DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



105 



fornia Gulch. This discovery was made late in the autumn, and the 

 party was not prepared to spend the winter there, so they left ; but 

 they returned the next year and established a mining camp which 

 thej'^ christened Oro City (meaning Gold City) and which before 

 the end of the year had a population of 5,000. Its fame spread, and 

 in 1861 it was the most populous town in Colorado Territory. In a 

 few years more than $5,000,000 had been washed from its golden 

 sands, but like that of all other placer deposits the life of this one 

 was ephemeral, for in a few years the town was nearly abandoned by 

 the gold seekers, and for several years it played only a small part 

 in the history of the mining region. 



From 1874 to 1877 there was a revival of interest in the Leadville 

 region, for silver-lead ores were found at several places in the vi- 

 cinity of California Gulch, but no development was undertaken until 

 1878. Before that year the camp consisted of only a cluster of log 

 cabins, but in 1878 a " rush " to the new workings began and the 

 camp at once sprang into prominence as the greatest silver camp in 

 the world. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad was completed to 

 the gulch in 1880, and the camp soon had a population of 30,000. 

 During the first decade of its existence the silver and lead produced 

 is reported to have been worth more than $120,000,000. Silver min- 

 ing was the chief industry until the slump in the price of silver in 

 1893. For a time there was great stagnation, and then the miners 

 turned their attention to the production of gold, silver, copper, lead, 

 and zinc. In 1920 the value of the output of the mines of Lake 

 County, which includes some mines outside the Leadville district, was 

 $4,320,510. The total metallic output up to the end of 1920 is val- 

 ued at a little more than $419,000,000.^3 



^*The following more detailed ac- 

 count of the history of the Leadville 

 district is taken largely from the re- 

 ports of Emmons and Irving (Geologj' 

 and mining industry of Leadville, 

 Colo.: U. S. Geol. Survey Mon. 12, 

 1886 ; The Downtown district of Lead- 

 ville, Colo.: U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 

 320, 1907). 



During the summer of 1859, at the 

 time of the great Pikes Peak excite- 

 ment, a continuous stream of emigrant 

 wagons stretched across the plains, fol- 

 lowing Arkansas River up to the base 

 of Pikes Peak. Many of the wagons 

 that had crossed the plains in the early 

 summer, carrying the triumphant de- 

 vice " Pikes Peak or bust," returned 



later over the same route with the 

 device significantly altered to the single 

 word " Busted," but the more adven- 

 turous of these pioneers pushed reso- 

 lutely up through the narrow rocky 

 gorges toward the sources of the 

 streams. Some wandered across the 

 mountains during the same season into 

 South Park and found gold-bearing 

 gravel on Tarryall Creek and in the 

 neighborhood of Fairplay. 



Early in the spring of 1860 some of 

 the prospectors found gold in tlie gravel 

 at the site of the village of Granite, 

 and others pas.sed on to California 

 Gulch, near the present station of 

 Malta, where the most valuable dis- 

 covery of the season was made. News 



