8 GEOLOGY AND MINING INDUSTRY OF LEADVILLE. 



There is little doubt that this striking valley was afterward visited by 

 trappers and individual explorers, but of such visits no record is left so far 

 as is known to the writer. This region, like that of the parks, formed part 

 of the debatable ground between the tribes of Arapahoes and Utes, who 

 were constantly at war with each other and who made excursions to these 

 mountain valleys simply for the purpose of hunting and without any per- 

 manent occupancy. 



During the summer of 1859, at the time of the great Pike's Peak excite- 

 ment, a continuous stream of emigrant wagons stretched across the plains, 

 following up the Arkansas River to the base of Pike's Peak. As is gener- 

 ally the case in such mining rushes, the golden dreams of a large portion 

 of those attracted by the marvelous stories of the wealth that existed in the 

 streams issuing from the mountains were never realized. Many of the 

 wagons that had crossed the plains in the early summer, carrying the tri- 

 umphant device " Pike's Peak or bust," returned later over the same route 

 with this device significant!}^ altered to " Busted." The more adventurous 

 and hardy of these pioneers, although disappointed in their first anticipa- 

 tions, pushed resolutely up through the rocky gorges towards the sources 

 of the streams. Some of these found gold in Russell gulch, in the valley 

 of Clear Creek, where the first mining developments were made within the 

 State and where now stand the flourishing mining towns of Central City 

 and Black Hawk. Others wandered across the Colorado Range into South 

 Park, and found gold-bearing gravel deposits on its northern border, in 

 Tarryall Creek and on the Platte in the neighborhood of Fairplay. This 

 is, as far as can be learned, the extent of the explorations made in 1859. 



In the early spring of 1860 several small parties crossed the second 

 range into the Arkansas Valley. Among the number were Samuel B. Kel- 

 logg, now justice of the peace at Granite, and H. A. W. Tabor, later mill- 

 ionaire and lieutenant governor of the State of Colorado. Mr. Kellogg 

 had already had an experience of ten years in placer mining in California 

 when he came toColoradoin 1859. In February, 1860, he started with Tabor 

 and his family, their wagon being the first that ever went as far as the mouth of 

 the Arkansas. They pushed up the valley and about April 1 settled down at 

 the site of the present town of Granite, about eighteen miles below Lead- 



