|
Miners
of Colorado |
| Overview |
| The mining of precious metals played a central role in the
economic development of Colorado. The cycles of boom and bust characteristic of
Colorado’s 19th-century economy were driven largely by the fortunes of the mining
industry. The discovery of gold in 1859 and the mining activities that followed brought
the first influx of settlers from the east. Colorado recovered from an economic slump in
the 1870s largely as a result of a silver mining boom in the Leadville area. The last
surge of prosperity associated with hard-rock mining occurred in the early 1890s, with the
opening of Cripple Creek’s gold mines. Coal mining also became an important
industry. Coal was used to power locomotives, to run steam engines in factories, and in
smelters. The latter used coke or partly burned coal to in their blast furnaces. Coke
burned much hotter than ordinary coal. Coal also was used for home heating. This industry
was centered in the coal fields located along the front range from Erie to Walsenburg.
Coal mining remained an important industry in Colorado through the 1950s. |
| Food, Clothing, and Shelter |
| The people who came to Colorado hoping to strike it rich
experienced little change in diet. The first adventurers who crossed the plains brought
most of their food with them. Nonperishable items, such as salt pork, dried beans, and
potatoes were the mainstay of their diet. Once they had arrived in Colorado, they added
freshly-killed deer and elk to their menu. After the first year or so, Colorado’s
gardens, farms, and ranches produced a still more varied menu. By the 1880s, miners relied
heavily on canned vegetables and fruit to provide a varied diet even during the winter. The
clothing men and women wore depended largely on their occupation and economic status.
Prospectors and men who worked in the mines wore the everyday work clothes of that time.
Their ants, shirts, and coats were made of cotton, wool or a combination of wool and
linen. Working women and housewives typically wore print dresses and aprons. Businessmen
wore white cotton shirts and three-piece woolen suits. Their wives’ formal wear
included dresses made of velvet, silk and satin.
Mining settlements included various types of shelters. In first months, most settlers
lived in tents and log cabins. As a mining camp matured, saw mills were built and
structures made of sawn boards were common. The more affluent townspeople eventually built
large, two- or three-story, frame or brick houses. While tents were only temporary
structures, log houses often remained in use for years. |
| Families and Children and
Schools |
| Single, young men made up a disproportionate number of the
population of early mining camps. Many were unmarried men who had few responsibilities
back home. Others were married men who probably considered the likelihood of success in
Colorado too risky to warrant uprooting their family. As mining camps grew into prosperous
towns, the gender ratio became less lopsided. The prospect of finding steady work
encouraged men to bring their families with them. The arrival of women and children, in
turn, led to the building of schools. The size of schools varied from one-room log
structures of small mining communities to the substantial brick and stone buildings of
Leadville, Georgetown, and Central City. |
| Work and Tools |
| The kind of work that miners did also changed as mining camps
matured. Many of the first discoveries were made by individuals panning for gold in a
stream. In rich gold strikes such as Gregory’s Diggings (Central City), miners found
they could work more efficiently in small groups using sluices. A sluice was a long wooden
trough with slats nailed to the bottom through which water flowed. Men shoveled dirt and
gravel into the sluice, letting the water carry away the coarse material while the gold
settled to the bottom. They later panned the fine sand caught behind the slats to remove
the flakes of gold. When they had mined all the gold they could in this manner, miners
looked for the gold-bearing quartz vein that had produced the “color” they had
found in the bed and banks of the stream. Quartz mining required more complex tools and
methods. To recover the gold, the ore had to be blasted out of the rock and hauled to
crushers and ore smelters. This kind of mining required investment capital, large work
crews, and, eventually, a corporate form of organization. In other words, mining for
precious metals in each successful region evolved from men working individually or in
small groups to an industrial form of organization. On the other hand, coal mines began as
a large-scale activity requiring investment capital, dozens if not hundreds of miners, and
a corporate form of organization. |
| Mining Towns |
| The mining frontier was an urban frontier from the outset.
Unlike fur trappers, farmers or ranchers, miners lived close together to be near the
placer sites, quartz mines and smelters at which they worked. The first men who rushed to
a new gold discovery pitched their tents along the creek banks and up the ravines or built
log cabins on the adjacent hillsides. These crowds attracted grocers, tavern keepers,
hotel operators, hardware dealers, and other merchants, who at first sold their wares from
their own tents and log cabins. In time, they built frame and brick buildings along Main
Street, turning the sprawling mining camps into prosperous towns. The richest mining
regions also produced cities of several thousand population. By 1890, the mining town of
Leadville had become the second largest city in Colorado. The wealth derived from mining
also trickled down the mountain to bring prosperity to supply towns, such as Boulder,
Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. |
| Community Life |
| The people who migrated to Colorado brought with them
institutions and customs from the places they left behind. These provided many occasions
during the year for people to come together for social events. Religion played a
conspicuous role in the community life of mining camps. Sunday church services were
popular community events. Miners celebrated the Fourth of July with patriotic speeches and
parades, just as they had back home. Sporting events also brought them together, including
baseball games and firemen’s races against contestants from rival towns, as did band
concerts. |
| Transportation |
| The mining industry in Colorado was highly dependent on
reliable means of transportation. Keeping the mining towns supplied year-round with food
and equipment was a critical necessity. By the 1870s, railroads connected the larger
mining communities to the supply towns on the plains. Teamsters driving horse- and
mule-drawn wagons also brought in supplies and hauled ore to local smelters. Pack trains
of burros carried supplies to the more remote mines. |
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