History of Colorado; Volume I, Part 27

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 954

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We cannot conclude this statement without protesting most earnestly against a renewal of the infatuation which impelled thousands to rush to this region a month or two since, only to turn back before reaching it, or to hurry away imme- diately after more hastily than they came. Gold-mining is a business which emi- nently requires of its votaries capital, experience, energy, endurance, and in which the highest qualities do not always command success. There may be hundreds of ravines in these mountains as rich in gold as that in which we write, and there probably are many ; but, up to this hour, we do not know that any such have been discovered. There are said to be five thousand people already in this ravine, and hundreds more are pouring into it daily. Tens of thousands more have been passed by us on our rapid journey to this place, or heard of as on their way hither by other routes. For all these, nearly every pound of provisions and supplies of every kind must be hauled by teams from the Missouri River, some 700 miles distant, over roads which are mere trails, crossing countless unbridged water-courses, always steep-banked and often miry, and at times so swollen by rains as to be utterly impassable by wagons. Part of this distance is a desert, yielding grass, wood and water only at intervals of several miles, and then very scantily. To attempt to cross this desert on foot is mad- ness-suicide-murder. To cross it with teams in midsummer, when the water courses are mainly dry, and the grass eaten up, is possible only to those who know just where to look for grass and water, and where water must be carried along to preserve life. A few months hence-probably by the middle of October -this whole Alpine region will be snowed under and frozen up, so as to put a stop to the working of sluices if not to mining altogether. There then, for a period of at least six months, will be neither employment, food, nor shelter within 500 miles for the thousands pressing hither under the delusion that gold may be picked up here like pebbles on the seashore, and that when they arrive here, even though without provisions or money, their fortunes are made. Great disappointment, great suffering, are inevitable; few can escape the latter who arrive at Denver City after September without ample means to support them in a very dear country, at least through a long winter. We charge those who manage the telegraph not to diffuse a part of our statement without giving substantially the whole; and we beg the press generally to unite with us in warning the whole people against another rush to these gold-mines, as ill- advised as that of last spring-a rush sure to be followed, like that, by a stampede, but one far more destructive of property and life.

Respectfully,

HORACE GREELEY, A. D. RICHARDSON, HENRY VILLARD.

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Hollister in his "Mining in Colorado" writes as follows of that first season in the newly opened mining region :

"It was not unusual for four or five men to wash out from the Gregory, Bates, Bobtail, Mammoth, Hunter and many other lodes then newly discovered, one hundred and fifty dollars a day for weeks together. Single pans, of dirt could be taken up carefully from any of a dozen lodes, that would yield five dollars. Zeigler, Spain & Co. ran a sluice three weeks on the Gregory and cleaned up 3,000 pennyweights; Sopris, Henderson & Co. took out $607 in four days; Shears & Co., two days, $853, all taken from within three feet of the surface. Brown & Co., one and a half days, $260; John H. Gregory, three days, $972; Casto, Kendall & Co., one day, $225; S. G. Jones & Co., two days, $450; Bates & Co., one and a half days, $135; Coleman, King & Co., one-half day, $75; Defrees & Co., twelve days with one sluice, $2,080. In one day Leper, Gridley & Co. obtained $1,009 from three sluices. One sluice washed out in one day $510. Foote & Simmons realized $300 in three days. The Illinois Company ob- tained $175 in their first day's sluicing from the Brown lode in Russell district. Walden & Co. took in one day from a lode in the same district, $125. John Pogue took $500 from a lode in the same district in three days. Three men took from the Kansas lode in two days, $500. Kehler, Patton & Fletcher aver- aged with five hands on the Bates lode, $100 a day for two months. Day & Crane on the same lode with seven or eight hands, sluiced for ten weeks, their smallest weekly run being $180, their largest $357. J. C. Ross & Co. with four hands, averaged $100 a day on the Fisk lode for four months. F. M. Cobb & Co. on the Bobtail lode with four men, averaged from $75 to $100 a day for two months. Heffner, McLain & Cooper worked four men at a sluice on the Clay County lode, averaging $100 a day for ten weeks. Shoog & Co. averaged $100 a day for three months' sluicing with five men on the Maryland lode."

GILPIN COUNTY AND JOHN H. GREGORY

As soon as the news of Jackson's discovery spread, a resistless tide of "pil- grims" surged up the winding banks of Clear Creek, in search of the "golden fleece." In the summer of 1859, the gulches and canyons of the Front Range swarmed with prospectors and miners. At the same time there was a stampede to the Gregory Diggings in what is now Gilpin County, one of the richest mineral- bearing districts of Colorado.

John H. Gregory, of Georgia, was an adventurous fellow who knocked about on the frontier in the summer and fall of 1858, finally reaching Fort Laramie. Here he seems to have heard of the gold discovery in Dry Creek. In January, 1859, he set out southward, determined to prospect the streams of the Front Range. Gregory was no tenderfoot. Like Jackson, he had real grit and heroism in his make-up. In the wintry weather he put up with many discomforts in the wilderness. He must have found the cold hard to bear, for he had been used to the mild, sunny clime of the South.

Gregory was an experienced miner, and he knew where to look for colors. Working gradually south along the foothills, he prospected the Cache la Poudre and other streams. Following up the Vasquez Fork of the South Platte, he came to the vicinity of the Blackhawk of today. Hereabouts he got some colors.

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"Gregory now felt certain that he had found gold," says Hollister in "The Mines of Colorado" (1867), "but before he could satisfy himself a heavy snowstorm occurred, during which he nearly perished." On account of the snow and the lack of supplies, the man was forced to leave the little ravine where he had obtained a small quantity of fine gold. He found his way down into the valley and subsisted upon venison and other game that he got by hunting. He finally turned up in the short-lived mining camp or town of "Arapahoe" on Clear Creek, a little below the Golden of today. Says Hollister: "At one time there must have been fifty houses in this town; today not one remains."

Gregory was discouraged. Apparently he was down and out. At this crisis in his life he chanced to meet David J. Wall, of Indiana, who had faith in the Georgian and "grubstaked" him for another prospecting tour in the hills. The Hoosier's confidence was not misplaced. Gregory made good. Accompanied by a small party of men, he set out in April and reached the place where he had seen indications of gold deposits the previous winter. A little south of Black- hawk, the discovery of Gregory Lode occurred May 6, 1859. This was the discovery of the season. In '59-'60 "Gregory's Diggings" had a great reputation, yielding millions of dollars.

Was it a chance, or superior judgment, that led Gregory through a maze of broken mountains to a ravine two or three miles in length? In this gulch and on the bordering hills he found the heart of one of the richest mining regions in the world.

From poverty he suddenly attained affluence. He sold his claims for twenty- one thousand dollars. Four months later, he left Denver with gold dust valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, and he had previously forwarded five thousand dollars to his family in Georgia. Not much is known of his later history. He returned home, drifted to Texas and disappeared. We have not even a photo- graph of this man, who did so much for Colorado. A town or a county should be named in his honor. There are those who think Gilpin County should have been named Gregory County.

First came the discovery of float gold in Dry Creek, between Denver and Littleton, in the month of July, 1858. The news of this find, with other rumors, started the rush to Pike's Peak in the spring of 1859. The great majority of the fortune hunters who flocked to the hills and mountains that memorable year were disappointed. They found no gold worth mentioning, and many of them turned their faces toward the rising sun, discouraged. The golden treasure was here, but they could not locate it; so they gave up in despair and disgust. The tide of the "go-backs" was checked by the discoveries of Jackson and Gregory.

Others made valuable finds. About June 1, Green Russell arrived at Central City with 170 followers. Immediately he struck out into the neighboring hills, and soon he located the gold-bearing gulch that was named in his honor. At the end of the season, Russell took back $21,000 in the glistening grains that formed the currency of the new mining region yclept "Pike's Peak," although the dig- gings were all located seventy-five miles or more to the northwest of the majestic monarch of the Rockies.

The discoveries of Jackson and Gregory settled the fate of the straggling

VIEW OF A STREET IN GREGORY'S GULCH, GILPIN COUNTY

(Reproduced from a photographic enlargement of a wood engraving published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, March 24, 1860.)

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frontier settlement. The section of the Eastern Slope embracing Clear Creek and Gilpin counties is called the birthplace of Colorado.

These were the beginnings of the mineral industry in Colorado. Gilpin is one of the smallest counties in the state, and yet it has produced a .hundred millions in metallic wealth, mostly gold.

There is a silver belt in Gilpin County, but it has never been largely devel- oped or very productive. The past eighteen years the annual output of silver has averaged something over $166,000, while the gold production during that period has averaged $1,275,000 a year. The yearly production of lead has ranged from $20,000 to $69,000. The copper output has averaged about $114,000 annu- ally. Gilpin County has produced no zinc to speak of.

COLORADO'S FOUR MINING EPOCHS

The mining history of the state divides itself naturally into four epochs. The first, a placer mining period, which began with the discovery of gold by the Russell party in 1858 and in the following year by Jackson and Gregory was wholly crude and spasmodic, and cleaned up what was on or near the sur- face. The second period was that which exploited along constantly improving scientific lines, the fissure veins, the chief sources of production. The third period was that in which the methods of ore treatment were revolutionized-the era of modern mills and smelters-a cyanidation period. The fourth might well be termed the deep-mining epoch, in which vast capital was invested in the proper and widely extended development of the state's deeper mineral resources -a period which is yet only in its inception. It is the epoch of great tunneling projects, of scientific unwatering, and of new treatment methods that are as revolutionary as was the beginning of the cyaniding era. To this time also be- longs the exploitation of masses that had been discarded upon dumps as worth- less.

It is advisable to go over the periods in a general way before narrating the interesting episodes which brought the gold-seekers to Colorado and welded them into a powerful community.

The tracts bearing free gold were extremely limited and each crowded at the outset by hordes of men impatient to dig out their fortunes as quickly as possible. But the gradual decrease in earnings was the sieve which sent impa- tient thousands to other fields and left the development of the country to the few whose pluck and faith seemed equal to the task.

From 1863 to 1870 there was a gradual but certain decrease of population, and in view of the facts this is not at all strange, for it took much patience and hard work to initiate mining enterprises on legitimate development lines. J. Alden Smith, state geologist, to whose early reports we are indebted for much of this information, asserts that the population in 1870 was " a little over 35,000." He adds: "The small amount of solid wealth accumulated meanwhile was due rather to hard work and the closest economy than to the productiveness of the resources under operation."

Prior to 1870 or even as late as 1874 the prospector did all his work with a gold pan. If the required number of "colors" were not present, the district was deserted by him.

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From 1874 to 1890 the gold pan was almost entirely discarded by the pros- pector and he depended upon the returns given him by the assayer to determine the value of his find. So complete was the change that comparatively few men engaged the assayer to determine more than the silver and lead content, assuming that there was no gold.

With the discovery of Cripple Creek the prospector again changed his method. He used both the pan and the assay.

E. S. Bastin, C. W. Henderson and J. M. Hill in a government publication issued in 1917 by the U. S. Geological Survey, thus discuss these early methods :

"Entering the mountains with little equipment beyond shovel, pick and pan, the first miners in this district saved the gold by the usual pioneer methods of sluicing, cradling, and panning. These methods were fairly satisfactory when applied to the stream gravels and the oxidized surface ore of the veins, but the miners soon discovered that as depth was gained on the veins the yield of gold fell off rapidly. For this there is an excellent geologic reason, as the early work- ings were in the outcrops of the veins, in which the action of air and water had distintegrated the ore, freed much of the gold from its sulphide matrix, and converted it by solution and redeposition into a coarser form. In the deeper portions of the veins the ore was harder, and most of the gold being finely dis- tributed through sulphides was much less readily amalgamated.

"Appreciating the difficulty, even if not cognizant of its causes, the miners sought a remedy in various appliances for fine crushing of the ore. An early device consisted of a small mortar whose pestle was attached to a sapling, the spring of the sapling raising the pestle. Another device was the 'woodpecker mill,' which was an iron-shod wooden trip hammer, worked by water power, which fell in a wooden iron-lined trough. The arrastre early made its appearance, the first one being constructed near the mouth of Gregory Gulch in July, 1859. Five of them, each six feet in diameter, and constructed of granite, may still be seen in the valley of Clear Creek just below Dumont. This device was followed the same summer by the first stamp mill, a home-made affair with six stamps, set up at the mouth of Chase Gulch and run by water power. It had wooden stems, shoes, and dies, but the dies were shod with iron plates. Its operation in the summer and fall of 1859 is said to have netted its owner about $6,000. The first imported mill appears to have been a little three-stamp mill erected in 1859 by T. T. Prosser in Prosser Gulch.

"During the first year of the development of the region near Central City the scarcity of water for ore treatment became troublesome, and a company was formed to bring water in from Fall River. The ditch built to accomplish this end had its head above the mouth of Silver Creek, at the base of the high peaks of the range, was twelve miles long, and traversed some rough country. The early miners, however, were deterred by no obstacles and had the work com- pleted and water flowing at Russell Gulch, Nevadaville, and Blackhawk early in the spring of 1860. The ditch later came under the control of New York people, who, through short-sighted management, so antagonized the miners that the enterprise was of short usefulness.

"During the summer of 1860 there were sixty stamp mills and thirty arrastres run by water power in operation between Nevadaville and Blackhawk. These were all working on oxidized ores, but by the end of that year the heavier sul-

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phide ores were reached and the percentage of savings by the mills immediately dropped.

"The year 1861 saw the construction of the first mill on South Clear Creek. In Gilpin County the savings from sulphide ores continued to diminish, and dur- ing 1861 it was found necessary to close mine after mine which could not be made to pay. Numerous experiments were tried, both with stamp mills and leaching processes, none of which was markedly successful. In fact, this change at so shallow a depth from free-milling ores to stubborn sulphides was a calamity that crushed the hopes of many prospectors and caused a suspension of opera- tions by numerous companies operating in the district.

"In 1861 Caleb S. Burdsall built the first smelter of the region at Nevada- ville. This was a crude affair that was unfortunately destroyed too soon after its erection to prove its worth.

"The difficulty in amalgamating the sulphide ores led to what Raymond has called the 'process mania.'

"The process mania, commencing in 1864 and lasting till 1867, was one of the main causes which damaged the reputation of the mines to such a degree that the country was nearly ruined by the reaction. Upon the first failure of the stamp mills, the people came to the conclusion that the ore must be roasted before the gold could be amalgamated. One invention for this purpose followed another ; desulphurization became the abacadabra of the new alchemists, and millions of dollars were wasted in speculations based on sweeping claims of perfect suc- cesses put forward by deluded or deluding proprietors of patents."

Exploitation even of the fissure veins proceeded slowly because of the uni- versal ignorance concerning perfected methods of mining and reduction of refractory ores. The mineral broken by hand, struggling with adverse condi- tions, however rich in gold or silver, returned meager profits to the producer, because no one had applied the better knowledge of milling and smelting employed even then to good effect in the older mining sections of the country. The beds of streams into which the crushing mills poured their refuse were choked with concentrates bearing the enormous wastage of imperfect appliances. Excepting the few districts in Gilpin, Clear Creek and Boulder counties, very little beyond the determination of the permanency of the lodes was accomplished during the first decade. The remoteness of industrial centers from the bases of supply east of the Missouri River, and the total absence of railways, compelled the trans- portation of all commerce, including heavy machinery, across the plains at a cost for freightage of from ten to forty cents per pound.

The coming of the railways in 1870 and the years immediately following inaugurated a new mining era. Then began the practical demonstration of the character and value of the fissure veins at great depths, which has been prose- cuted to this time. The system of milling the sulphuret bearing gangues (quartz or rocky non-metallic material) from which the heavier mineral had been pre- viously assorted for treatment by fire, advanced briskly under the improvements added by science to the work of amalgamation and concentration, and the smelters were soon enabled to pay higher prices for the grades best adapted to their use, and to multiply their facilities to keep up with the growing demand.

In a report made in 1882 by A. N. Rogers on gold milling in Gilpin County the methods in vogue then betray the fact that there had been little, if any, ad-

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vance in California methods and that the great progress in treatment is in the history of later years. Mr. Rogers says in this report of 1882:

"Most of the gold ores are reduced by stamping, and amalgamated, both inside and outside of the batteries, after which blanketings are caught, to be panned or returned to the batteries and put through a second time with the coarse rock. Below the blankets, suitable sluices and buddles are used to collect and concen- trate the outflowing tailings, which, being reduced to a 10 per cent gangue limit, become marketable product for smelters, because of their fluxing qualities more than their value. The richer sulphurets are hand-picked and cobbed for the smelters and some grades of ore which are not free milling are concentrated and likewise sold."

In 1867, or perhaps a year or two earlier, stamp milling in Gilpin County barely escaped disastrous failure because of the refractoriness of the very heavy sulphide ores. Stamp mill products, which contained $20 to $50 per ton, under the best skill and methods then at command would rarely yield more than 50 per cent and in some cases less than 25 per cent of their value. In 1882, of upward of 2,000 tons of ore which was weighed, sampled and assayed before treatment in the Bobtail mill, the saving, by amalgamation above the blankets, was 70 per cent of the contained values of gold and about 6 per cent of the silver. "This milling," says George H. Gray, assayer and metallurgist, in his report on this particular item, "was done at an average cost of but little more than one dollar per ton, embracing all items of current expense, repairs, and removals of the plant, but not covering interest on its cost."

Mr. White, state geologist, in his report for 1882, says of concentrates: "Mills have been erected in different quarters of the state expressly for concen- trating ores, but, with few exceptions, were closed in a few weeks after com- pletion, or operated spasmodically without satisfactory results." Mr. White attributes the causes of failure to ignorance of the essential principles involved, to defective machines, to machinery with insufficient capacity, and to concentrates which, when perfectly cleansed, were of too low a grade for existing markets."

Amalgamation, too, at this period secured only an average of about 70 per cent of the gold contents.

Colorado led in the introduction of the cyanide process through a company known as The Gold and Silver Extraction Mining and Milling Company, owners of patent for the McArthur-Forrest process, obtained in May, 1889, and in May, 1890. In November, 1893, the above Colorado company sold to The Gold and Silver Extraction Company of America, Limited, a corporation organized under the laws of Great Britain, with home office in Glasgow, Scotland, and the American agency in Denver.

Robert B. Turner, in the State Bureau of Mines report for 1897 thus writes of the process :

"A second cyanide company was organized in September, 1894, known as The American Cyanide Gold and Silver Recovery Company, which is strictly an American and state organization, being incorporated under Colorado laws, with headquarters in Denver. This company operates what is generally known as the American dioxide-cyanide process, which is the addition of sodium dioxide to a potassium cyanide solution.

"A third company, The General Gold Extraction Company, Limited, has head-

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quarters. in Denver, and represents the Pelatan-Clerici process, under the United States patents issued in 1894, 1895 and 1896. The mode of treatment of the crushed ore is by agitation with a dilute solution of potassium cyanide in a large pan, and while such agitation is in progress, the gold is precipitated by an elec- trical current and mercury on copper plates.

"At present time the writer knows of no mill in operation in Colorado using the Pelatan-Clerici process, but the company has an experimental or testing plant in Denver. Therefore, all the cyanide mills working in the state are using either the American dioxide-cyanide or the McArthur-Forrest process.

"The Cripple Creek district has been one of the best in the state for the treatment of its ores by the cyanide process, and has five mills, as follows: The Colorado Ore Reduction Company, Elkton, chlorination, 50 tons; cyanide, 60 tons per day. The Brodie Gold Reduction Company, Mound City, cyanide, 400 tons per day. The American Reduction Company, Florence, cyanide, 50 tons per day. The London, Florence, cyanide, 50 tons per day.

"As all the above mills are custom plants, it becomes necessary to sample the ores in a well equipped sampling works, so as to establish their values for pur- chasing purposes before going to the fine crushing department of the mill. . Therefore, all the Cripple Creek mills have their own sampling department and storage bins ahead of the cyanide mills, and ores are held until satisfactory settle- ments are made."

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History of Colorado; Volume I, Part 27

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Number of Pages: 954

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 954