USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume II > Part 38
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* Fossett's Colorado.
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
amount of profit for the shareholders. The first dividend was declared and paid September 12th, 1880, and continued each month to the amount of $25,000, until the reserves were worked out. The ore was remark- ably uniform in value, averaging a little more than $50 per ton, but even at that figure, owing to economical management, very profitable. In 1881 this property was consolidated with the Morning Star combination, and thereafter all were worked in conjunction.
The Matchless was located by impoverished prospectors, who, after laboring some time without results, sold out to Foley, Wilgus and Moore, speculators in mines, who sank the shaft to mineral, and in Sep- tember, 1879, sold it to H. A. W. Tabor, the chief of operators, for $117,000. In this venture he had no partners. The purchase had been made solely upon his faith in the value of the property, and being asso- ciated with others in every other enterprise in which he had engaged, he felt that it would be a joy to own something in which there were no sharers, and that would furnish him " pin money," so to speak,-a suit of clothes now and then, a new hat, a bottle of champagne, and such other trifles as are indispensable to a man of means. When properly devel- oped, his net profits from this source were about $2,000 per day, and there was a time when they amounted to $80,000 and even to $100,000 per month, for some of the ore was a chloride of exceeding richness. A part of these earnings were put into his splendid and incomparable opera house at Denver.
The Catalpa, Glass-Pendery, Amie, Hibernia, Climax, Small Hopes, Silver Cord, and a number of others were celebrated producers in the earlier years, and while some of these are still yielding reasonable profits from limited operations, their glory passed with the epoch which we have been considering. Nevertheless, the revelation of large de- posits in other claims brought into line in the later period, together with the prodigious outputs from the Iron Silver, Maid of Erin, Hen- riette and other standard sources, have maintained the prestige of the district to the present time.
With these facts before us, though hastily drawn, and conveying but
445
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
an outline of the yields from the chiefs of a long list of wonderfully productive mines, in a period when colossal fortunes were acquired with incredible swiftness, equaled only in the bonanza days of the Comstock of Nevada, or in the first years of discovery in the gravel beds of Cali- fornia, is it any wonder that, as the stupendous panorama unrolled, the eyes of the world should be turned toward the mountains of Colorado as toward a spring of inexhaustible riches, which, revealed just at the time when the resumption of specie payments had been declared by the government, and at the subsidence of a paralyzing panic, dissipated all doubts of the speedy extinguishment of our national debt ; that tens of thousands should turn their faces in this direction ; that capitalists and speculators should gather there, and that with the higher and interme- diate grades should come a miscellaneous horde of gamblers, tramps and outlaws; that honesty, intemperance and crime should be com- mingled, crowding and jostling each other in inseparable confusion upon the streets; that blood should be shed, and characters ruined ; that while the few were mounting the golden ladder leading to wealth, the masses were groveling in the slums of wretchedness and debauchery, the whole creating scenes witnessed nowhere but in feverish, excited and devilish struggles of a multitude collected from many lands and climes, each impelled by the hope of reaching a higher and better station ?
The millions of money poured into the stagnant arteries of com- merce from the porphyry hills of Leadville were the impelling cause of the great procession of spectacular effects which inspired countless writers to spread its fame, but only one of the interesting incidents of the time. While the more fortunate were reaping magnificent harvests, and rejoicing over their gains, comedies, tragedies, misery, death and despair crowded the great center of action. We have now to show how the process of evolution from the frenzied whirl of chaos to the orderly and peaceful status of a well governed community, sent the criminal drift by voluntary or involuntary emigration to other fields, and enabled the better element to establish the lines of legitimate industry and com- mercial stability, and fortify them for the future.
446
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
CHAPTER XXI.
LEADVILLE CONTINUED-INCREASED IMMIGRATION-ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT- PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS-BUILDING OF SMELTERS-THE GRANT SMELTING COMPANY -RATES PAID FOR ORES-BEGINNING OF THE BOOM-CONDITION OF SOCIETY IN THE PLUNGING PERIOD-COLLAPSE OF THE LITTLE PITTSBURGH-EFFECT UPON THE COUNTRY-THE GREAT MINERS' STRIKE IN 1879-DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW BY GOYERNOR PITKIN.
At the close of 1877 the population of Leadville was about three hundred, mainly composed of prospectors and miners who had drifted in from the outlying districts of the State. The nearest newspaper was the "Sentinel," published by Richard S. Allen at the town of Fairplay in Park County, which gave very full accounts of the various discoveries, and events transpiring at the new camp across the Mosquito Range. These being republished in the more widely circulated journals of Denver, found their way to the press of the eastern States, where the effect anticipated was produced, so that at the beginning of 1878 the tide of immigration set in strong and continuous. On the 14th of Jan- uary of that year preparations for the organization of a government began. Says the Leadville "Chronicle," " Eighteen citizens, in response to a call, met in a little wagon shop# on the present corner of Pine and Chestnut streets, to take preliminary steps for a town organization. There was high debate over the name. Mr. Mater suggested 'Carbon- ateville.' A. R. Meyer proposed ' Harrison' as a fitting compliment to the builder of the first smelter. A few others favored 'Agassiz.' Mr. J. C. Cramer proposed ' Leadville' as the name most distinctly suggestive of the new city's source of wealth, and it was unanimously adopted."
* Other authorities assert that the meeting was held in Chas. Mater's store.
law & bady
447
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
By proclamation of the Governor, the first election under the town organization was held January 26th, 1878, when H. A. W. Tabor was chosen Mayor, and C. E. Anderson, Clerk, with Charles Mater, William Nye and J. C. Cramer as Trustees. The government was formally instituted in February. At the regular election held in April following, Tabor was re-elected, with J. C. Cramer as Clerk, and William Nye, J. Carroll, R. J. Frazier and R. T. Taylor, Trustees. In April, 1879, the town was elevated to a city of the first class. At this election the business men, not satisfied with the political nominees for the Mayor- alty, brought forward as their candidate Mr. W. H. James, and though named but two days in advance of the vote, he was chosen by a large plurality. At this time, also, Mr. John W. Zollars was elected City Treasurer, and M. J. Murphy, E. C. Kavanagh, John McComb, Samuel McMillen, J. P. Kelly and John D. Monroe, Aldermen.
One of the first measures in the line of public improvements was the introduction of a water supply for the extinguishment of fires, and for domestic uses. The construction of a large reservoir on Carbonate Hill; a mile or so to the southeast of the city, was begun Sept. 15th, 1878, and the work of laying pipes, etc., completed in the spring of 1879, the water being turned on March Ist. An efficient fire depart- ment was organized early in 1878. Fortunately, notwithstanding the combustible nature of the majority of the buildings in the original town, no serious conflagration has occurred. At the close of 1878 a census of the population was taken, showing a total of 5,040.
The great flood of prosperity which gave the place its renown in 1878-'79-'80 was due, first to the opening of scores of great mineral deposits, and second to the rapid multiplication of ore markets. As stated elsewhere, the original smelter was established at Malta by A. R. Meyer in 1877, but it was not remarkably successful. It was succeeded by the Harrison Reduction works in 1877. The La Plata smelter began with one furnace in June, 1878, and in 1879 had four in active oper- ation. Berdell & Witherell began in the fall of 1878. The American smelter opened July 5th, 1879 ; the Billings & Eilers, the California,
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
and J. B. Dickson's, the Ohio & Missouri (in Big Evans Gulch) and the Elgin in the same year. Cummings & Finn fired up their two furnaces July 25th, 1878, and the Grant Smelting company theirs on September 23d of that year.
The greatest firm of ore buyers and dealers in the products of the mines about Leadville from 1878-'79 to the date of the erection of their incomparable plant in Denver, was that of Eddy, Grant and James, of whose organization and operations it is deemed proper to give a some- what extended account.
Edward Eddy and William H. James, the first a native of Corn- wall, England, and the latter of Wales, prior to their entree upon the busy scenes of the Carbonate camp, had been residents of Georgetown, Clear Creek County, where they were engaged in mining. Mr. Eddy, before leaving his native land, had acquired a liberal education in the School of Mines at South Kensington, and elsewhere an extensive knowledge of mining and the treatment of ores in all their branches. Coming to Colorado, he settled at Georgetown October 12th, 1871, obtaining employment on the East Terrible mines, then owned by Fred A. Clark and Henry Crow, and superintended by W. H. James. From an employe, he soon became an employer, having taken up the pursuit on his own account. He built and conducted a concentrating mill in the town, and subsequently erected works of a similar character for the Silver Plume Sampling & Concentrating company. By his superior attainments Mr. Eddy became one of the most noted operators in the county, for men of his stamp were none too numerous in those days, and the improvements he suggested and applied to the work of under- ground mining, and to the treatment of the products, exercised great influence in teaching the operatives how to work and timber their shafts and levels, and how the minerals should be manipulated, lessons which but few had learned, hence there was much needless waste of labor and valuable material.
Mr. James came to the United States when but eight years of age, was educated in Brooklyn, N. Y., and finally apprenticed to the trade
James
449
HISTORY OF COLORADO.
of a watchmaker, which he followed until 1860, when he joined the procession of gold hunters then marching toward the Pike's Peak region. Gilpin County being the objective point of all immigrants, he found his way to the town of Nevada, situated at the very head of the series of gulches tributary to the original Gregory, and at the very apex of quartz or lode mining, and in due course became employed in the milling of gold ores, but did not meet the success anticipated. Removing his mill to Empire, in Clear Creek County, he was still less fortunate there, and at length returned to Gilpin, locating in Black Hawk. Soon after the Terrible mines, near Georgetown, came into prominence as great producers of rich silver ores, he was made superin- tendent of those properties, which he directed until their transfer to an English company, when he became manager of the Burleigh and Balti- more tunnels at Georgetown, where the first automatic machine drills ever brought to Colorado were introduced and operated. In 1873 he superintended the working of the gold placer mines at Fairplay, in Park County, in which Fred A. Clark, the owner and manager, lost his life some time later.
In 1875 he passed over to the valley of the Arkansas and took charge of the Printer Boy mine. In 1876 he was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention from Lake County. His services in the body which framed the fundamental laws of the State are fully set forth in the chapter relating to that subject. His labors concluded there, he returned to California Gulch and assumed charge of the Oro Ditch and Fluming company, and there obtained his first knowledge of the car- bonate of lead deposits, out of which he subsequently secured ample compensation for his earlier misfortunes.
In February, 1878, he and Mr. Eddy united their small capital in a partnership for the purchase of ores and bullion. In the meantime, the latter had made a careful inspection of the carbonate field where he discovered a fine opportunity for the acquisition of a fortune. The requisite machinery for sampling works was purchased and set up, and soon their business assumed large proportions. On the Ist of January,
29 II.
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
1880, James B. Grant was taken into the firm, which then became known as J. B. Grant & Co., but was afterward changed to the Grant Smelting company.
Mr. Grant, a native of Alabama, was educated first at an agri- cultural college in Iowa, taking a supplementary course at Cornell Uni- versity in New York, whence he was sent to Freiburg, Germany, where he devoted his time to the study of mineralogy and kindred branches, and where he acquired the scientific knowledge which eminently qualified him for the life work toward which his taste was directed immediately after his arrival in Colorado in 1876. His first experiences were in Gilpin · County, where he purchased and opened a gold mine called the "Clarissa," purchased from W. H. Bush, then proprietor of the Teller House. In 1878 he went to Leadville, and at the time mentioned above, having abundant capital at his command, organized the firm of Grant, Eddy & James, now a part of one of the most extensive and successful smelting corporations in the West. In 1882 he was elected Governor of the State, the first candidate of the Democratic party chosen from 1861 down to the date named, and gave a satisfactory administration of that high office, chiefly because he accepted the nomination with great reluctance as a sacrifice of his rapidly expanding business, and because when elected, he sturdily refused to be governed or guided by mere political considerations, declaring his only desire to be to administer the government in the best interests of all the people, regardless of party, for a single term of two years, and then retire finally from the political field.
Such, briefly described, was the firm of studious, thoughtful and experienced business men, combining the practical skill and energized force that have made the Grant Smelting company one of the greatest industrial institutions that has yet been founded at any point between the Missouri River and San Francisco.
Their smelting works opened September 23d, 1878, with a single furnace. Two years later they had seven in operation, with a capacity for treating one hundred and seventy-five tons of ore daily, resulting in
gBlgrant
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
the production of about three carloads of base bullion each twenty-four hours.
From a statement found in the " Engineering and Mining Journal" of May 11th, 1889, prepared by one of the best known statistical authorities in Leadville, we reproduce the following epitome of the prices paid for lead carbonate ores, from the early days of the camp to the present time. It is a fact worthy of note that there has been a steady advance in the prices of all Leadville ores.
In January, 1879, the rates were as follows :
For ores carrying 50 to 60 ozs. silver per ton, 44 cents per ounce.
16
60 to 70
70 to 80
8o to 90
6
90 to 100
100 to 120
66
120 to 140 140 and over "
65 68 711/2 " 73 75 12 “ 55 61
If carrying over twenty-five per cent. of lead, they paid forty cents for each unit, and deducted forty cents for each unit if under twenty per cent. There was no working charge.
Another form was as follows :
Io cents off New York quotations for silver. 25 cents off per unit for the lead. $57 per ton working charge.
The schedule now (May, 1889) current for similar ores is :
LEAD, PER CENT.
PRICE PER UNIT.
WORKING CHARGE.
15 to 20.
3º cents
$5.00
20 to 25
40
4.50
25 to 30.
40
4.00
30 and over 40
3.50
6
In the early part of 1879, only ores high in silver could be mar- keted under the deductions then made by the smelters. At present only occasional lots of ore are mined which contain above one hundred ounces silver per ton, the great majority falling below seventy-five ounces.
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
By April, 1879,-quoting from Capt. Dill's sketch of Leadville, "The boom had fairly commenced and notwithstanding the increased accom- modations by the multiplication of hotels, it was almost impossible to secure decent sleeping apartments, and every saloon, private house, office, even stables, were drawn upon to furnish shelter for the throngs which poured into the city daily. Four lines of Concord coaches, each coach capable of bringing eighteen to twenty passengers, and each line having from two to four coaches going each way daily, ran between the termini of the railroads and the town. The Denver & South Park Railroad reached Webster, at the eastern foot of Kenosha Hill, about the Ist of May, and was making preparations for the magnificent feat of engineering skill that was to transfer its track over the divide between the Platte and the South Park. Another line of coaches ran between Cañon City and Leadville, and innumerable private hacks brought many passengers." The population had grown to 8,000, by October to 12,000, and at the close of the year some of the more extravagant calculators placed it at 20,000. "The streets in the evening when the army of miners, speculators and capitalists had returned from the hills, were crowded from curb to curb. Pedestrians desiring to reach any given point expeditiously, chose the middle of the street in preference to the sidewalk, taking their chances of being run over by the dashing horsemen and coaches that whirled over the smooth roads at any hour of the day or night." Personal experience taught me that one who might be in haste must possess his soul in patience, for the dense masses that blocked Harrison avenue and the greater part of Chestnut street in the evening, proclaimed " no thoroughfare" unless one drifted with the current as it moved. And it may be asked, what were all these throngs of men doing? For the most part they were mere loungers, though many were prospectors and miners, speculators and traders, buying, selling, bonding and leasing; expatiating with feverish volubility upon this, that and the other claim where rich mineral had been opened, explaining the latest strikes and discoursing upon the certain promise of equal or better rewards of adjoining locations, yet to be prospected.
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
Occasionally the proceedings were enlivened by a fight, or a shooting matinee. But there was greater safety in the crowded thoroughfares than on the quieter unlighted streets, where every dark corner seemed to be infested by footpads, men made desperate by poverty or by their own profligacy in the drinking saloons, dance houses and gambling dens, who, whatever their previous lives may have been, were now ready to rob, steal or murder, if need be, to secure the wherewithal to continue the courses that had debauched and ruined them. Having occasion to visit one of the outskirts one evening in the brisker period of 1879, I was cautioned by friends not to go alone, or I might not return alive. Nearly every man who was compelled to pass through the unlighted localities carried a cocked revolver in his hand, and watched every step, in momentary expectation of being ordered to halt and surrender.
A number of theaters, and scores of questionable resorts were open, brilliantly lighted, and all the glittering attractions employed to entice people into them. Having been invited to attend one of the theaters, I asked the hour at which the performance began, and was told, "O, about ten or eleven o'clock." But when does it close ? " Along about daylight in the morning," was the reply, and it was literally true. The blood curdling melodrama billed for the occasion, began about midnight and continued until 4 A. M. Hundreds roamed the streets, haunted the saloons or the open gambling rooms, the greater part of every night, where many strange scenes were enacted between twilight and dawn. Says Dill, "Following in the wake of the wealth which daily poured into the camp, were men whose trades were theft and robbery. To drug a victim, coolly rifle his pockets of every article of value and throw him into the streets to be arrested for drunkenness, was among the most common methods of the thugs that infested the saloons and variety theaters. The dance houses from which floated alluring strains of music were thronged, and attracted by the glare of lights and the novelty of the scene, many a novice with more money than sense, wandered in. If, in a moment of reckless abandon, inspired by
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
the wretched liquor dispensed at such places he exhibited a roll of bills, he was sure to be spotted, and followed by one or more of the des- peradoes always present, and the chances were that he would wake up in an hospital or in some back alley with bleeding head and minus every- thing upon his person that could be turned into money. Footpads lurked in every corner awaiting belated business men, or debauchees reeling their way homeward. The sharp, ominous command, 'Hold up your hands !' accompanied by the click of a pistol, was heard nightly. Men were robbed within sight of their own doors, and several were followed into their bedrooms by daring criminals, and stripped of all their valuables. Men whose duties compelled them to be out late at night, walked with a pistol in each hand, and not infrequently with a third in reserve, taking the middle of the street to avoid being ambushed. No man who could avoid it went into the byplaces alone after dark. When men connected with the mines were obliged to be in town in the dark hours, they either took rooms at the hotels or went to their quarters in squads for mutual protection. One young man, a confidential employe of a prominent company, in a fit of drunken bravado, exhibited a large roll of bills in one of the variety theaters. A few minutes after- ward he started for his room, and on turning the first corner, with the light from saloons making the locality as bright as day, he received a blow from a bludgeon, and two hours later woke to consciousness lying in the gutter into which he had fallen, to discover that his gold watch, with a thousand dollars of his own and the company's money, had been taken from him."
These are examples of many incidents which marked what may be termed the "plunging period," and aptly illustrate the condition of society during the initial stage. Added to the confusion were some bloody contests over building lots and mining claims, where human lives were sacrificed and all manner of evil passions engendered. At length, since the regularly constituted authorities with their police were pow- erless to arrest, or indifferent to the perils that endangered life and property, a vigilance committee was organized, which hanged several of
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the leading criminals and warned the remainder out of town on penalty of like treatment.
The Little Pittsburgh estate was the first upon which a great capital- ized company was formed, and though it ran a brilliant career and was the means of attracting greater attention to the district than any other of its time, was nevertheless, one of the first to give way under the strain of too great an effort to force monthly dividends of $100,000 upon its capital stock of twenty millions, and in collapsing, brought disaster to the whole neighborhood. The confidence of its owners in the vast resources of this property, and that entertained by the public generally, was ascribable to ignorance of the nature and extent of the deposits, rather than to willful misrepresentations, as then so freely alleged. As a matter of fact, no man, however conversant with the science of mining geology, could fathom the limit of the ore zones until some of them had been fully exploited, and it was only by the knowledge acquired from constant investigation of the different veins in the course of their development, that right conclusions were evolved.
When the first of these deposits was opened it was widely assumed that beneath every location or claim of ten acres, there lay ten acres of mineral, and until it was shown that there were high, low and medium grades of ore, and grades that were practically worthless, it was assumed that only the better qualities existed, and that if at the point of attack the ore was found to be worth $100, or $150 per ton, the entire deposit might be reckoned on that basis. Consequently, the value of every claim was measured by millions.
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