At the age of 40, Abe Lee didn’t need to be told twice.  In 1859, he left his farm in Arkansas after hearing a rumour from miners working along the river and according to whom there was gold in Colorado.  In spring 1860, Lee finally found what he was looking for in the ravine of a mountain “It was full of gold and there were loads of different colours rolling in his pan. It was at that precise moment that he made the connection: I have all of California in this pan.  This was the name that was eventually given to the gulch, the Californian gulch.”

It took off like in 49′.  In the first year, the Californian ravine produced more than 2 million dollars worth of gold.  “This first rush was purely a rush towards gold sands.  A method which would today be known as a geochemical method was suitable enough to find gold.  It consisted of finding small quantities of gold using gravity by gently swirling the pan.”

The discovery at Leadville rounded up gold hunters from all over the world.  “Lots of people came from Eastern countries.  In spring 1860, 10000 people arrived trying to set themselves up directly in the Californian ravine.  The 8km ravine was rapidly split up into little individual concessions, most of which were no longer than 30m.”“Slovenians occupied the west of town, Hispanics were at Stringtown, the Swedes were on Chicken Hill and the Irish were on Sixth Street.”

Leadville 1860

Leadville is a small community of just over a square mile, perched some 3300m up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  Following Abe Lee’s discovery, the thousands of miners that flocked to this remote camp soon realized that the area was also rich in other types of deposits.  Over the next thirty years, more than a million mine pits were dug from which gold, silver, zinc and the metal which gave the town its name in 1878, lead, were extracted. “It was a primitive and disorganised community.  I remember reading an article published in 1893 which said that Leadville was the most famous mining community the world has ever known. ““Leadville was famous for its games rooms and brothels and for every church or school there were 10 to 20 bars and brothels.”

One of the miners that set out to pursue his dreams in Leadville was none other than Thomas Walsh, an Irish immigrant who arrived in 1879 to look for gold.  For fifteen years, Walsh dug and when he wasn’t digging he took care of a bar in Leadville.  Before that he worked in one of the many metal refineries that breathed life into the region’s mining industry. In 1895 Thomas Walsh literally fell upon a gold mine.  “It was quite an extraordinary bit of luck that only happens once in your life because the place just above where this rich mass of gold deposits was located had previously been excavated fifteen times by miners who were convinced that they were going to find silver.  They committed the error of not sampling the minerals that were in range of their picks.  When he himself took samples and tried them he found that the ore had a very high concentration of gold”.

In 1879, silver was discovered in Leadville.  Hundreds of mines literally sprang up overnight.  However, during the 1880’s, silver progressively dropped in value as countries around the world moved on to a new standard, the gold standard.  The death of this once precious metal ended in total failure.  Lots of silver concessions were automatically abandoned.  In the months that followed, Walsh discretely purchased 50 deserted concessions scattered amongst the hills surrounding Leadville.  He carried out consolidation work and inspired by a small rocky mountain known as Raven, he decided to call his minefield Camp Bird Mine. He was however one of the exceptions.  If some found fortune in Leadville, most didn’t find anything or very little gold.  “Life in these mining communities was very, very difficult.  Everyone thought that with the next shovel full they would hit the jackpot, but sadly it happened very rarely.”

Contestoga wagon

“Most of them returned home on board Conestoga wagons which were typical of the time.  More often than not they painted little mottos by way of a coat of arms on the wagon’s canvas: “money or nothing”.  And when they returned home to the east they often said that they had been plucked by God”.

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the chances of making a fortune through gold were dwindling.  The last opportunity for prospectors was in Alaska.  When gold was discovered in Klondike River in 1896, thousands of miners sailed there.  The ticket to travel there on a steamer, which had previously cost 50 dollars, rose to 1000 dollars.  But the boat was only part of the journey.  Prospectors  then had to follow a long route strewn with obstacles across one of the most hostile terrains in the world.

Canadian Mounties also worked to prevent people embarking on the adventure without at least a years worth of food.  A Major of the Mounties wrote at the time: “It’s hard to imagine such a scene of ruin and desolation, thousands of horses lay dead littered across the road, sometimes whole groups.  They were lying  their harnesses, their saddles, their loads which had fallen with them from the top of the rocks.”

But prospectors continued on their way unabated.  Because so much gold had been found in so many different areas they remained convinced that it was only a matter of time before the next big discovery.

“People used to wonder where the next rush would be.  California quickly reached saturation point but there were many other stories in the 1850’s and 60’s.  It was suddenly announced that there was gold in Seattle or elsewhere, absolutely everyone would rush  to these places and more often than not there was nothing to be found.”

The men who made the great gold rushes of the nineteenth century were strong, strapping solitary individuals with huge dreams.  They panned for gold that changed history in  flakes, grains and sometimes whole nuggets.  Every time an announcement was made that gold had been discovered from California to Australia via Alaska, the world rushed to filter rivers, but rivers are not the only hiding place for gold.  People soon realised that gold was also hiden in the surrounding hills.  Unfortunately, it takes more than just a shovel and pan to get to it.

Maurice hall

Tags: Gold, History

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