The Trail of Gold and Silver Read online

  Districts boomed in many ways once the railroads arrived. Even Leadville prospered as railroads neared it, closing the transportation gap day by day, and its production of low-grade ore benefited immensely from the availability of cheaper transportation. There was another, somewhat unforeseen, tradeoff. As one person complained, fearing the arrival of undesirables, “now we will have to put locks on the doors.”

  Of the three districts mentioned earlier—Aspen, Gunnison, and San Juan—the Gunnison country was the least significant and least productive. The removal of the Utes and the arrival of the D&RG happened almost simultaneously in 1881. Prospectors rushed into the area and in 1883 production topped out at $600,000—mostly in silver. The usual reports of promising discoveries, “good prospects,” and “many newly discovered mines” in such districts as Tin Cup, Pitkin, Gothic, Ruby/Irwin, and Tomichi kept interest alive and the ever-hopeful on the move. However, other reports indicated that “developments so far made are not important”; “little has been done”; the district has “not enjoyed a very lively season”; the “smelter has been under very poor management” and “but little ore has been sold.” “[T]he majority of the other mines are mere prospects.”1

  Several factors hindered development of the Gunnison region. The D&RG only reached Crested Butte, leaving the rest of the towns in that district out in the cold. The Denver, South Park, & Pacific tunneled under the Continental Divide, thus reaching the Pitkin/Ohio City area on its way to Gunnison. Despite this amazing engineering effort, which created the Alpine Tunnel and made the DSP&P the first railroad to burrow under the Continental Divide, the railroad arrived too late to energize local mining. The region also became infamous for its long, cold winters during which it was literally buried in snow.

  Gunnison County could claim one of the most beautiful spots for mining: the Crystal River valley and the town of Crystal, which prospered briefly in the 1880s. Isolated, with a tenuous tie to the outside world along narrow canyon trails continually threatened by rock and snow slides, it never grew beyond promising. Irwin and the neighbor it swallowed, Ruby, were more productive for a couple of years, but the veins proved “mere knife blade seams, easy to lose and hard to trace out.” The veins, though rich at the surface, far too often sharply declined in value with increasing depth.

  Gunnison County’s best years were over almost before they started. Uncertain fortunes did not attract investors, and strikes that never materialized except in some prospector’s imagination or in overblown newsprint did little for its reputation.

  Noted author Helen Hunt Jackson came from Colorado Springs to visit the Gunnison country in 1883, in another of her numerous forays into mining country. What impressed this reform-minded Victorian, on a warm summer day alongside O-Be-Joyful Creek, was not mining but nature’s bountiful beauty. To her, the creek and its purple asters were worth far more than the coal, gold, and silver that had brought men here: “The prospectors hammering away high up above the foaming, plashing, sparkling torrent . . . do not know where it is amber and where it is white, or care for it unless they need a drink.” She added that after mining was gone, “I shall still have my aster field.”2 The vast majority of Coloradans did not yet share her viewpoint. Interestingly, though, some Easterners did, creating further tension between the two groups, which were further exacerbated by some outspoken supporters of the Utes’ right to their land against the wishes of Coloradans.

  San Juaners were certainly not worried about such matters; they were enjoying the best decade in their history. The heart of the region—the triangle with points at Telluride, Silverton, and Ouray—produced as never before from its abundant mineral resources. If anyone ever doubted the significance of the railroad, the silver and gold production of the three counties in the 1880s dramatically showed its impact. San Juan County’s production jumped from $19,000 to more than $800,000 annually, and Ouray’s increased from $88,000 to nearly $900,000. San Juan topped $1 million within a year and Ouray did so a couple of years later. Even isolated San Miguel, where the Rio Grande Southern did not arrive until 1890, managed to top $900,000 that year and $1 million the next thanks to the railroad.

  The Red Mountain District, nestled at the south end of Ironton Park between Silverton and Ouray, made the decade’s biggest splash. Its inaccessibility, high mountain barriers, and the severity of winters had held back development until 1881–1882, and no wagon road reached it until 1883. When finally developed, the ore bodies were found to be in narrow, nearly vertical chimneys rather than in veins crisscrossing the mountains. This meant that mines such as the Yankee Girl or Guston might have high-grade ore from their “grass roots” while their unlucky neighbors encountered only barren rock. Both prospectors and investors were fooled. Seeing potential profit, Otto Mears first built a toll road, then his Silverton Railroad, in 1887–1888, to tap its trade.

  Hailed as “beating anything yet seen in the state, Leadville not excepted,” with “possibilities unlimited,” Red Mountain gained fame as the 1880s wore on. With Yankee Girl ore running at 2,000 ounces of silver to the ton, it seemed that any nearby claim would put investors in the “lap of the Gods.” With no other districts opening, the Red Mountain excitement came at the right time to draw a microscopic rush to the three little mining camps, Red Mountain, Guston, and Ironton. With a “wonderful future in store,” there were many “rich” discoveries, sales of mines, and even a “fight” between Silverton and Ouray over which would be the trading center for this “booming” district. Silverton won, thanks to Otto Mears and his railroads.

  Then the water problem hit: not ordinary water, but water so acidic it corroded every bit of iron it touched, eating through particularly exposed metal parts in days. Costly replacements and experiments to find a resistant material quickly cut into profits. Further dampening the enthusiasm were metallurgical problems. These ores were combined with copper that could not be worked by local smelters, so they had to be sent to Durango or Pueblo, adding further expense to the reclamation and refining process.3

  The Red Mountain rush lasted a decade, with prospectors and investors scurrying about to find promising claims and perhaps another new district. This helped keep the entire San Juan region in the public eye.

  In contrast, isolated Rico, on the western margins of the San Juans, struggled. Its ore pockets proved shallow, attempts to operate smelters failed because of lack of ore and incorrect processes, and transportation costs remained high. Though its outlook seemed gloomy, this coquette of a district teased prospectors until persistent miner David Swickhimer, who had been in the district since 1881, found the key. He believed a “second contact” of rich ore existed deeper in the earth. Although pinched financially, and dogged by mounting water problems and doubting partners, his miners (many with long overdue wages) dug his shaft downward.

  Dame Fortune smiled on the effort. In October 1887, Swickhimer struck ore that ran over 500 ounces of silver to the ton. A shaft twenty feet away would have missed the ore body completely. Moving swiftly, he wisely consolidated or purchased neighboring claims, and his Enterprise Mine led Rico into the best era of its history.

  Not all districts were so fortunate. Lake City and some neighboring camps had seen their best days, and already showed signs of decline. The mining industry in this district reflected many aspects—both good and bad—of the late nineteenth century4

  Optimism was never absent. As writer Ernest Ingersoll observed. “Everybody looks forward. Each proposes to do this and that, and to be happy ‘when I sell my mine.’ Perhaps this delicious uncertainty is part of the fun.” However, misrepresentation and downright chicanery were also abundant. Wrote one San Juaner to the Engineering and Mining Journal, “We are liable to be sadly misrepresented by some of our kid glove representatives. Before we are aware of any of their designs upon eastern capitalists the damage has been done.” The investors in the Golden Chicken Mine at Ophir learned this the hard way when they were plucked of their $75,000 investment.

 
; Development money, though, was usually lacking. A letter from the little camp of Chattanooga on the south side of Red Mountain Pass, said that because the “owners are poor men,” the mines with “strong veins are poorly developed.” That problem could be remedied by outsiders with funds. The British arrived with pounds and crowns, got burned at Red Mountain, and then made some wise investments at nearby Telluride.

  Reports of new discoveries always stirred interest. By 1889, Ouray’s “gold belt had passed the skeptical point,” according to David Day of Ouray’s Solid Muldoon (September 13, 1889). As the year drew to a close, excitement grew and optimism permeated the air. The Silverton Weekly Miner (January 4, 1890) declared that “new strikes” were taking place in “all parts of the county.” Instead of silver, prospectors now “are invariably accompanied by the hitherto unknown gold pan. The result is that many valuable gold discoveries have been made.”

  That news gained less attention than it should have because the big excitement at the moment was not the San Juans but Aspen, just over the mountains from Leadville. “Just over” might have been easy for a bird, but it was fiendishly difficult for humans, because those mountains are some of the highest in Colorado. Nevertheless, a few prospectors had ventured into the Roaring River Valley seeking to cash in on Aspen’s silver bonanza.

  Reports from the district seemed encouraging in 1880. Prospects were being developed, two little camps had started—Ashcroft and Aspen—and ore was being piled on dumps “there to remain until the smelter starts up next summer.” By 1881, three newspapers were already promoting Aspen’s mineral and mining wonders and telling the world it was the place to invest, as well as defending it against jealous rivals.

  Every mining district needed loyal newspaper editors. For example, the Rocky Mountain Sun (July 22, 1882) gave high praise to the Smuggler Mine, which had opened with new machinery and a large force of men that past spring. “Work steadily has progressed day and night since,” with “determination to prove up the property at every point.” “[G]reat enthusiasm prevails among both the miners and owners of this property.” In this case, the editor was not just puffing a pie-in-the-sky prospect.

  Almost anything that happened in those early days elicited favorable comments. Back on November 5, 1881, the Sun had encouragingly reported that a smelter was being built. That was excellent news, but Aspen “needs more. In this age of improvement and progress new inventions are coming forward each day and it becomes us to see that Aspen has the advantage of all of them.” Even so, the government mining report for 1882 noted that “the mines of Aspen, taken as a whole, show but inconsiderable development.” The “very high-grade ore” was still being “laid on the various dumps to await the necessary machinery, as there are no smelters in operation up to this time.”

  Aspen’s neighbor and early rival Ashcroft, the “mining wonder of the west,” gained publicity as well, particularly when Colorado mining legend Horace Tabor purchased the Tam O’Shanter Mine and nearby other properties. It did not hurt the district when Tabor replied, when asked about this property, “I’m afraid to go and look at this big vein. Everybody who’s been up there has come back crazy. I think it’s safer to stay here, if I want to keep my head” (Denver Tribune, September 6, 1881).

  Tabor, who had also invested in the San Juans, inspired Aspen locals to hope that “where the big fish go, the little fish will follow.” What followed, however, was a costly lawsuit over the title and sale of the mine, which Tabor eventually won. Tabor found out, here and elsewhere, that being rich and famous attracted lawsuits by the score. A road and smelter were constructed, but Tabor’s mine was a chronic nonproducer. Indeed, neither the Tam O’Shanter nor the other mines near Ashcroft proved to be even close to “mining wonders of the West.”

  That title better fit neighboring Aspen, Colorado’s new silver queen. After typically slow production during its first couple of years, Pitkin County topped $1 million in silver production in 1885. That figure dropped until the railroad arrived, then hit full stride and produced more than $2 million per year for twenty years through 1907. In two of those years, 1891 and 1892, it topped $7 million.

  A major reason for the slump in the mid-1880s was that old bugaboo, apex litigation. That type of litigation seemed to be a Colorado epidemic, particularly in potentially prosperous districts, where owning an acre at the right spot could make an owner a millionaire. With such high stakes, some of the best lawyers available took on apex litigation; the trials garnered statewide and sometimes national attention and were repeatedly covered in mining journals.

  The Aspen fight, which started in 1884, went on for four years, but even before that the district had seen its share of lawsuits over claim boundaries and other issues. This one, however, started with the Aspen Mine, the camp’s first great bonanza and the principal factor in the upsurge of production in 1885, when $600,000 came from the mine. David Hyman, owner of the next-door Durant Mine, thought that perhaps the wealth had come from his property, and so the lawsuit commenced. Whoever owned the apex would be king of the hill, and on the answer rode potential millions of dollars. For the moment, other cases were suspended, waiting to see how that one came out.

  Aspen suddenly found itself in the midst of a crisis that could ruin it. Were the town and district being held back by selfish owners? The Aspen Daily Times (February, 24, 1885), worried that development of the district would be hindered, reported that “[t]he people are wild with excitement and indignation.” Both sides lined up the best lawyers available, mining engineers to provide “expert” testimony, and a few locals to provide tidbits, opinions, and gossip. Both sides also collected maps, made models, and scrounged every conceivable bit of evidence that might prove or disprove a point. Detectives were hired to check on prospective jurors. The ultimate prize made all this expense worthwhile.

  The state court trial did not commence until November. Finally, in December 1885, the jury rendered a decision in favor of Hyman, but the case was then appealed to the federal court in Denver. Eventually, with both sides having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, common sense prevailed and they reached a compromise. It was worth the effort; the Aspen Mine proved even richer than hoped.5

  Not only had the case been tremendously expensive, it had also created a gulf between the two parties and their friends, and the mines generally sat idle awaiting the outcome. Reputations were made and lost. Said Hyman, who surely ought to have known, “Having a knowledge of law and litigation I can say truthfully that no litigation equals a mining litigation in its intensity and bitterness.” Other mining districts throughout the West watched the case with interest, knowing that they too might be caught up in their own apex fights, which, as the Engineering and Mining Journal told its readers, were almost always “complicated case[s].”

  With the Aspen disputes resolved, mining could finally resume. The Rocky Mountain Sun welcomed visitors to “one of the most picturesque and peaceful valleys in the state.” Without question, the “prospects [were] very bright” for both business and mining. The paper also proclaimed that “farmers were coming,” but it did not go into detail about what they might raise in the high valley with its short growing season.

  Mining there exceeded expectations in the years that followed. The Engineering and Mining Journal (March 9, 1889) told of a smelter finally testing “favorably” with local ores, adding that “soon mine owners in this valley will be able to get ores smelted without freighting expense.” With a successful smelter, “thousands of dollars would be added to the wealth of the community every month.” Meanwhile, the Mollie Gibson shipped more than four tons to Denver smelters, which sample assays “indicate[d] a run of 20,000 ounces to the ton.”

  The story proclaimed that “a genuine mining fever seems to be taking possession of this district . . . the excitement in Aspen is said to be akin to that of California in El Dorado days.” Perhaps, but another trend was also obvious: The mines were coming under the control of fewer people, and Aspen was bec
oming an industrial mining community just like Leadville.

  That was one reason the Mollie Gibson was so important to the district’s image. Not only did it actually live up to its billing, but more importantly, its owner, Henry Gillespie, was that favorite of Colorado mining legend, the “rag-to-riches” story. With the best of his generation, he knew how to promote his property and raise much-needed money from investors. First, he put on exhibit a 300-pound lump of ore assaying at a reported 10,000 ounces to the ton. Then, in May 1889, he displayed a 1,000-pound monster carrying a 6,000-ounce label. The Aspen Daily Times (February 24, 1889) could not contain itself, crying “WEALTH! WEALTH!” With the public’s interest whetted by fall, Gillespie and the other owners of the mine organized the Mollie Gibson Mining and Milling Company with stocks for the public to buy, but it did not work out. The stock value went down, not up, and Gillespie saved himself and the mine only by merging and placing the company under different control. The Mollie Gibson was not finished, however.

  The arrival of the railroad had been the key to Aspen’s emergence as the new “Silver Queen”—once the lawsuits settled down. The railroad allowed mines with low-grade ore to be worked, with an increasingly large output of lead, which allowed some silver mines to continue working. By the turn of the century, Aspen’s lead production topped $1 million, nearly surpassing the total from silver.

  While the Mollie Gibson, the Aspen, and the other mines promoted Aspen, silver mining, and Colorado, they briefly masked a crucial trend: the continuing decline of the price of silver. As mentioned, the price paid for pure silver had dipped from $1.35 to less than $1.00 per ounce. Initially, this hit the older districts harder than Aspen, because their bonanza days had long vanished, and as they went deeper into lower-grade ore, their expenses went up.