The Pike's Peak Gold Rush (later known as the Colorado Gold Rush) was the boom in
gold prospecting and mining in the
Pike's Peak Country
Pike's Peak Country was the name given to the gold mining region of the western United States near Pikes Peak during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858–1861. The Pike's Peak Country included the region of western Kansas Territory roughly west of ...
of western
Kansas Territory and southwestern
Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado.
The territory was organized in the ...
on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest
gold rushes in
North American history.
The participants in the gold rush were known as "
Fifty-Niner A "Fifty-Niner" is the term used for the gold seekers who streamed into the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory in 1859. The discovery of placer gold deposits along the South Platte River at the foo ...
s" after 1859, the peak year of the rush and often used the motto Pike's Peak or Bust! In fact, the location of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was centered north of Pike's Peak. The name Pike's Peak Gold Rush was used mainly because of how well known and important Pike's Peak was at the time.
Overview
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush, which followed the
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
by approximately one decade, produced a dramatic but temporary influx of
migrants and
immigrants into the
Pike's Peak Country
Pike's Peak Country was the name given to the gold mining region of the western United States near Pikes Peak during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858–1861. The Pike's Peak Country included the region of western Kansas Territory roughly west of ...
of the
Southern Rocky Mountains. The rush was exemplified by the slogan "Pike's Peak or Bust!", a reference to the prominent mountain at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains that guided many early prospectors to the region westward over the
Great Plains. The
prospector
Prospector may refer to:
Space exploration
* Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962
* ''Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft
Trains
* Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ...
s provided the first major
European-American population in the region.
The rush created a few mining camps such as
Denver City and
Boulder City
Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately southeast of Las Vegas. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population of Boulder City was 14,885. The city took its name from Boulder Canyon ( ...
that would develop into cities. Many smaller camps such as
Auraria and
Saint Charles City were absorbed by larger camps and towns. Scores of other mining camps have faded into
ghost towns, but quite a few camps such as
Central City,
Black Hawk,
Georgetown, and
Idaho Springs survived.
Discovery
For many years, people had suspected the mountains in present-day Colorado contained numerous rich gold deposits. In 1835, French trapper Eustace Carriere lost his party and ended up wandering through the mountains for many weeks. During those weeks he found many gold specimens which he later took back to New Mexico for examination. Upon examination, they turned out to be "pure gold". But when he tried to lead an expedition back to the location of where he found the gold, they came up short because he could not quite remember the location.
In 1849 and 1850, several parties of gold seekers bound for the
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
panned small amounts of gold from various streams in the
South Platte River
The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/Mountain West. It ...
valley at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
. The Rocky Mountain gold failed to impress or delay men with visions of unlimited wealth in California, and the discoveries were not reported for several years.
As the hysteria of the California Gold Rush faded, many discouraged gold seekers returned home. Rumors of gold in the Rocky Mountains persisted and several small parties explored the region. In the summer of 1857, a party of
Spanish-speaking
Hispanophone and Hispanic refers to anything relating to the Spanish language (the Hispanosphere).
In a cultural, rather than merely linguistic sense, the notion of "Hispanophone" goes further than the above definition. The Hispanic culture is th ...
gold seekers from
New Mexico worked a
placer deposit
In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation from a specific source rock during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish word ''placer'', meaning "alluvial sand". Placer mi ...
along the South Platte River about 5 miles (8 kilometers) above
Cherry Creek, now part of metropolitan
Denver.
[
William Greeneberry "Green" Russell was a Georgian who worked in the California gold fields in the 1850s. Russell was married to a Cherokee woman, and through his connections to the tribe, he heard about an 1849 discovery of gold along the South Platte River. Green Russell organized a party to prospect along the South Platte River, setting off with his two brothers and six companions in February 1858. They rendezvoused with Cherokee tribe members along the ]Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...
in present-day Oklahoma and continued westward along the Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, t ...
. Others joined the party along the way until their number reached 107.[
Upon reaching ]Bent's Fort
Bent's Old Fort is an 1833 fort located in Otero County, Colorado, Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arap ...
, they turned to the northwest, reaching the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte on May 23. The site of their initial explorations is in present-day Confluence Park in Denver. They began prospecting in the river beds, exploring Cherry Creek and nearby Ralston Creek but without success. In the first week of July 1858, Green Russell and Sam Bates found a small placer deposit near the mouth of Little Dry Creek that yielded about 20 troy ounces (622 grams) of gold, the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region. The site of the discovery is in the present-day Denver suburb of Englewood, just north of the junction of U.S. Highway 285 and U.S. Highway 85.[
]
Initial boom
The first decade of the boom was largely concentrated along the South Platte River at the base of the Rocky Mountains, in the canyon of Clear Creek in the mountains west of Golden City, at Breckenridge and in South Park
''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand their ...
at Como
Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como.
Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps has m ...
, Fairplay, and Alma. By 1860, Denver City, Golden City, and Boulder City were substantial towns that served the mines. Rapid population growth led to the creation of the Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado.
The territory was organized in the ...
in 1861.
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush sent many Americans into a frenzy, prompting them to pack up their belongings and head to Colorado. This initial boom influenced people to begin falsifying information, often sending people out to the west without any proof of a true presence of gold. As early as the spring of 1859, people raced to the Pike's Peak country. Some even dared to go out in the winter of 1858 to try to get a head start, only to realize that they would have to wait until the snow melted to begin mining.
Free gold
Hardrock mining boomed for a few years, but then declined in the mid-1860s as the miners exhausted the shallow parts of the veins that contained free gold, and found that their amalgamation
Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.
Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal
**Pan ama ...
mills could not recover gold from the deeper sulfide ores.[A. H. Koschman and M. H. Bergendahl (1968) ''Principal Gold-Producing Districts of the United States'', US Geological Survey, Professional Paper 610, p.86.] Colorado produced 150,000 ounces of gold in 1861 and 225,000 troy ounces in 1862. This led Congress to establish the Denver Mint
The Denver Mint is a branch of the United States Mint that struck its first coins on February 1, 1906. The mint is still operating and producing coins for circulation, as well as mint sets and commemorative coins. Coins produced at the Denver Min ...
. Cumulative Colorado production by 1865 was 1.25 million ounces, of which sixty percent was placer gold
Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed (alluvial) deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.
Placer mining is frequently used for p ...
.[Voynick, S.M., 1992, Colorado Gold, Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Company, ]
See also
*Australian gold rushes
During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of N ...
* Colorado Silver Boom
* Horace Greeley, namesake of Greeley, Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
, who mined for gold in the rush
* Klondike Gold Rush
*Silver mining in Colorado
Silver mining in Colorado has taken place since the 1860s. In the past, Colorado called itself the ''Silver State''. (Nevada also calls itself the ''Silver State''. Idaho, however, actually produces the most silver in the US.)
Central City-Idah ...
* Ute people
*Witwatersrand Gold Rush
The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution.
Origins
In the modern day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial mines of ...
References
External links
{{Wild West
American gold rushes
Gold mining in Colorado
Colorado Mining Boom
Pikes Peak
1858 in Kansas Territory
American frontier
Kansas Territory
Jefferson Territory
Economy of Colorado
Mining in Colorado
Pre-statehood history of Colorado
1858 in the United States
19th century in Colorado