8. Frank Fossett, Colorado: Its Gold and Silver Mines (New York: C. G. Crawford, 1879), 411. See also Don Griswold and Jean Griswold, History of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado (Denver: Colorado Historical Society, 1996), vol. 1, 134–147; New Blair, Leadville (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Publishing, 1980), 27–31.
9. Fossett, Colorado: Its Gold and Silver Mines, 416.
10. M. H. Foote to “Helena,” Fall 1880, and to “Beloved Girl,” July 10, 1880 (James D. Hague Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California). The previous quotations come from Foote letters of May 12, May 28, July 8, September 8, and November (no day) 1879, all from the James D. Hague Collection.
11. M. H. Foote to “James Hague,” May 27, 1887 (James D. Hague Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California); Mary Hallock Foote, The Led-Horse Claim: A Romance of a Mining Camp (Ridgewood, N. J.: Gregg Press, 1968 reprint), 11.
12. Rodman Paul, “Colorado as a Pioneer of Science in the Mining West,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review (June, 1960), 46–47.
13. Samuel F. Emmons, “Lead Smelting at Leadville, Colorado,” Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1885), 295.
CHAPTER 7: THE SILVER EIGHTIES: THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES
1. Quoted in Charles Henderson, Mining in Colorado (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), 124–125.
2. Duane Vandenbusche, The Gunnison County (Gunnison, Colo.: B&B Printers, 1980), chs. 10, 12, 13; Helen Hunt Jackson, “Oh-Be-Joyful Creek and Poverty Gulch,” Atlantic Monthly (December, 1883), 755–757.
3. William Weston, Descriptive Pamphlet . . . Silver Region (Montrose, Colo.: Western Reflections, 2006 [reprint]), 33–35; Rocky Mountain News, April 17, 1883, September 1, 1885; Red Mountain Pilot, June 2, 1883; Engineering and Mining Journal, August 4, September 22, 1888, and August 3, 1889.
4. Ernest Ingersoll, “Silver San Juan,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (April, 1882), 688–690, 703–704; Engineering and Mining Journal, February 28, 1880, February 4, 1882, October 19, 1887; The San Juan (Silverton), May 19, 1887.
5. Engineering and Mining Journal, May 5, 1888. Malcolm J. Rohrbough discusses this case in detail in Aspen: The History of a Silver-Mining Town, 1879–1893 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 96–107.
6. Congressional Record (March 21, 1882), 2100; Henry Teller, speech on gold and silver coinage, Congressional Record (January 19, 1886), 30.
7. Letter to New York Tribune, n.d., Tabor Scrapbook 5, Colorado Historical Society, Denver; speech, January 30, 1890, Tabor Box 15, Colorado Historical Society, Denver.
8. William Jennings Bryan, The Cross of Gold (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 17, 19.
CHAPTER 8: “THERE’LL BE A HOT TIME”
1. Mary Hallock Foote, quoted in Rodman W. Paul, ed., A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West (San Marino, Cal.: Huntington Library, 1972), 175, 200.
2. Helen Hunt Jackson, “O-Be-Joyful Creek and Poverty Gulch,” Atlantic Monthly (December 1883), 753.
3. B. C. Keeler, Leadville and Its Silver Mining (Chicago: Perry Bros., 1879), 3–4.
4. Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960 reprint), 190–191.
5. Ward Ordinance Books; Telluride Ordinance Books; Victor Ordinance Books; St. Elmo Ordinance Books; Liston E. Leyendecker, Christine A. Bradley, and Duane A. Smith, The Rise of the Silver Queen (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2005), 34–35.
6. Mabel Barbee Lee, Cripple Creek Days (New York: Doubleday, 1958), 75–77.
7. William Jackson, “Railroad Conflicts in Colorado in the Eighties,” Colorado Magazine (June 1946), 17; Leslie’s Illustrated, April 12 and May 17, 1879.
8. Mollie Dorsey Sanford, Mollie (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959), 137, 139; Harriet Backus, Tomboy Bride (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett, 1970), 38–39, 110; Duane A. Smith, ed., A Visit with the Tomboy Bride (Montrose, Colo.: Western Reflections, 2003), 51; Lee, Cripple Creek Days, 21–22; Anne Ellis, Life of an Ordinary Woman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980 repr.), 29, 205.
9. Mildred Ekman, letter to author, June 18, 1974; Martha Gibbs, letter to author, August 22, 1974; author interview with Ernest Hoffman, March 2, 1973.
10. Baseball section, Daily Central City Register, September 6–8, 1871; Miners’ Register, July 14, 1867; Rocky Mountain News, April 16, 1867; San Miguel Examiner, May 18, 1907. For more on the Leadville Blues, see Duane A. Smith, “Baseball Champions of Colorado: The Leadville Blues of 1882,” Journal of Sport History, Spring 1977.
11. Rev. J. J. Gibbons, In the San Juan (Telluride, Colo.: n.p., 1972 repr.), 20; George Darley, Pioneering in the San Juan (Chicago: F. H. Revell, 1899), 21, 22, 37, 124.
CHAPTER 9: “THE EVERLASTING LOVE OF THE GAME”
1. Mabel Barbee Lee, Cripple Creek Days (New York: Doubleday, 1958), 270. See also David Lavender, Red Mountain (Ouray, Colo.: Western Reflections, 2000 [reprint]), 517.
2. Henry M. Teller, “Silver Coinage,” January 6, 1892 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1892), 3–13; Henry M. Teller, “The Silver Question,” April 20, 1892 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1892), 3, 28.
3. Rocky Mountain News, July 20, 1893; Rocky Mountain Sun, July 1, 1893; Silverton Standard, July 22, 1893; Pagosa Springs News, August 11, 1893.
4. Colorado Bureau of Labor Statistics, Effects of Demonetization of Silver on the Industries of Colorado, July 1 to August 31, 1893 (Denver: Smith-Brook Printing, 1893), 2–33.
5. Constitution and By-Laws of the Eldora Miners’ Union No. 45 (Eldora, Colo.: Miner Print, 1898), 2–23.
6. William Jennings Bryan, The Cross of Gold (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 28.
7. Vachel Lindsay, “Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan”; available at http://www.geocities.com/vachellindsaybryan
8. T. A. Rickard, quoted in Robert A. Trennert, Riding the High Wire (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2001), 1; see also ibid. at 66.
9. Frank Crampton, Deep Enough (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982 [reprint]), 22.
10. Anne Ellis, The Life of an Ordinary Woman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980 [reprint]), 206.
11. Robert Service, “The Prospector,” in The Best of Robert Service (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953), 56.
CHAPTER 10: 1900–1929: LOOKING FORWARD INTO YESTERDAY
1. James E. Fell, Jr., Ores to Metals: The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 232–236.
2. George Graham Rice, My Adventures with Your Money (Las Vegas: Nevada Publications, 1986 [reprint]), 25.
3. Dan Plazak, A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top: Fraud and Deceit in the Golden Age of American Mining (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006), 201, 288.
4. Cripple Creek Times, August 15, 1903. See also George G. Suggs, Jr., Colorado’s War on Militant Unionism (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University, 1972), chs. 5 & 7.
5. Reports of Listed Companies (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Colorado Springs Mining Stock Association, 1907), 1–3.
6. For a general overview of these times, see Suggs, Colorado’s War, 84–100; Robert Guliford Taylor, Cripple Creek (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966), 116–120.
7. Carroll H. Coberly, “Ashcroft,” Colorado Magazine, vol. 37, 1960, 88–94.
8. Charles A. Bramble, The A B C of Mining (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1898), 145, 147–148.
9. Gunnison News-Champion, February 2, 1912; Duane Vandenbusche, The Gun-nison County (Gunnison, Colo.: B & B Printers, 1980), chs. 13, 14, 18.
10. Georgetown Courier, July 8, 1911, March 4 and September 2, 1916, August 4, 1917, January 10, 1919, September 4, 1920; Silver Standard, September 13, 1902, December 5, 1903.
11. The inspector’s reports for all these mines are found in the archives of the Division of Mines, Department of Natural Resources, Denver.
12. The Mountai
n States Mineral Age (Denver: Mineral Age Publishing, 1922), 27.
13. Robert Service, “The Prospector,” in Best of Robert Service (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953), 56.
CHAPTER 11: MUCKING THROUGH DEPRESSION, WAR, AND NEW IDEAS
1. Colorado Year Book (Denver: State of Colorado, 1939), 7.
2. David Lavender, One Man’s West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007 new ed.), 29, 30–31, 33.
3. Student interview of Minnie Lewis for Professor Ken Periman’s class, Fort Lewis College.
4. Charles Merrill, Charles Henderson, and O. E. Kiessling, Small Scale Placer Mines as a Source of Gold Employment (Philadelphia: U. S. Works Projects Administration, 1937), 28; Charles W. Miller, Jr., The Automobile Gold Rushes (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1998), 59–60, 86–87, 133.
5. Marshall Sprague, Money Mountain (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 292.
6. John Joyce, Annual Report (Denver: Colorado Bureau of Mines, 1929), 9.
7. Colorado Bureau of Mines, Annual Report for 1933 (Denver: State of Colorado, 1933), 10, 22; Durango Weekly Herald, April 8, 1937; Durango News, February 28, 1936.
8. Bill Jones, “Charles A. Chase and the Shenandoah-Dives Mines,” in Mining the Hard Rock in the Silverton San Juans (Silverton, Colo.: Simpler Way Book Co., 1996), 24–26.
9. Minerals Yearbook 1942 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942), 8, 26, 34, 80–82, 317, 322.
10. Minerals Yearbook 1951 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1952), 145–146.
11. Thomas Hornsby Ferril, New and Selected Poems (Westport, Conn.: Green-wood Press, 1952), 109.
12. Colorado Annual Report 1962 (Denver: Colorado Bureau of Mines, 1962), 62.
13. J. P. Wood, Report on Mine Tailing Pollution of Clear Creek, Clear Creek-Gilpin Counties, Colorado (Denver: n.p., 1935), 9, 11, 16, 23, 29–31, 34; Humphreys Tunnel Mining Co. v. Frank, 46 Colo. 524, 530–32, 105 P. 1093 (1909); Wilmore v. Chain O’Mines, Inc., 96 Colo. 319, 321, 324, 330–331, 44 P.2d 1024 (1935); Elk Mountain Pilot, March 21, 1935. See also Slide Mines, Inc. v. Left Hand Ditch Co., 102 Colo. 69, 77 P.2d 125 (1928).
14. Chase to Lyon, January 30, 1946, January 25, 1950, January 30, 1946, in author’s possession; Silverton Standard, March 6, 1980.
15. Mineral and Water Resources of Colorado (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964), 84.
CHAPTER 12: MINING ON THE DOCKET OF PUBLIC OPINION: THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGE
1. Helen Hunt Jackson, “O-Be-Joyful Creek and Poverty Gulch,” Atlantic Monthly, December, 1883, 755–756.
2. James Grafton Rogers, My Rocky Mountain Valley (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Press, 1968), 47–48.
3. “Report,” Western Resources Conference (Golden: Colorado School of Mines, 1971), iii.
4. Grand Junction Sentinel, quoted in the Mining Record. September 4, 1974; Mining Record, January 27, 1982, and February 15, 1984.
5. A Summary of Mineral Industry Activities in Colorado 1976: Part II Metal-Nonmetal (Denver: Colorado Division of Mines, 1977), 9, 10–26, 53–57.
6. For the Summitville mess, see Denver Post reports from 1889 to 2000. Also see “The Summitville Mine and Its Downstream Effects,” U.S. Geological Survey, On-Line Update, July 11, 1995, 1–4; “Report of Review: Region 8 … Ensure Efficient Summitville Superfund Site Cleanup” (Kansas City: EPA, 1996), 5–13; Jennifer Wells, “Canada’s Next Billionaire,” Maclean’s, June 3, 1996, 43–44; High Country News, January 19, 1998, 6, 10; “Environmental Considerations of Active and Abandoned Mine Lands: Lessons from Summitville, Colorado” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995), 2–6, 35.
7. Denver Post, October 9, 2007.
Remember, the past tells us of ourselves
and gives hints of the future.
Bibliographical Essay
Colorado mining has attracted an increasing number of researchers, historians, writers, and ordinary but interested folk over the past 150 years. It is a fascinating story, one well worth digging into with vigor. While it is impossible to list all the books, articles, and primary source materials that are available, the following are places to start prospecting. The field opening to you is limited only by your own interests.
The chapter footnotes provide a sweeping panorama of sources, each one of which will lead to others. Although it takes time to pursue research through them, Colorado newspapers hold a high-grade deposit for studying mining history on every imaginable subject. Beware of becoming so interested that you deviate from your original search! Olive M. Jones’s Bibliography of Colorado Geology and Mining (Denver, Colo.: Smith-Brooks, 1914) is a bonanza of articles and books to 1912. Arthur E. Smith, Jr., brings the list nearly up to date in his Bibliography of Colorado Mining History (Houston, Tex.: Mineral Design Co., 1993). Clark C. Spence’s chapter, “Western Mining,” in Michael P. Malone (ed.), Historians and the American West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), offers a wide selection of articles and books on mining in general and Colorado mining specifically.
Charles W. Henderson’s Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development and Production (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), is unsurpassed for a county-by-county breakdown. United States government publications are a gold mine waiting to be explored, starting in the 1860s and continuing into the twenty-first century. For those unclear on or confused about mining terms, A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1968) is the source to check.
To place Colorado in the overall western mining picture, see Rodman W. Paul, Mining Frontiers of the Far West (rev. ed., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001) and William Greever, The Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848–1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963). Otis Young, Jr., has written several books covering a variety of mining methods and topics. Ronald Brown, Richard Lingenfelter, and Mark Wyman have all written books on western miners and mining unions.
All of the following take the reader into these fascinating topics: Clark C. Spence, Mining Engineers & The American West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970) and British Investments and the American Mining Frontier, 1860–1901 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958); Joseph E. King, A Mine to Make a Mine: Financing the Colorado Mining Industry, 1859–1902 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1977); James E. Fell, Jr., Ores to Metals: The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979); and Robert A. Trennert, Riding the High Wire: Aerial Mine Tramways in the West (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2001).
Muriel Sibell Wolle visited, sketched, interviewed, and wrote; her output of books and articles presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of mining communities, people, districts, and mines. See also the author’s collection of books and articles, including Rocky Mountain Mining Camps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967; paperback ed., Lincoln: University Press of Colorado, 1992) and Colorado Mining: A Photographic History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977).
It is amazing how many Colorado mining camps and towns have found a Homer to recount their history. There are far too many to list here without omitting some noteworthy ones. Their readability, reliability, and significance range about as widely as the importance of the communities themselves in Colorado mining history.
Only a few individuals prominent in Colorado mining history have received scholarly attention; some of what has been written is more spectacular than scholarly. For those interested in research in original material, the Denver Public Library, University of Colorado at Boulder Library, Colorado Historical Society, Fort Lewis College Southwest Center, Colorado State Archives, and the Colorado School of Mines Library have individual, company, and a variety of other records pertaining to Colorado mining. There are also smaller libraries and museums throughout the state that contain some mining gems.
In the mining West, the old saying “it takes a mine to run a mine” was often true. In studying Colorado mining histo
ry, it is similarly true that it takes a book to introduce the researcher to other books, articles, and primary sources. For that reason, this bibliography shows the way to a handful of resources to tempt one forward, but should never be considered all-inclusive. So go forth and, as another bit of mining lore states, “Tap ’er light.” Good luck, and enjoy your journey through this fascinating subject.
Index
Abandoned Mine Lands Program, 239–40
After the Ball, 149
Agriculture, 43–44, 153
Altman, 161
American Dredging Company, 206
American Smelting and Refining Company, 169, 188
Ames, 146, 169
Animas City #1, 53
Apex Issue, 82–83, 120–22
Argentine Mine, 180
Argo Smelter, 96–97
Arrastra, 35
Ashcroft, 119, 200–201
Aspen, 114, 119–21
Auraria, 15, 16
Automobiles, 147, 148
Backus, George, 139, 203
Backus, Harriet, 139, 192
Baker, Charles, 53
The Ballad of Baby Doe, 220, 261–62
Bar (mining), 20
Barthell, John, 193
Baseball, 142–43
Bent’s Fort, 5–6
Bicycles, 145
Bird, Allan, 232
Bird, Isabella, 132
Black Hawk, 91–92, 96, 97
gambling, 242
Blacks, 39, 41, 66
Blacksmiths, 248
Bland-Allison Act, 124
Boston and Colorado Smelter Company, 73
Boulder County, 24, 79, 162, 166, 205
Bowen, Thomas, 99
Bowman, Lorenzo, 66
Breckenridge, 41
Bryan, William Jennings, 126–27, 163–64, 165
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