearly starved to death before reaching the [Russell] diggings, that he had
no desire to take an}- more chances in the pursuit of wealth, and therefore headed
for the States."
This rather theatrical narrative goes on to tell that having received from
their emaciated and disgusted informant what appeai-ed to be an accurate
description of the place of his "very rich find", Currier and his associates
resolved to searcli for it early in the next spring. Setting out on the date
given above, they traveled through the South Park, and after crossing the
dividing range by a pass nearly opposite the present town of Granite, they
struck the Arkansas at a point a short distance below the site of Granite.
Passing over the river and turning up the valley, they prospected several
gulches, but found nothing to induce them to make more than a surface
examination. Moving on up the valley, they came to a "flat" near the lower
end of a gulch, on April Sth, and from the sand in the bed of a creek flowing
through the locality panned some faint "colors" of gold. Trudging on up
the course of this stream ā "they were nearly worn out" ā and iinding more
"colors" as they advanced, they stopped at a point nearly opposite the site
of Leadville. Here they went Ijelow the surface and again found "colors",
in a cement-like deposit into which they could not penetrate far with the
tools at hand. At a little distance farther up the gulch, when, of course,
"they had almost abandoned the search", they came to evidence that earlier
prospectors had been upon the ground : a recent shallow excavation which
they believed to be the work of two men, who had forsaken their task. En-
larging this, and sinking it into gravel, they began using their pans, and
presently obtained an average of fifty cents" worth of gold to each washing.
Claims were staked off immediately. Two stranger-prospectors entered the
gulch a day or two later, and were admitted into the company and given
discovery-rights. "The seven men then proceeded to form a mining district.
enact by-laws, and elect offiteers. All of this occurred between the Sth and
13th days of April, 1860." So was done, according to this story, the first
mining and first claim-staking in "California Gulch," the scene of the
richest and most famous placer mining upon the soil of Colorado.
But the facts, as stated by all the participants in the achievement, ex-
cepting Currier, differ materially from the stag)' recital from which I
derived the foregoing. A sober account of the initial discovery in Cali-
fornia Gulch, published in the following August, and to which the names
of Lee, Eafferty, Slater, Stevens, K. E. Alvord, and James W. ililler are
attached, says nothing of the staiwed prospector and his tale, nothing of an
attempt to locate his "very rich find", nothing of the excavation by earlier
prospectors, and makes the party the result of an incidental meeting of its
members, of their falling in company, at the mouth of the gulch. The fol-
lowing is a part of their narration :
"About the 12th day of April. Messrs. T. L. Currier, A. Lee, Geo. Stevens. Isaac
N. Rafferty, and S. S. Slater fell in company at the mouth of this gulch (where it
puts into the valley) all bent on a prospecting tour, and as usual in such cases, some
of the comjiany went a little distance up the gulch to take a look at it, preparatory
to giving it a thorough prospecting, while the balance of the company remained to
keep camp. After going up a short distance we found an air hole through the snow;
we got down and took up a pan of the loose gravel near the surface ā washed it out
and found color, after which we returned to camp and reported. Then it was finally
decided to prospect the gulch thoroughly. Then we were joined by James Miller and
Rufus Alvord. who assisted in the performance of the labor. We were some two
HISTOEY OF COLORADO -^81
weeks prospecting before we satisfied iMirselves that it would pay to worl<, sinlcing
hole after hole from eight to twelve feet deep; shoveling ofi' the snow, where it was
from eight to twelve feet deep, until at last we satisfied ourselves, after which we
proceeded to the valley to make the wonderful discovery public."
They reported it at the Kelley Diggings ā which in the meantime had
not "panned out"' as well as had been expected ā in the evening of April 25th.
On the next day a large party of the miners there went np to the gulch "to
get in before the rush". These men made further developments in the new-
district, and were in possession of claims when the lead of a breathless
multitude of eager men appeared at the gulch. Ad\'ices from the Kelley
Diggings, dated May 7th, said "the district is entirely deserted, o^-ing to
high water and the recent discoveries", and that "all Kelleysburg" had gone
to the gulch. When the richness of the gold deposits in that ravine became
evident, the depression was given the name of "California Gulch'" Ijecause its
opulence was believed to equal, if not to surpass, that of the most productive
placer district ever known in California.
Some of the diggings in California Gulch quickly proved to be by far
the most opulent yet found in the Pike's Peak mining-region, and ere the
middle of May the section in which it lay literally was swarming with
miners, prospectors, and the riff-raff of the settlements. Reports from "the
Gulch", unnecessarily illuminated by exaggeration, had produced an intense
excitement in the older mining-districts as well as in all of the "cities",
and started droves of men upon a scamper to the head of the Arkansas River.
Denver and the other lowland towns were deserted by nearly all the un-
trammelled members of their population within a week. The gttleh was
staked out for a distance of six or seven miles, and by midsummer was
harboring upward of four thousand people, among whom were three men who
took from their claim gold to the value of $60,000 in less than three months.
"For a mile below the discovery shaft the gulch paid extraordinarily and
regularly", says Hollister. in his Mines of Colorado, "but above and telow
it was spotted and streaked, and on the whole did not more than pay
expenses. The discovery of McXulty Gulch, a few miles off, drew .500 loose-
footed men in a single day. In this there was a vast amount of stripping;
it was quite spotted, but all things considered, it turned out very well."
Another writer relates that "very soon after the work of sluicing commenced,
the miners noticed a heavy red sand of which they had the greatest difficidtj'-
in disposing. It mingled with the finer particles of gold and obstinately
refused to permit itself to be carried off by the water". This troublesome
"sand" was almost pure silver, but its value remained unknown until the
discovery, in the later '70s, of the mineral from which it had been formed ā
a revelation that gave birth to the city of Leadville, which became the me-
tropolis of Colorado's most famous silver-district.
Notwithstanding the tales of failure told by the thousands of empty-
handed men who had returned from Pike's Peak to the States in the autumn
of 1859, the reports of the successful miners who had accompanied them
u)>on the way across the plains and the golden evidence of their good fortune
which these exhibited,, together with the announcement by the Director of
the United States Mints of heavy receipts of virgin gold for coinage that
had been mined in the Rocky :Mountain sections of Kansas and Nebraska
Territories, convinced the great liody of the people of the East that a new
282 HISTORY OP COLORADO
gold-region actually had been developed in the Far West and already was
contributing largely to the material resources of the Xation.
These facts, circulated widely by newspapers, brought on another epi-
demic of gold-fever in many of the eastern States and in the sunrise parts of
Kansas and Xebraska Territories, and which also afEected the Pacific Coast
and New Mexico. It caused a movement of hopeful fortune-seeking men
to Pike's Peak in number which some of our pioneers thought to be as great,
or even greater, than that of the multitude that had streamed to the Rockies
in the spring and summer of the year before, but which probably was not
so large. As had been the case in 1859, the mass of these newcomers con-
sisted of men ignorant of the methods of mining for the precious metals,
thoughtless of the competition they should meet in their efforts to establish
themselves as working miners, and further self-deceived by the flights of
their unrestrained imagination. Here and there among them were men wlio
had their families and all their other belongings with them, anticipating
no dilEculty in beginning immediatelj' upon their arrival at the mountains
to lay the foundations of a competency. With the earlier trains and troops
of this host was the great majority of the Pike's Peak miners who had
passed the winter at their former homes, and now were returning to
resiune work upon their claims, some having with them their wives and
children in evidence of their intention to remain permanently.
Caravans of wagons laden with merchandise, ore-treating machinery,
agricultural implements, and all things else that might aid in producing
profitable returns in the new country, were wending tlieir way upon the
routes leading to the "Kansas gold-region". It was estimated that eleven
thousand wagons of freighters and emigrants, "bound for Pike's Peak", by
the Platte River route, had passed Fort Kearny before the 1st of May.
"The Platte Route may be said to have contained, for a full month", said
a chronicler of that year, "but a single train, extending from the mountains
to the Missouri River." At the same time other thousands of emigrants with
their wagons, coming from the East and other freight-laden trains, were
in motion upon the Arkansas River and Smoky Hill trails.
By the middle of May, reports of the discoveries in Califoimia Gulch
were flpng along all the routes of travel to Pike's Peak, and according to
some of these, many of the miners in that gulch liad found it no longer
necessary to use picks, shovels, and pans in their work, but were scooping
out gold with their hands.
The greater part of the incoming concourse stopped in the foot-hill
towns only long enough to rest their animals and make essential repairs
to their wagons, and then "put out for the diggings", the more promising
of which in the estimation of most being those at the head of the Arkansas.
A large number of the prospective miners who arrived at the mountains
after the middle of May also headed for California Gulch: biit others,
warned of the overcrowded conditions in that locality, went into the older
districts, in which they found so many claim-owners willing to "sell out"'
at a "reasonable price" that the ardor of Imndreds was damijeued at once
and began to droop. Yet a number of the "pioneers of '60" succeeded in
securing good claims, and some made what were tlien looked upon as
"moderate fortunes". But of the many who were Ijent on mining and
nothing else, and had had visions of great wealth accumulated in a single
season and anticipations of carrying their golden gains home before the
HISTOEY OF COLOEADO 283
next -winter, four-fifths acquired nothing but disappointment and harsh
experience. The only recourse for most of them was to seek and obtain
employment under others ; but as the mining-districts soon became overrun
with idle men, wages fell to low figures. Of the circumstances that eon-
fronted such as these, Hollister says:
"There was little else to do but work by the day in the poorly secured lodes,
or the deep, wet gulches, and wages were not much higher than in the States in
proportion to the nature of the labor and the expense of living. It does not seem
very strange, either, that the old settlers ā who had been in tlie mines a year! ā were
somewhat cold toward the immigrants. They felt that they had earned what they
had got, and that there was chance for others to do likewise. Surely, they said, all
these strangers cannot expect employment here on our ground ; let them branch out
and find mines for themselves, or if not, go back. So the dwellers in wagons, in
tents, in booths, prospected ā which is a discouraging business except to the pros-
pector by nature, who must have the faith of a martyr ā made continual jjurchases of
claims which they knew not how to work, gold-washing being a nice business, and
were obliged to throw up; cut saw-logs or cord-wood, or engaged in such other work
incidental to mining as the case admitted; or finally, laid around and consumed the
grub they had brought with them."
However, the year 1860 relatively was the most prosperous known in
the Pike's Peak region prior to the advent of the railway in Colorado's
domain a decade later. Placer mining attained its zenith in that year, after
which it declined steadily season by season.
Further extensions of the mining-field were made in 18G0 subsequent
to the great disclosures in California Gulch. Gold was found in a ravine
at the base of Mount Massive and opposite the mouth of California Gulch.
As the discoverers had used a frying-pan in washing out the first dust, the
gully was named "Frying-pan Gulch"'. The place was fully occupied mthin
a few days, but did not develop well until some eighteen months later,
when the name was changed to "Colorado Gulch", which is mentioned in the
story I have quoted telling of the starved prospector. At tlie site of our
town of Granite, on the Arkansas Eiver, about fifteen miles below Cali-
fornia Gulch, H. A. W. Tabor, who later became a distinguished and
eminently public-spirited leader in Colorado's affairs, discovered a highly
productive placer from which he took the foundation of the large fortune
he ultimately acquired in mining on the headwaters of the Arkansas. Some
hundreds of miners found profitable employment in this locality, and also
in the Kelley District, several miles farther down the river, work in the
latter having been resumed after all the promising ground near the head of
that stream was taken up.
Although many owners of claims in the South Park that produced but
low values had either sold or abandoned them and gone to the new diggings
on the Arkansas, that section of the mountain country continued to be the
scene of feverish activity throughout the year. As if the three "cities"
that had arisen there in 18.59 were not enough, another town was added to
the South Park collection in the summer of 1860. This was "Hamilton
City", which was said to have been named after Earl Hamilton, a member
of the Curtice party, that made the gold-discovery on Tarryall Creek in the
previous year. In the prime of its short life, the new town, which stood
on the eastward side of that creek, and was a close neighbor of Tarryall
City, had a population of two thousand or more. Xevertheless, it passed
into oblivion, in company with Jefferson City and Tarryall, at a time now
284 HISTORY OF COLOEADO
in the long past. In August, upon ground over wliich prospectors had
tramped repeatedly in 1859, a rich placer was found by a party of which
a frontierman named Joseph Higginbotham was a member, but who was
nick-named "Buckskin Joe", because of his garb of dressed buckskin.
The diggings presently uncovered very lucrative deposits of gold. So. of
course, there was a stampede to "Buckskin Joe", which name had been given
the district in honor of Higginbotham. In October, the "city" of "Buck-
skin Joe" was laid out at these diggings, but in the next year its name
was changed to "Laurette". The place was a typical mining-town, and had
a lively career for several years, biit has lieen extinct for many. About the
time of the Buckskin Joe discovery, the yellow metal was found in "Georgia
Gulch", a ravine drained by a headwater of the Blue River, and lying nine
or ten miles to the eastward of the site of the town of Brcckenridge. A
horde of unemployed men raced into Georgia Giikh, some of the mines of
which became "enormously profitable" in the autumn of the year. The
older diggings on tlie Blue and Swan rivers were largeh' extended in the
mining-seasons of 1860, Avlien several thoiisands of men occupied them,
most of whom were doing well or even better, while others were "just
keeping soul and body together".
In the summer of this year, prospectors in the district drained l)y the
upper waters of Big and Little Thompson creeks uneartjied gold in quanti-
ties sufficient to imply that there was a great deal more to be had by further
digging. A crowd of the fortune-hunting immigrants and also some ex-
perienced miners hurried to the locality of this strike. At the outset, these
"Long's Peak Mines"' bade fair to produce "big things", but by and by
proved incapable of redeeming their promises. The territory of our Grand
County also was pretty thoroughly prospected during the summer and
autumn, but without results of much significance. I have found no authen-
tic record of a productive mining-camp having been established in any part
of tbe ]\riddle Park in 1860.
While the scope of operation on upper Clear Creek remained about the