A Kid's Look at Colorado by Phyllis J. Perry

Author:Phyllis J. Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 2005-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Early Gold, Silver, and Coal Mining in Colorado

The 49ers, rushing to the goldfields of California, ignored Colorado as they followed the various trails from Independence, Missouri, to the Far West. But when gold was found in Colorado ten years later, the 59ers came pouring into the state in search of gold and silver.

The Colorado Gold Rush

In 1858, the Russell brothers found gold along Cherry Creek and, by the end of that year, several hundred people hunting gold had arrived in Colorado. At first they lived in Denver and Auraria on each side of Cherry Creek. Then they spread out to other areas. Some of these gold seekers were lucky and struck it rich. George A. Jackson of Missouri made a strike at Chicago Creek. John Gregory of Georgia found gold in Gregory Gulch, and the community that grew up there came to be called Central City. In 1860, Abe Lee discovered rich gold diggings near what is now Leadville.

The first miners used picks, shovels, and even sticks. They dug in the ground to find “free” gold or nuggets and they also used pans to search for gold in the bottoms of streams. They would swish the water, sand, and gravel out of their pans, saving the heavy and valuable gold that sank to the bottom. Gold dust and gold nuggets were kept in a “poke,” or small leather bag. Later, miners made sluice boxes, which worked something like a giant-sized gold pan. In a sluice, the gold sank to the bottom of the box, while the sand and gravel were washed away.

After free gold was gone, miners looked deeper for veins of gold. For this, they needed to use machinery. The gold that was still inside the mountains was called lode gold. Most lode gold was in quartz rock. Miners dug into the sides of mountains or dug deep into the ground to get out this rock. They chipped it out with picks and blasted it out with dynamite and lifted it out of the mine with a hoist. Machinery was used in a stamp mill to crush the rock so that the gold could be removed.

Mining companies began to grow. Ruins of these old mining sites in Colorado can be seen in such places as Idaho Springs, Georgetown, and Dumont.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.