History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 29

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 1080

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As stated, the discovery of the Printer Boy stimulated prospecting, and to this fact is un- doubtedly due the subsequent discoveries which have given Leadville its world-wide rep- utation. Quite a number of veteran miners visited the locality during the years between 1868 and 1875, and, though they were unable to determine the character of the mineral, they were all satisfied that the district presented every characteristic of great mineral wealth. There was no thought of silver in all this pros- pecting. The searchi was for gold alone, and the main effort was to discover the source of that supply which, during a few years of im- perfect working, had added $3,000,000 to the world's wealth. Men wandered over the hills

A.R.MEYER & CO. ORE MILLING & SAMPLING COMPANY, LEADVILLE, COLO. INCORPORATED 1879.

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looking carefully for the blossom-rock, which indicates gold leads, but spurning the rock scattered round in such profusion, which really told the story of the immense treasure hidden in the earth, but told it to eyes unaccustomed to reading between the lines of nature's book. The outcropping of the Rock Mine on Cali- fornia Gulch was examined and tested, but it yielded no gold, and was passed by as worth- less. When an effort was made to develop new placer mines, the heavy red sand was cursed, but no effort mas made to divine the cause of its extraordinary weight.

The country then presented a most desolate appearance. From the little straggling hamlet of Oro, a row of deserted and dismantled ham- lets stretched along down the gulch as far as Malta, then known by the suggestive name of

"Swilltown." The gulch itself, torn into shallow chasms by the hands of the early miners, with bowlders lying in unsightly heaps, looked like anything but the place of deposit for mineral wealth of any character. Here, also, great, jagged, reddish-black rocks, too hard to have their edges worn away hy the ceaseless efforts of Time, excited idle curiosity regarding their great weight, but nothing more. The skilled reader had not yet come to read their secret.

But the restless curiosity of man and the eager desire for wealth were still in existence, and the time was rapidly approaching when both were to be gratified. Only time is needed, and all things terrestrial will yield to these master passions of humanity.

CHAPTER III.

THE SECRET SOLVED-COMMENCEMENT OF THE CARBONATE ERA.

T HE fame of California Gulch had ex- tended to every part of the country where mining forms one of the industries of the peo- ple. Many whose lives had been spent in the prosecution of mining, had their attention called to and their curiosity excited by the stories which had reached them about the operations in the gulch. Among these men was Mr. Stevens, of Detroit. Perfectly familiar with the several methods of hydraulic mining, he carefully compared the stories about those pursued in California Gulch, and arrived at the conclusion that the gulch had not been half worked, and that, with skilled labor and well- directed experience, it could be made to yield a large profit to those who should engage in the task. These views were presented to Mr. Wood, of Ann Arbor, Mich., and, at the earn- est solicitation of his friend, Mr. Wood, decided to join in the venture. Accordingly, in 1875, a co-partnership was formed, and, with ample means at his command, Mr. Stevens came to Colorado. A large tract of placer ground, part of which covers a portion of the present site of the city of Leadville, was purchased, and preparations made to begin active opera- tions. The plan contemplated was to wash

over the tailings left by their predecessors, and also to attack the bluff lying on both sides of the gulch. In order to accomplish these ob- jects, a ditch eleven miles long, bringing water from the head-waters of the Arkansas, was constructed at an expense of $50,000. The work of hydraulic mining on a large scale was commenced in the summer of 1875, and from the first was a success ; so much so that, though a very small portion of the banks of the gulch have been washed away, the opera- tions have paid from 20 to 30 per cent per an- num upon the original investment up to the present time.

· During the summer of 1875, while prosecut- ing their hydraulic mining, these gentlemen en- countered the same difficulties from the heavy sand and bowlders that had been experienced by the early operators in the gulch. This they were told by the inhabitants was "heavy por- phyry." But Mr. Stevens is one of those men who, when he discovers anything that he does not fully understand, is not satisfied until he has determined its character, and accordingly, after long and patient investigation, he arrived at the conclusion that it was carbonate of lead, rich in silver. Tracing up the "float," they

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found that it had come from the ontcropping of the Rock Mine. A location was first made upon this lode, and carefully keeping the secret of their discovery, they devoted an entire year to the careful study of the geology of the adja- cent territory, and particularly of Rock and Iron Hills.

During the period of this investigation, Mr. Fred Conant, then connected with the Colorado Springs Gazette, came over into the gulch on business for his paper. He describes the scene as desolate in the extreme. A few cattle grazing in the Arkansas Valley, the workmen employed by Mr. Stevens, and the cluster of cabins at Oro, called a town, through a violent stretch of courtesy, were the only signs of life that he encountered ; while the deserted cabins along the gulch, tumbling in picces with age and neglect, added an unnamable terror to the scene. All of this section, tendered to him as a gift, he would have rejected with scorn. On his return, glad to get away, he was accom- panied by Mr. Stevens. Pausing upon the apex of a hill from which a commanding view of the country was obtained, Mr. Stevens pointed to the district in which the mines are now em- braced, and said, "There will be in a very few years the most wonderful mining district in the world." It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Conant did not credit the prediction.

In the summer of 1876, Messrs. Stevens & Wood, having satisfied themselves as to the trend of the different lodes and the character of the formation, staked out a large number of claims, which recent developments have proved to embrace a large amount of apex, covering several of the most wonderful and permanent of Leadville bonanzas.

Early in 1876, Abe Lee, one of the original discoverers of California Gulch, who had been away for several years prospecting in different parts of the mining regions, came back on a prospecting tour. While camping on Long and Derry Hill, he picked up a peculiar piece of blossom rock, and put it in his pocket for future examination. The next morning, while looking after his horse, which had strayed, he met Mr. Long, and handed it to him. `Mr Long, being used to making fire assays, tested the rock, and the consequence was the location of Long and Derry Hill, from which the J. D. Dana Mine commenced shipping ore in the fall. In the winter, the Gallagher brothers dis-

covered the Camp Bird and Charlestown Mines. In the summer of 1877, the Carbonate Mine, after which Carbonate Hill has been named, was discovered by Hallock and Cooper, and almost immediately commenced shipping high- grade ore. Directly following the discovery of the Carbonate Mine were those of the Crescent, Yankee Doodle, Catalpa, Evening Star, Morn- ing Star and many others. But little was done during the winter of 1877, but in the spring of 1878, George Fryer dug a hole on a slight elevation directly north of Carbonate Hill, and, in connection with William Lovell (" Chicken Bill"), struck the New Discovery, and gave his name to one of the most famous localities in the world. Soon after the New Discovery was struck, in the spring of 1878, August Rische and a man named Hook commenced digging a hole on the very apex of Fryer. No one could have selected a more unpromising location for a mine, and no miner would have thought for a moment of sinking a hole at that point. But Rische and Hook were not miners, they were a pair of Pittsburgh shoemakers, who had come into Leadville to try their Inck, and were as likely to meet it there as elsewhere ; so, disre- garding the taunts and sneers of the men who considered themselves experts, they persevered. They were staked by H. A. W. Tabor, who had hy this time removed his store from Oro, and was running the heaviest stock of merchandise in the camp, and taking more chances in mining than any other man in the place. Twice their " grub stake " gave out, and they returned to Tabor for more, and twice the generous mer- chant disregarded the proffered advice of friends, and sent them back to work. The vein struck by Fryer in the New Discovery was supposed to dip to the east, and the most mod- erate calculation of the depth to which Rische and Hook would have to sink, in order to strike the same vein, was 500 feet. But to the sur- prise of the old miners, the mineral was un- covered at the depth of twenty-eight feet ; the work of taking out ore commenced at once, and in less than a month from the time that a shovel was put into the Little Pittsburg claim, it ranked as one of the leading mines of the country.

The immediate result of this wonderful strike was to cause claims to be staked out with great rapidity all over Fryer Hill. The chrys- olite and carboniferous began producing largely,

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and the Amie Dunkin, Matchless and others began producing, though not largely until more recently. In the winter of 1879, the Robert E. Lee, that most wonderful bonanza of the camp, was found, and commenced its career of aston- ishing results. During the spring of this year, the Morning Star came to the front rank as a producer, and, though making heavy daily ship- ments ever since, shows no signs of exhaustion. The Evening Star followed suit during the fall of the same year, and is still one of the finest working mines in the district.

In the same year it was found that the car- bonate contact extended to Little Ella and Breece Hills, northeast of Fryer Hill, and the Little Ella and Highland Chief Mines were thereby discovered, and brought into promi- nence.

Other strikes of importance were made in every direction, and the fact demonstrated that the carbonate district was clearly defined as to character and limit. This new mineral that had been rejected by the builders had become the headstone of the corner. What had puzzled not only the miners of the California Gulch,

but men of learning and science, had been fully and satisfactorily explained, and the curiosity of mankind, stimulated by the desire for wealth, had accomplished another victory in the interest of the human race.

It is proper to say before closing this chap- ter that the honor of being the first to discover the value of the carbonate rocks is not left to Messrs. Stevens and Wood without a contest. A Mr. Dunham, and Maurice Hayes & Brother, both claim to have hit upon the real value of the celebrated black sand, at about the same time that its value was demonstrated by Mr. Ste- vens. There are good reasons for admitting these claims to be truthful. So curious a sub- stance as this sand, which seemed of equal spe- cific gravity with gold, could not escape inves- tigation very long, except among such men as those who first peopled California Gulch, most of whom were men totally unacquainted with mining, and many of whom had come out with the expectation of finding nuggets on the sur- face. Mr. Hayes is an assayer of ability, and had, no doubt, experimented frequently and carefully with this curious mineral substance.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BEGINNING OF LEADVILLE-1877.

TN sketching the rise and progress of a city, which springs up like Jonah's gourd, the historian is at a great disadvantage. Events jostle each other with such rapidity, and new features crowd upon the mind in such close proximity to each other, that the view pre- sented is not a consecutive procession of events, but the brilliant figures of a gorgeous dream, mixed up in inextricable confusion. To sift these out and array them in their proper order is a task of no small magnitude, especially as in the earlier days of the city the records kept were of so imperfect a character. The only thing attempted, therefore, will be to give con- cisely the growth and character of the city in each year of its existence, with as nearly as possible the advancements in business and im- 'provements made in each, and the striking events of each period in the city's history. Events of the more important character will be treated separately.

Although the discoveries of Messrs. Stevens and Wood were put in proper shape, and the Dana Mine, owned by Long & Derry, com- menced shipping ore in 1876, there was no movement looking to the establishment even .of a mining camp until the spring of 1877. Then the workmen employed by Long & Derry, and Stevens & Wood formed a nucleus which gathered along the banks of California Gulch much as had been done seventeen years before. The old cabins that had been spared by the hand of time were refitted, and by July had become so thronged that a new house was a necessity, and was erected on Lower Chestnut street, near the intersection of Leiter avenue. From this time on, the population increased with extraordinary rapidity. It was now re- garded as a new mining center, and though there were, in the fall of 1877, but five mines in active operation, the character of the district had been sufficiently well established to give the

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best of evidence of its permanent and wealthy character. In the fall of 1877, there were per- haps a thousand people in the new camp, most of whom had come from the neighboring min- ing districts, to investigate for themselves the character of this new mineral, which by this time was being eagerly discussed all over the country.

As previously stated, when California Gulch was finally abandoned, most of the population who remained went up to Oro and made that place a sort of wintering point and the place for outfitting for the summer prospecting tour. Others had taken up ranches in the valley, built themselves cabins, and with a few cattle and pigs, and the sale of a scanty crop of fine hay, with the results of their hunting and fishing expeditions, had managed to get along very contentedly, and in some cases had even become moderately " well fixed " in the vernac- ular of the mountains. These people now com- menced to swell the throng of men that crowded the one narrow street extending along the gulch. The residents of Oro found their glory departing, and besides were in demand among the new- comers on account of their superior knowledge of the locality. The ranchmen found their scanty supplies in demand to feed the teams, which by this time had become an important item in the economy of the new camp. Mr. Tabor had, at the opening of the carbonate ex- citement, two stores-one at Oro, and one at Malta. The latter was opened in order to se- cure the custom, resulting from the establish- ment of the first smelter of the district in 1875. Population naturally drifts to the most available points for all purposes, and the fact that it had passed by Malta at the foot, and de- clined to go to Oro, at the head of California Gulch, convinced Mr. Tabor that the point for business was at the present site of Lead- ville. Accordingly, with the shrewdness which has characterized all of his business measures, he consolidated his two stores and removed to Leadville, taking with him the post office. Mr. Charles Mater, for many years the main store- keeper at the county seat, Granite, had pre- ceded Mr. Tabor in the removal of his store by a short time. This enterprising merchant, who had, as he himself said, in the first days of his residence in Lake County, been frequently com- pelled to take his gun and spend day after day tramping through the mountain snows in search

for game to keep his wife and children from starv- ing to death, was already a brilliant example of the energy and character of the Western pio- neer. His removal, followed so soon by that of Mr. Tabor, was a strong indication of his faith in the destiny of the new camp, and the example was followed by a large number of tradesmen and business men, who had eked out a precarious existence in the neighboring mountain towns, and could not afford to neglect the opportunities of fortune held out to them by the new discoveries. In this way was formed the nucleus of what, within two years, was to be the most active city in America, and before the close of 1877, almost every branch of trade necessary to the wants of the people was represented. Prices were high it is true, but this made no difference, for when anything was wanted, it was wanted so badly that the price was a matter of secondary consideration.

Until the removal of the post office, Mr. Mater's store was the headquarters for the camp. The mail was distributed therefrom, and it became by common consent the general exchange mart of the town, where bargains were made for the exchange of mining property and the general business of the people trans- acted.

Toward the fall of 1877 those keen-scented followers of prosperity, the gamblers, began to make their appearance in Leadville, and during the winter reaped a rich harvest from the mot- ley throng which nightly gathered into the popular places of resort. They were closely followed by the prostitutes and confidence men, and, before winter had passed, many of the institutions of vice so common in mining camps and frontier towns, were in full blast and had gained all the prestige which they are only now beginning to lose.

And still there was no very large amount of money in circulation. The people who had come in were in the main poor-composed of miners and others, mostly from this State, who had been attracted to the locality by the desire for employment at high rates of wages, or in hope of advancing their fortunes by a lucky find. The men of means from Denver and other prominent points in the State who had spent the summer in the camp looking for opportunities of investment had gone home for the winter, and the flood of Eastern capitalists had not yet commenced. The hills were cov-

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ered with snow to the depth of three or four feet, and the only signs of life were in the long street, lined with cabins, saloons, gam- bling-halls and stores, and in the few mines which were enabled to keep up work during the winter months. To a casual observer there was nothing to indicate the future greatness of the city, and a gentleman who, as early as 1860, had laid the foundations of his fortunes in Cali- fornia Gulch, and who came up with a view of establishing a branch of his Denver house, re- turned in disgust, declining to risk his capital in so unpromising a locality.

It is a remarkable fact that during 1877 Leadville was better known in the Eastern States than in Denver. A large number of capitalists had been here in 1876 looking at the placers taken up by Stevens & Wood, and at the Rock Mine, had returned very favorably im- pressed with the prospect and were ready to invest at any time when it could be shown to their satisfaction that returns were reasonably probable. Mr. Stevens was in the East most of the time after the location of the Rock Lode, and through his abiding faith in the future of the district and his intimate associations with men of means, had succeeded in awakening a lively interest in the locality. The shipments of the Rock Mine to St. Louis, and the working

of the other mines which commenced producing in the spring of 1877, had attracted the atten- tion of eminent metallurgists in different parts of the country, and during the fall and winter of 1877, quite a number were quietly looking up locations for the erection of works in the following year. Denver had no faith in the new district. Her capital was largely locked up in unprofitable real estate, and the charac- ter of the mines previously discovered in the State were such as to induce but little faith in a district in which the conditions were so en- tirely different from anything yet experienced. There were some exceptions to this rule- notably that of the owners of the Morning Star, who from the first discoveries were firm in their faith in the ultimate outcome of the district, and proved their faith by keeping up work under discouraging circumstances, and amid the sneers of their friends to the verge of financial ruin.

The year 1877 was but the preface to the coming story-the year of preparation in which the foundations were laid for that wonderful career which has not yet ceased to astonish the world, and which for many years to come will continue to be the source of wondering com- ment. With its close Leadville had fairly en- tered upon her mission.

CHAPTER V.

THE STORY OF 1878-THE FIRST BOOM.

T THE spring of 1878 opened out auspiciously for the camp. With the opening of the roads, machinery by the car load began to arrive in Denver, and the people of Denver began to realize that they had suffered an almost inex- haustible source of wealth to lie unnoticed at their very doors, until Eastern capital had come in to seize the advantages offered. The South Park road, then completed as far as Dean's, suddenly found its facilities 'entirely inadequate for the transportation of the freight demanding carriage ; the forwarding houses at the end of the track were unable to handle the immense quantities of merchandise and machin- ery forced upon them by the railroad, and goods were piled up in the most reckless confusion

around the tents and shanties which formed the offices for the forwarding of freight. Every team that was available for freighting purposes was pressed into the service, and at almost all of the more prominent business houses in Den- ver, the sign, "Freight for Leadville," was a fixt- ure. Freighters demanded, and obtained, their own rates ; 4, 5, 6, and even 10 cents a pound, were not infrequently paid for wagon freight from Denver, and one instance is recorded, in which 25 cents per pound was paid for a wagon load of liquor, then an absolute necessity-so considered-in the new camp.

The little railroad, working its way up the mountains, increased its facilities as fast as locomotives and cars could be constructed, but

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could not keep pace with the demands, and the struggle between anxious shippers for cars was amusing to all except those directly interested.

Every train from the East came in loaded with capitalists, mechanics, miners, laborers and adventurers, all going to swell the grand aggre- gation of humanity gathering in the mountains around the bonanzas of wealth which had been so suddenly uncovered. Men found themselves in Denver without a cent, and, undaunted by the difficulties of a tramp over the mountains, pressed onward on foot, getting food as they best could, until the road, which but a year be- fore had been almost desolate in its loneliness, was lined with a straggling stream of humanity, with their faces set toward the new El Dorado, and the summer campers along the Platte were pestered beyond endurance with the importu- nities of hungry tramps.

Early in the year, the Gallagher brothers, who had been working at the Homestake Mine in 1876, and had gone prospecting in the win- ter because they could not bear the enforced idleness of the winter season, and had discov- ered the Camp Bird and Charlestown, sold their claims to the St. Louis Company for $300,000, $250,000 of which was paid them in a single check from a Denver bank. The remarkable sale was, of course, bruited abroad in the news- papers, and the rush was doubled by the news.

Early in the spring, a party of gentlemen who had come from Georgetown for the pur- pose of starting a reduction works, were riding along Stray Horse Gulch, when Mr. Stevens, who was with them, pointed to the apex of Fryer Hill, and said that there would be a good place to dig. The gentlemen were all old miners, and failed to see any indications justi- fying the remark ; and yet, but a short time afterward, the spot indicated became famous as the Little Pittsburg Mine. And such are the inconsistencies of human nature ! Only a few months before, Mr. Stevens, in writing to one of the gentlemen composing the party, who at that time was in his employ, advised him strongly not to invest his money in any of the new pros- pects. unless he could sell it, as the ore was of such low grade that it would not pay to work.

In Leadville, there was not sleeping accom- modations for those who thronged into the camp. For the privilege of lying ou a dirty mattress, laid upon the floor of a boarding-tent,

with a suspicious-looking blanket for a cover, and the chances of proximity to a thief or a desperado, those who could afford it paid a dol- lar. Those of a lower financial grade were glad to get accommodations in the dirty sawdust on the floor of a saloon or gambling-hall. In every direction the sound of the saw and ham- mer was incessant. Night and day men were employed, at enormous wages, to erect shelters for those who daily thronged into the camp. One street-Chestnut-over a mile long, com- prised the town, and along this street were packed, before the end of the summer, not fewer than 6,000 men. From daylight till the return of daylight again, the street was thronged with pedestrians and freighting teams, the latter sometimes blocking it for its entire length, which occasions were notable for the ingenious oaths of the teamsters, and the pistol-like cracks of their bull-whips.

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History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 29

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 1080

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 1080