Leadville is a statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 2,633 at the 2020 census. It is situated at an elevation of 10,158 feet (3,096 m). Leadville is the third highest incorporated city in the United States behind Alma and Montezuma and is surrounded by two of the tallest peaks in the state.
The City of Idaho Springs is the statutory city that is the most populous municipality in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. Idaho Springs is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,782. Idaho Springs is located in Clear Creek Canyon, in the mountains upstream from Golden, some 30 miles (50 km) west of Denver.
Black Hawk is a home rule municipality located in Gilpin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 127 at the 2020 United States Census, making Black Hawk the least populous city in Colorado. The tiny city is a historic mining settlement founded in 1859 during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush. Black Hawk is now a part of the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.
The City of Victor is a Statutory City in Teller County, Colorado, United States. Gold was discovered in Victor in the late 19th century, an omen of the future of the town. With Cripple Creek, the mining district became the second largest gold mining district in the country and realized approximately $10 billion of mined gold in 2010 dollars. It reached its peak around the turn of the century when there were about 18,000 residents in the town. Depleted ore in mines, labor strife and the exodus of miners during World War I caused a steep decline in the city's economy, from which it has never recovered. The population was 379 at the 2020 census. There is a resumed mining effort on Battle Mountain.
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Greece, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, California, the United States, and Canada while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.
ASARCO is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999.
Eben Smith was a successful mine owner, smelting company executive, railroad executive and bank owner in Colorado in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The Colorado Labor Wars were a series of labor strikes in 1903 and 1904 in the U.S. state of Colorado, by gold and silver miners and mill workers represented by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Opposing the WFM were associations of mine owners and businessmen at each location, supported by the Colorado state government. The strikes were notable and controversial for the accompanying violence, and the imposition of martial law by the Colorado National Guard in order to put down the strikes.
Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.
Silver mining in Colorado has taken place since the 1860s. In the past, Colorado called itself the Silver State.
The Shenandoah-Dives Mill or Mayflower Mill is an intact and functional but inactive historic ore mill 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Silverton, Colorado, United States. The mill was built in 1929 to recover gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper from ore mined at the Mayflower mine and brought to the mill by an aerial tramway. Regularly active until 1945, it houses still-functional equipment for the separation by flotation of metals from crushed ores. It is the only intact and functional mill of its kind in Colorado. It was included in the expanded Silverton Historic District in 1997, and was declared a National Historic Landmark on its own in 2000. The mill is owned by the San Juan County Historic Society, which staffs an information and gift shop at the mill under the name Mayflower Mill. The mill is open for self-guided tours in the summer months.
The Leadville mining district, located in the Colorado Mineral Belt, was the most productive silver-mining district in the state of Colorado and hosts one of the largest lead-zinc-silver deposits in the world. Oro City, an early Colorado gold placer mining town located about a mile east of Leadville in California Gulch, was the location to one of the richest placer gold strikes in Colorado, with estimated gold production of 120,000–150,000 ozt, worth $2.5 to $3 million at the then-price of $20.67 per troy ounce.
Hecla Mining is a gold, silver and other precious metals mining company based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Founded in 1891, is the second-largest mining company that produces silver in the country. This area is known as the Silver Valley (Idaho). In 1983, this entire area was designated as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, because of land, water, and air contamination resulting from a century of mostly unregulated silver and gold mining.
The Argo Tunnel is a 4.16-mile (6.69 km) mine drainage and access tunnel with its portal at Idaho Springs, Colorado, USA. It was originally called the Newhouse Tunnel after its primary investor, Salt Lake City mining magnate Samuel Newhouse, and appears by that name in many industry publications from the time period when it was constructed. The tunnel intersected nearly all the major gold mines between Idaho Springs and Central City, and is the longest such drainage tunnel in the Central City-Idaho Springs mining district.
The Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine, formerly and historically the Cresson Mine, is an active gold mine located near the town of Victor, in the Cripple Creek mining district in the US state of Colorado. The richest gold mine in Colorado history, it is the only remaining significant producer of gold in the state, and produced 322,000 troy ounces of gold in 2019, and reported 3.45 million troy ounces of Proven and Probable Reserves as at December 31, 2019. It was owned and operated by AngloGold Ashanti through its subsidiary, the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company (CC&V), until 2015, when it sold the mine to Newmont Mining Corporation.
The Holden/Marolt Mining and Ranching Museum is located on the former Holden Lixiviation Works facility on the western edge of the city of Aspen, Colorado, United States. It consists of two remaining buildings from the facility, as well as the relocated McMurchy/Zupancis domestic buildings. In 1990 the property was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the only district in the city to be so recognized.
The Cripple Creek Gold Rush was a period of gold production in the Cripple Creek area from the late 1800s until the early 1900s. Mining exchanges were in Cripple Creek, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Victor. Smelting was in Gillett, Florence, and (Old) Colorado City. Mining communities sprang up quickly, but most lasted only as long as gold continued to be produced. Settlements included:
The California Gulch site consists of approximately 18 square miles in Lake County, Colorado. The area includes the city of Leadville, parts of the Leadville Historic Mining District and a section of the Arkansas River from the confluence of California Gulch downstream to the confluence of Two-Bit Gulch. The site was listed as a Superfund site in 1983.
In the mid-19th century, Colorado Springs was a center of mining industry activity. Coal was mined in 50 mines in the area and towns, now annexed to Colorado Springs, were established to support residents of the coal mining industry.
Edward G. Stoiber was an American mining engineer and owner of the Silver Lakes Mines and Mills near Silverton, Colorado. Stoiber went to Germany and completed a mining degree program. When he returned he began working as a mining engineer in Leadville, Colorado. In the mid-1880s, he went into business with his brother Gustavus, establishing a mill and mine in San Jan County near Silverton. By 1887, the brothers decided to part ways, with Edward keeping the Silver Lake mine. The following year he married Lena Allen Webster who would become joint owner of the business and an operational manager. Edward focused on mining engineering, which was crucial to find economical ways to mine and process low-grade ore. He investigated mining practices and ore processing until he was able to become a profitable enterprise that also brought prosperity to the San Juan mining district. Lena was a hard-driving, yet also caring manager, ensuring that the mining operations were effective. That included wearing men's clothes and performing work as needed. They were involved in community, philanthropic, and industry efforts, including dual-membership in the American Institute of Mining Engineers.
