by Pam North

In the early days of mining, when no laws were yet in existence, mining districts adopted a few common sense rules to provide some protection from the numerous claim jumpers, thieves and murderers who were an inevitable threatening part of the gold rush scenario.  Borrowed from the original mining boom of the California forty-niners were such jurisdictional stipulations as claim sizes, number of claims permitted to one individual, and amount of work that had to be performed to qualify and hold title.

Claims were classified into three types:  mountain claims, which were 50 feet by 100 feet; creek or placer claims, which were 100 feet square; gulch claims, which measured 100 feet, extending from bank to bank.  One of each type of claim was permitted to be held by each Gregory Gulch prospector.  Other types of claims were ranch claims, given to those who professed to be "permanent,"  and building claims in the emerging town, forty feet of frontage by 100 feet of depth.  Water claims were viewed as real estate, and therefore were not "jumpable."

Regulating claim types and sizes proved not to be a deterrent for crime, however, and soon the focus shifted to how to mete out punishment to those who refused to respect the rules.  Courts were not easily accessible, the nearest ones being in Kansas and Nebraska, so practical rules of law were devised by the miners themselves, following the example of the prospectors in earlier gold rushes.

It was mainly the flagrant offenses for which specific severe punishments were prescribed.  A fine double the amount stolen was assessed for petty larceny; grand larceny was treated in the same manner, with a maximum of 300 lashes added, the latter administered at the public whipping post.  Banishment from the district could also be part of the punishment for more serious offenses.

Public trial in miners' court (presided over by a  circuit judge who traveled a regular route, appearing in Central City once a month) was the avenue dictated by the crimes of manslaughter, or theft of horse or mule.  These "court trials" were apt to be held in the largest local saloon, with the juries drafted from the most sober patrons of the bar.  The miners' courts were swift, no-nonsense dispensers of justice, with the power to render verdicts of whipping, banishment or hanging.  Public hanging was a common consequence for the crime of murder, and there reportedly was a tree up in a gulch above Central City that was used  specifically for this purpose.  Hangings were a spectator sport, with people toting picnic baskets arriving in wagons to witness the events.

Miners' courts were abolished when Colorado became a territory in 1861.  The circuit judges, such as Judge Allen Bradford, became better qualified and more experienced, and as Central City began its gradual metamorphosis into a permanent town, law enforcement became more sophisticated as well; a sheriff, William Z. Cozens, was employed, and a jail was built.  Justice evolved from the quick economy of the type practiced in the earlier years, when a handy whip or a rope obviated the need for juries and sheriffs, to the more sensible and deliberate type associated with an orderly, thriving community.
 
 

Resource:  Central City and Gilpin County, Then and Now, by Robert L. Brown.