GILPIN COUNTY - KING OF COLORADO'S MINING INDUSTRY

by Pam North

On May 6, 1859, John Gregory panned the first gold in Gregory Gulch, the
area lying between what soon evolved into the towns of Central City and
Black Hawk.  It was the beginning of a mammoth gold rush that attracted
thousands of prospectors to seek the precious metal by means of panning
and sluicing.  As the productive gulches were worked by these simpler
methods, the gold that had been washed by rains and floods over eons
into the ravines and gullies was collected, soon exhausting the more
easily obtained surface gold.   Shafts were then excavated into the
earth to follow the veins beneath the surface, and the ore was hauled
up; Gilpin County ores then began to be processed by stamp milling
and smelting.   The railroad's eventual entry to the district brought
even more opportunity for development and profit.

The primary rock formation of Gilpin County is gneissic, but its areas
of granite are where most of the mineral veins are located.  Two main
systems of lodes exist in the gold belt - those having an east/west
direction (these are the most numerous), and those extending
northeast/southwest.  Some veins tend to be perpendicular, while others
have an incline that can range from 10 to 40 degrees.  Some even dip
northward for several hundred feet, then change their course to the
opposite direction.  The shafts sunk to reach the gold and silver
embedded in these veins reached many hundreds of feet in length and
depth, catacombing the area in a webwork of underground tunnels.

For a number of years Gilpin County, although the smallest of Colorado's
counties, was the leading gold district of the state, producing more
bullion than any other mining locality in America.  The outflow of
precious metal was so steady that the county was referred to as the "Old
Reliable."  The unfaltering characteristics of the numerous veins made
the district the richest in the state.  There were more valuable lodes
located in the proximity of Central City, Black Hawk and Nevadaville
than in any other section of the world at that time, and there were more
stamp mills in operation than anywhere else.  By 1880, approximately
1500 men were employed in and around the mines and mills, and their
labor resulted in the production of over 2 1/4 million dollars in
bullion per year.  The three banks of Central City had the huge sum of
nearly 3/4 million dollars on deposit from the district's miners, and
nearly $140,000 worth of money orders were sent away annually via money
orders through the post offices of the three cities.  The mountain mines
were profitable.

Today, the mining industry is just a part of Gilpin County's past,
visible still in the hillside entrances to abandoned mine shafts,
unsightly tailings, and derelict equipment too rusted and worthless for
antique collectors to haul away.  The great fortunes in gold and silver
extracted from the mountains have faded into history, and the area's
main money now is in the gaming industry that was introduced to the area
in the early 1990s.

But there are a few who continue to seek the traces of gold in the
stream beds and back-country regions.   They often brag about finding
it, too, although they usually won't tell you where.  So while the Gilpin 
County's gold industry has ceased to be a profitable large-scale venture, 
for some the glitter of gold still remains something that can bring a gleam 
to the eye.