The Trail of Gold and Silver Page 8

  Concerned about this agitation, he returned to the topic two weeks later (September 12): “As might naturally be expected the whole country is on the tiptoe of excitement respecting silver mines. Gold mines are deserted, and their heretofore busy occupants busily hunting for places in which to quarry out blocks of silver.” He did not want to squelch enthusiasm completely, but he concluded that although there was no longer any doubt that “there were good silver mines, we shall expect many of the so called leads to turn out to be nothing.”

  Once again, notwithstanding the cautions and bitter experience, the rush continued. Hints of bonanzas spread by that mysterious, always buzzing mining-camp grapevine. The “gold belt” extended from Central City through Oro City and beyond and “in all probability [it] grows richer as one goes in that direction.” Prospectors had reached an even more isolated location far to the southwest in the remote, jagged, towering San Juan Mountains, where the Spanish had prospected and mined nearly a century before and the Utes currently held sway. Such was the lure of gold that a prospecting party ventured to New Mexico, turned northward, and eventually followed the Animas River into a mountain-ringed valley later named after the leader of the expedition, Charles Baker. He mined for a season and then retreated before the oncoming winter.

  Baker actually did more promoting than mining. He spent the late fall and winter writing letters about his discovery of a second California. His campaign worked: in the spring of 1861 came the “ho for the San Juans” cry—off to the newest El Dorado. As many as 500 ventured that far from the rest of Colorado, and some came northward from New Mexico. They found that Baker had conveniently laid out a toll road into the park and a little village, Animas City, to the south in the lower Animas Valley. He thus charged them for yielding to the temptation of his writing campaign, and also for getting in on the ground floor of an urban boom. Both projects promised money for him.

  William Byers called Baker’s find a “humbug” and advised others to “go slow.” Some had doubts, but the lure of gold proved too great. Unfortunately, the eager seekers at Baker’s Park found little gold. Some suggested hanging Baker, but the entire fiasco ended by midsummer as men struggled to get out as fast as they had arrived. Some nearly starved before reaching settlements, and others ended up much the worse for wear.

  The Utes’ displeasure about the trespassers, the struggle required just to get to the region, the small amount of gold found, the outbreak of the Civil War, and the oncoming winter all combined to end Baker’s dream and leave the San Juans with a bad reputation. The two rushes in 1860—California Gulch and the San Juans—display the best and the worst of human nature; the constant allure of gold; and a pattern that would be repeated, to some degree, throughout the next generation.

  The valuation issue continued to bedevil the miners, as it had the year before. Gold might be valued at $20.67 an ounce, but that was for pure, refined gold, which was seldom, if ever, found in nature. The fineness of the gold determined the price the miner received. The figure ran from $14 to $18, or around $16 per ounce on average. The ore also carried a bit of silver.

  This situation, understandably, generated deep unhappiness and repeated complaints because merchants and “gold brokers” based their prices on the going local rate in the district. Resentment exploded when miners, upset with the $14 to $16 price range, refused to “deal with any man” who would not pay $18. These problems were not resolved until Clark, Gruber and Company opened a private mint in Denver in 1860. The company legally produced $5, $10, and $20 gold pieces. To make certain its coins would be favored for circulation, the company put just a little more gold in each one than federal coins contained. Two other mints operated briefly but achieved neither the success nor the reputation of Clark, Gruber.

  The miners were not above a bit of dirty dealing themselves. Some would mix a little extra foreign material into their gold dust; brass shavings were particularly popular. A sly merchant might spill a tiny bit of gold dust when weighing it for a purchase, or put a little grease on his fingers when he took the popular “pinch,” which was valued at 25 cents. All told, both parties had legitimate complaints about crookedness on the other side.

  Meanwhile, as Oro City and the San Juans rose and fell, other news grabbed headlines. As imminent war roiled the eastern states in early1861, the miners far away in Pike’s Peak country received a long-awaited prize: territorial status. On February 28, President James Buchanan signed the bill authorizing the Colorado Territory. The southern states, which had long opposed the creation of another “free territory,” had recently marched out of the Union, opening the way for a territorial birth certificate. At last, the miners—and everyone else—had a legal basis for land ownership, a legal and recognized government, help from Uncle Sam, and the hope of someday joining the Union as a state.

  A government had already been developed for Colorado when war broke out in April. For the next four years, territory inhabitants lived in the shadow of that epic, tragic event. Coloradans were far away from the front, except for a few months in 1862 when a Confederate force marched into neighboring New Mexico and drove up the Rio Grande. They were eventually defeated with the help of Colorado volunteers, who went south in March to fight the battles of Valverde and Glorieta Pass. Although Colorado did not entirely escape the turbulent times, despite its distance, Coloradans’ attention generally remained on their own problems.

  Finding a method to extract gold became the overriding problem of the 1860s. Gold dug from the earth was not in a free form, of course. That did not matter for the first fifty or so feet, because of “secondary enrichment”—“nature’s way of making high-grade ore out of low-grade ore.”

  The simplest explanation was that freezing, thawing, and water percolation had, over eons, taken the sulphur out of what was called “decomposed rock.” This natural process allowed the miner’s mercury to easily free the gold. Below about the fifty-foot level, however, the ore contained sulphides, or what Central City folk called “sulphurets.” Sulphides interfered with the mercury refining process, and thus most of the gold could not be extracted and was “lost.” Ovando Hollister tried to explain this vexing mystery to Coloradans:

  Somehow the mills as a general thing do not save the gold; why it is hard to tell. There must be some difficulty beyond the mills—doubtless the want of experience in the men who run them. Crushing quartz is a new business to them; and as it is a very nice, requiring skill, and as all of us as yet lack this skill, we fail in almost every attempt, just as any one does in a new vocation, about which he knows nothing.

  Ores that had assayed out at hundreds of dollars per ton returned, when milled, only seven dollars or so, which barely gave the miners any profit after deducting the milling expenses. That precipitous drop in yield alarmed everyone, mystified many, and led to a decade of experimentation that met with failure after failure. At first, attempts centered on building larger mills and finding purer “quicksilver,” but this avenue of attack was soon abandoned.

  Stamp mills, the earlier answer, carried three problems into the new decade. At best, they recovered only about three-fourths of the gold actually present in the ore processed; when the many inefficient operators and faulty equipment were added to the equation, the average production was alarmingly low. Also, whatever silver and copper the ore might have contained (granted, not a high percentage) disappeared into the tailing pile or downstream. The most significant problem was the collapse of the gold recovery rate once the miners and refiners had to deal with sulphide-bearing ore.

  In a very real way, the territory’s future rested on resolution of the milling and smelting problems. Successful and profitable methods had to be found if Colorado mining was to continue. Thus, as the war dragged on back east, mining trends continued to evolve. Hollister summarized the situation:

  During the years 1861 and ’62 placer-mining in Colorado saw its palmist day. It was gone about systematically and not feverishly, and with more experience, generally paid
better than it had previously. . . . In 1863 the business gradually died away, because the gulches, most of them worked over three or four times, had become completely exhausted.

  Writing from Nevada City, Samuel Mallory put his finger on another cause:

  But I am satisfied that many leave for want of “pluck” and lack of energy, while others get awful homesick, and are ready to cry wolf when there is no wolf, for the sake of an excuse to go home.

  A large number come here with less than a cent in their pockets—when here are too lazy or constitutionally tired to do work. I am decidedly of the opinion the latter class have no business in these mountains.7

  A new wrinkle appeared with the introduction of hydraulic mining, which had been developed in California and was put to use in Colorado. In this process, water, shot through a hose under pressure, washed gravel off a hillside and sent it through a long tom—after which gold was recovered in the traditional way. It cut costs by reducing the number of miners needed (proponents claimed that two men could do the work of thirty), speeding up the entire process, and—it was hoped—enabling profitable working of lower-grade gold deposits.

  The early hydraulics operations, along the Blue River down from Breck-enridge, left behind quite a heritage. Not everyone was callous about the environmental impact of mining. When the editor of Tarryall’s Miner’s Record visited Georgia and Humbug Gulches (September 1861), he penned this account: “They are tearing up ‘Mother Earth’ at a fearful rate, undermining houses, and removing every obstacle to their progress in searching for the precious ore.”

  “Hydraulicing” continued, though it faced problems other than environmental degradation. A July 1863 letter from Gold Run explained that the “drawback to full development” of immense riches was the “scarcity of water.” Also, “the great scarcity of hydraulic material such as hose and pipes” presented a further obstacle. The writer pleaded with Denver merchants to send what they had: “We miners must have it, let it cost what it may.” Concluding on an upbeat note, the writer pointed out: “Miners are beginning to see the advantage of mining with hydraulics over all other methods.”8 Advantageous or not, hydraulic operations never flourished in Colorado, primarily because of lack of water—plus the fact that the gulches had already been worked over three to four times, leaving little gold available even for those mining in large volumes. Basically, placer mining had seen its day in Colorado.

  Even newer placer deposits faced the usual ups and downs. Soon after its June 1860 discovery, Three Nation Gulch (named for the discoverers—an “Irishman, German and Negro”) disappeared from the news. A report from French Gulch in July 1861 described it bluntly—“everything dull”—and pleaded for more capital to “develop resources.” At one time or another, that plea was heard from every Colorado placer and hard-rock district. A month later, a story from neighboring gulches, such as America, Galena, Georgia, and French, reported “many miners doing well.”

  Despite the lack of easy pickings, however, Summit County climbed to near the top of the production charts during those years, outproducing the pioneer Gilpin, Boulder, and Clear Creek Counties. Still, even in Summit people “left the failing gulch and placer diggings,” according to Frank Fossett. The News certainly reflected that fall-off, as fewer and fewer stories appeared about Breckenridge and the Blue River diggings.

  From these districts, the peripatetic prospectors continued probing in every likely (and even unlikely) spot. Some called it a romantic occupation, but a diary that the Rocky Mountain News published on April 26, 1862, about an August 1861 adventure, should have given its readers more than momentary pause. The anonymous author started by observing. “Everyone knows that a prospector’s life is one of hardship, intrigue and unknown exposure.”

  August 11 Rain, rain; bedclothes have been wet a week.

  August 12 Much fallen timber though made headway under many difficulties. After traveling three days had to back track. Came to a canon could not get through.

  August 20 Very wet traveling Boots thoroughly saturated with water, pants ditto.

  August 21 Had fifty [?] of cake for breakfast and dinner. Lost a small piece of bacon yesterday so have none to eat. At noon picked mess of pepper-grass, whortleberry and strawberry leaves. Boiled them in salt and water. Enjoyed vegetable dinner together with bread and coffee.

  August 23 No food missed the right trail went over eight miles on wrong one raining

  Finally, on August 25, the author reached a ranch, civilization, and food.

  Mining ebbed and flowed in the early 1860s. Spring Gulch near Central City was “very nearly washed out[,] as evident from its deserted appearance,” observed a News correspondent in August 186l. A few miles away, at Peck Gulch, W. R. Campbell proudly wrote to the News (January 30, 1862) that claims “are for work, not for sale. We do not go on the ‘humbug puffing’ sort of principle.”

  Meanwhile, Gunnison County made a brief bow on the mining stage. For a while, Washington Gulch became the promised new El Dorado. Fifty miles west of California Gulch as the crow flies—a distance doubled by the round-about mountainous overland route—the region equaled the maligned, discredited, and deserted San Juan mines for isolation. Still, Denver’s Colorado Republican waxed enthusiastic about the area’s prospects: Miners “are doing well and everything warrants belief that these mines will prove the best of any yet discovered in this territory” (November 16, 1861). However, the “immense emigration in the spring” that the paper predicted never came about. The remote Gunnison County lay well within the territory of the increasingly unhappy Utes.

  Times did not improve for the struggling territory in 1862, as its main economic pillar teetered. Prospectors were stampeding to the future Idaho in 1862 and then to Montana in 1863. It did not help when rival Nevada claimed that the “Colorado gold mines are about abandoned.” That brought forth a spirited rejoinder from Central City’s Colorado Mining Life (November 1, 1862): “Why Lord bless, bless your soul, people are coming in thick every day. Abandoned! Bah! People don’t ‘suck’ that one.” Jealousy between mining regions and even neighboring districts never languished far from the surface.

  Letters came down from the mountains saying “Pike’s Peak has not ‘played out.’” Byers jumped on this, telling his readers on July 19, 1862, that “Colorado will yet come out all right.” He did repeat an earlier warning: “This is not the country for the poor man to become suddenly rich in, though there have been such instances.” The editor of Central’s Tri-Weekly Miners’ Register (November 10, 1862), positively gushed, however, proclaiming that everyone in Clear Creek and Gilpin Counties “seemed satisfied with the summers’ work and consider Colorado the paradise of America.”

  Mining in “paradise”? Not all the news proved that cheerful, nor as hopeful as the reports of previous years. For instance:

  Chicago Bar fair prospects

  Spanish Bar seems almost deserted

  Georgetown Griffith district not yet well developed

  California Gulch scarcity of water, severity of weather—disadvantages

  Boulder County suffering from “want of capital and accompanying energy”9

  The territory had one new excitement in the summer of 1862, when the Tenth Legion Mine burst on the scene. Empire City (Coloradans simply loved to attach that label to every little burg) basked in the moment. The “future Rocky Mountain metropolis” and its Union District grabbed the spotlight in an otherwise depressed scene. “People are flocking in there fast,” as both placer and quartz mining developed, aided by natural advantages “which excel those of every other portion of the territory.” Though the excitement persisted through the winter, before the war was over, times became “dull” at the never-to-be “metropolis,” and its mines offered no more than a “good reputation.”

  In these otherwise unpromising days, one legend grew up around Central City’s Pat Casey, an illiterate Irish immigrant, who parlayed a lucky strike into status as the “celebrated king [or prince] miner of Co
lorado.” The stories of his antics—like the time he once supposedly asked for half his crew to come to the surface when an odd number were working in the mine—grew with each telling and his career, before he went back “east to lose his fortune,” gave everyone hope.

  The fortunate Caseys have always been a rare species. The more down-to-earth Samuel Leach attempted to explain to his brother George why he stayed in Colorado and what mining meant to him:

  The mining interests me, it is much more exciting than anything else I have ever worked at. There is always the element of chance that fascinates. But it is hard work just the same. You have to stick at it and keep your eyes open. And if you do get a good claim you had better keep still about it for if you get excited and tell your friends someone is sure to hear of it and jump the claim or make trouble for you in some other way.10

  Thus Leach succinctly captured the essence of “mining fever” and the industry. Few people have better explained what gold fever and mining meant to them and their generation.

  Leach and Casey aside, as 1863 dawned, the mining future and fortunes of the young territory looked bleak. New mining frenzies elsewhere shoved Colorado into the background, the mills were not producing miracles at saving the gold, many of the districts were sliding into decline, investment money remained in short supply, and the boom days faded as people chased rumors and dreams elsewhere.

  The year 1863 brought no expectations of brighter tomorrows. The “poor man’s diggings,” as some defined placer mining, generally disappeared. As the mines grew deeper, the cost of everything from hoisting ore to solving water problems mounted. The cost of timber and fuel rose as well, and the lack of skilled miners still plagued even decently producing areas. People were leaving in greater numbers than the previous year for those new discoveries up north. “Bannack on the brain,” Denver’s Weekly Commonwealth (August 6, 1863) chided them, adding that this “bogus Eldorado” has “created great excitement among the uneasy portion of our community.” A letter from Breckenridge reveals the new face of gold fever: “Miners don’t trust new discoveries as they did a year or two ago.”11 They stayed at home and worked instead.