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Leadville Colorado’s magic City by Edward Blair Soft Cover
Leadville: Colorados magic City by Edward Blair
Soft Cover (feels a little sticky near Blair on the spine, from a price label?)
261 pages
Copyright 1980
CONTENTS
Prologue:Pike's Peak or Bust 1
A few words about what and who came before.
I: The First Magicians3
A. G. Kelley, Kelleysburg, Abe Lee and gold in California Gulch. Fate and H. A. W. Tabor. A diet of coffee, beans and gold.
II: Waiting17
A new state, a new county, and the mother lode. A visit from Dr. Hayden. Uncle Billy Stevens, Alvinus B. Wood, and the Rock mine.
III: Anybody Can Do It27
Some famous discoveries and discoverers on Carbonate, Iron, and Breece hills. The Gallaghers and the governor get rich. How to find a mine; a few that were lost.
IV: The Magic City37
The coming of Leadville; a name, a town, a legend. Roads, stagelines, bad weather, and a taste of things to come. Susan Anthony comes to visit; William Lovell comes to stay.
V: Mr. Fryer's Hill45
Some tales of rags to riches. George H. Fryer and the New Discovery. Tabor, two German cobblers, and Little Pittsburg. Chicken Bill salts a mine, and Chicago clothiers line their pockets with Leadville silver.
VI: A Pilgrim's First Glance55
A place to sleep and something to eat. Who were they and where did they all come from. An unpardonable story about fur bearing trout, and some facts and figures about life in the Magic City in '78 and '79.
VII: Boom Town After Dark69
Saloons, beer halls, gambling dens, dance halls, houses that were seldom homes, and Leadville theater. Some famous and not so famous night people-patron, performer, proprietor.
VIII:The Wheels of Progress81
Lawyers, doctors, dentists, and newsmen. The world of Orth Stein, underground caverns, abominable snowman, and a lost Egyptian ship. Mule skinners, freighting, assaying, smelting, charcoal kilns, and smoke.
IX The Rough Element105
Lot jumpers, bunko artists, a gallery of not-so-heroes, the lynching of Frodsham and Stewart, the alternate reigns of footpads and vigilantes, plus the saga of Marshall Duggan.
X:Society of Sorts123
All about church bells, school bells, and the belle of the ball. The Blues, colored teas, and Sunday outings. Artists of sorts, and artistic endeavors, also of sorts.
XI:Trials of Growing Up141
Playing postoffice and fireman; the civilizing influence of running water, runaway horses, and running arguments over fire fighting, street railways, and litter. Railroads, telegraph, telephone, and light.
XII: Reality Comes to Stay163
Failure ... the Little Pittsburg and the miners' bid for better conditions. Silver drops and the water rises. The Downtown district, John Campion, James J. Brown, and the Little Jonny.
XIII:Strike183
The tragic miners' strike of 1896. The burning of the Coronado, the murder of Jerry O'Keefe, and the militia's control of Leadville. Scabs, wags, the eight hour day, and soup kitchens.
XIV: End of an Era201
A number of good-byes, the winter of 1898/1899. Building for the future, preserving the past. A short railroad war, some stories of ghosts.
XV: Triumph and Tragedy213
Zinc and money on Bartlett Mountain. Underground banquets and tunnels, bootlegging, and boom times. A panic, a war, an epidemic, a strike all take their toll. Little left but hope.
XVI: Hard Times227
The twenties, the demise of prohibition, the smelter industry and Captain Blue. The glorious Tenth, the inglorious drainage tunnel, the innocent eagerness of the fifties, and the anger of the sixties.
Epilogue:The Second Hundred Years243
A very short history.
Source Notes245
Index257
PROLOGUE
Pike's Peak or Bust
The spring of 1849 saw the greatest western migration in American history. California gold lured men from all over the world. Colorado in 1849 did not exist, even in men's imaginations. It was merely a mountainous barrier that lay between the cities and farms of the East and the waiting wealth of California.
The eastern part of Colorado, along a line south from Denver, was Kansas Territory. The northeastern corner of the Centennial State belonged to Nebraska; the rest, except a narrow slice along the present southern border that in 1850 became New Mexico Territory, was part of Utah Territory.
After the California excitement died down, a few men remembered stories they had heard about gold in the Rocky Mountains and returned to try their luck. One such man was William Green Russell, a Georgia cracker, who, with his two brothers, Levi and Oliver, organized a small party of Georgians in 1858 and set out for the unknown. He was related, through marriage, to some Oklahoma Cherokees, and when crossing the Indian Territory he recruited a party of about one hundred Indian gold seekers, many of whom were related to him. The Indians and Georgians, happy with the protection the other afforded, headed west in search of the rainbow's end. Once north of the Arkansas River they began prospecting, working their way north along the face of the Front Range. By the time they reached Cherry Creek, near the present site of Denver, a large number had become discouraged. This, plus their fear of an attack by local Arapahoes, convinced most that home was where they belonged. Only about a dozen Georgians and Cherokees stayed on. A couple of months later, in July of 1858, of those who remained struck a pocket of gold in Dry Creek in what is now south Denver.
Not long after the strike was made, a group of mountain traders wandered by while the prospectors were working the gulch. The prospectors' labor only netted about $800 worth of gold, but the traders carried the word and inflated the value. In Kansas City they told of a rich find at the base of the mountains in the western end of Kansas Territory. The rush was on!
Those who had missed their chance in '49, either because they did not go, or because they did not locate a bonanza when they got to California, seemed determined to be Johnny-on-the-spot in '59. Also, the national situation had a lot to do with the enthusiasm the word "gold" carried. The country was suffering from the effects of the Panic of 1857, while the threat of sectional violence hung heavy in the air. Kansas was rapidly becoming the practice field for the Civil War, and many settlers there and in the "States" were more than willing to pull up stakes and cast their lot with the gold seekers.
A few stalwarts crossed the open, windswept prairie during the winter of 1858-59. The main army of seekers waited for spring. As soon as grass began to look as if it could support their teams the tide swept west. They "wested" in oxcarts and in wagons, on foot and on horseback. There were those who pushed wheelbarrows or hand carts, and some even tried the fabled wind-wagons, great sailing ships on wheels that were becalmed in the first gully west of Independence. Many died of hunger; more of thirst and Indian raids.
It is estimated that over 100,000 people headed west in the Pike's Peak gold rush, and at least half of these turned around before they got to the gold fields. Another 25,000 turned homeward soon after they found that it was not as easy as expected. And it was expected to be very easy. One Iowa newspaper reported that Pike's Peak was "solid gold" and was mined by toboggan. The miners slid off the mountain and the runners scraped the gold off as they went. It was a lot of fun and very profitable. The story of the young fellow heading west with a wheelbarrow filled with flour sacks to shovel his gold into seems to illustrate the notion of the uninformed, but optimistic, Fifty-Niner.
Fortunately for those who perpetrated the myth, major strikes were made early in 1859 that saved the promoters' bacon, for there were men, broke and hungry, who were ready to cry "hoax" and hang a few promoters.
George A. Jackson, a knowledgeable miner who got his training in the gold fields of California, located a rich find on Chicago Creek in January of 1859 near the present town of Idaho Springs. A short time later, John H. Gregory, a muleskinner by trade, found paydirt a few miles from Jackson's claim on Clear Creek. He was grubstaked by an Indiana group, who helped him develop the first lode mine in the area. William Green Russell, still busy, got his second, larger reward in a gulch in the same general area. He located a good placer about three miles below Gregory Gulch in what is now known as Russell Gulch.
By fall 1859, prospectors had penetrated the mountains and crossed the Continental Divide. Towns were growing, not only at the foot of the mountains, but in the mountains. Such one-street communities as Denver, Boulder, Colorado City, Black Hawk, Mountain City, and Golden claimed greatness far in excess of their size.
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