Editing Pike's Peak gold rush

{{Short description|Nineteenth-century gold-prospecting frenzy in Colorado, US}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
[[File:Pikes Peak miners.jpg|upright=1.1|thumb|Gold prospectors in the [[Rocky Mountains]] of western [[Kansas Territory]]]]
The '''Pike's Peak gold rush''' (later known as the '''Colorado gold rush''') was the boom in [[gold]] prospecting and mining in the [[Pike's Peak Country]] of western [[Kansas Territory]] and southwestern [[Nebraska Territory]] of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the [[Colorado Territory]] on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest [[gold rushes]] in [[North America]]n history.<ref name=ArapahoCamp>{{cite web | date = December 19, 2006 | url = http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_1.asp | title = Denver History – The Arapaho Camp | format = [[Active Server Pages|ASP]]/[[HTML]] | work = Mile High City | author = Thomas J. Noel | publisher = City and County of Denver | access-date = December 19, 2006 | author-link = Thomas Noel (historian) | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071013125031/http://denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_1.asp | archive-date = October 13, 2007 }}</ref>

The participants in the gold rush were known as "[[Fifty-Niner]]s" after 1859, the peak year of the rush and often used the motto '''Pike's Peak or Bust!''' In fact, the location of the Pike's Peak gold rush was centered {{convert|85|mi}} north of [[Pikes Peak]]. The name Pike's Peak gold rush was used mainly because of how well known and important Pike's Peak was at the time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Robert L. |title=The great Pikes Peak gold rush |publisher=[[Caxton Printers]] |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-87004-311-6 |location=Caldwell, Idaho}}</ref> The rush created a few towns such as [[Denver, Colorado|Denver]] and [[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder]] that would develop into cities.

==Overview==
[[File:Prospector on Pikes Peak, CO 4a09164a original.jpg|thumb|Prospector on Pikes Peak]]
The  Pike's Peak gold rush, which followed the [[California gold rush]] by approximately a decade, produced a dramatic but temporary influx of [[Internal migration|migrants]] and [[immigration|immigrants]] into the [[Pike's Peak Country]] of the [[Rocky Mountains|Southern Rocky Mountains]]. The rush was exemplified by the slogan "Pike's Peak or Bust!", a reference to the prominent mountain at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains that guided many early prospectors to the region westward over the [[Great Plains]]. The [[Prospecting|prospector]]s provided the first major [[White American|European-American]] population in the region.

The rush created a few gold rush towns such as [[Denver, Colorado|Denver City]] and [[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder City]] that would develop into cities. Many smaller camps such as [[Auraria, Colorado|Auraria]] and [[Denver, Colorado#History|Saint Charles City]] were absorbed by larger camps and towns. Scores of other mining camps have faded into [[ghost town]]s, but quite a few camps such as [[Central City, Colorado|Central City]], [[Black Hawk, Colorado|Black Hawk]], [[Georgetown, Colorado|Georgetown]], and [[Idaho Springs, Colorado|Idaho Springs]] survived.

==Discovery==
[[File:At timber line, Pike's Peak trail. Colo, by Martin, Alexander, d. 1929.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|"At timber line, Pike's Peak trail" ~ circa unknown]]

For many years, people had suspected the mountains in present-day Colorado contained numerous rich gold deposits. In 1835, French trapper Eustace Carriere lost his party and ended up wandering through the mountains for many weeks. During those weeks he found many gold specimens which he later took back to New Mexico for examination. Upon examination, they turned out to be "pure gold". But when he tried to lead an expedition back to the location of where he found the gold, they came up short because he could not quite remember the location.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hafen |first=Le Roy Reuben |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Bw1AQAAMAAJ |title=The Illustrated Miners' Hand-book and Guide to Pike's Peak: With a New and Reliable Map, Showing All the Routes, and the Gold Regions of Western Kansas and Nebraska |publisher=Parker & Huyett |year=1859 |location=St. Louis}}</ref>

On January 24, 1848, [[James W. Marshall]] found [[placer gold]] near [[Coloma, California]], and unbeknownst nine days later, [[Mexico]] ceded [[California]] and the rest of northern Mexico to the [[United States]] with the [[Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]]. The [[California Gold Rush]] ensued. In the spring of 1850, John Beck led a party of predominately [[Cherokee]] veterans of the [[Georgia Gold Rush]] to the California gold fields. The party followed the [[Trail of Tears]] west, and on June 22, 1850, they crossed the [[South Platte River]] (a few miles north of what is today [[Denver]]) and camped near the confluence of two streams. One of the prospectors, [[Lewis Ralston]] panned for gold near the mouth of the smaller stream (in what is now Gold Strike Park in [[Arvada, Colorado]].) He found about ¼ [[troy ounce]] (8&nbsp;g) of gold, then worth about five dollars (about $550 [[USD]] today.) While Ralston was elated, the rest of the party was unimpressed and continued on to California the next morning. Ralston continued panning for gold, but gave up after a few days and caught up with his party.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Lois Cunniff Lindstrom |title=Ralston's Gold |publisher=Coloradream Publishing |year=2011 |isbn=978-0615-56967-3 |location=Arvada, CO |oclc=802102572}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://coloradocommunitymedia.com/2022/02/09/the-curious-case-of-lewis-ralston/|title=The curious case of Lewis Ralston|publisher=Arvada Press|date= February 9, 2022|access-date=February 27, 2024}}</ref><ref name=PikesPeakGold>{{cite web | year = 2006 | url = http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Falls/2000/index.html | title = The Pike's Peak Gold Rush | author = Gehling, Richard | publisher = Richard Gehling | access-date = December 19, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060215083309/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Falls/2000/index.html|archive-date=2006-02-15}}</ref>

{{anchor|Mexican Diggings}}
As the hysteria of the California Gold Rush faded, many discouraged gold seekers returned home. Rumors of gold in the Rocky Mountains persisted and several small parties explored the region. In the summer of 1857, a party of [[Spanish language|Spanish-speaking]] gold seekers from [[Taos, New Mexico]], worked a [[placer mining|placer deposit]] along the South Platte River about {{convert|3|mi}} above [[Cherry Creek (Colorado)|Cherry Creek]] at a location later known as Mexican Diggings near the Overland Park Golf Course in [[Denver]].<ref name=ArapahoCamp/>

[[File:Gold mining in Boren's Gulch. La Plata County, Colorado - NARA - 517143.jpg|thumb|Sluicing for gold,  photo by the U.S. Geological and Geographic Survey of the Territories. (1874–1879) Photographer: [[William Henry Jackson]]]]
[[William Greeneberry Russell|William Greeneberry "Green" Russell]] was a [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgian]] who worked in the California gold fields in the 1850s. Russell was married to a [[Cherokee]] woman, and through his connections to the tribe, he heard about Ralston's 1850 discovery of gold along the South Platte River. Green Russell organized a party to prospect along the South Platte River, setting off with his two brothers and six companions in February 1858. They rendezvoused with Cherokee tribe members along the [[Arkansas River]] in present-day [[Oklahoma]] and continued westward along the [[Santa Fe Trail]]. Others joined the party along the way until their number reached 107.<ref name=PikesPeakGold/>

Upon reaching [[Bent's Fort]], they turned to the northwest, reaching the confluence of [[Cherry Creek (Colorado)|Cherry Creek]] and the South Platte on May 23. The site of their initial explorations is in present-day [[Confluence Park]] in Denver. They began prospecting in the river beds, exploring Cherry Creek and nearby [[Ralston Creek (Colorado)|Ralston Creek]] but without success. In the first week of July 1858, Green Russell and Sam Bates found a small placer deposit near the mouth of [[Little Dry Creek (Englewood, Colorado)|Little Dry Creek]] that yielded about 20 [[troy ounce]]s (620&nbsp;g) of gold, then worth about 380 dollars (about $44,000 [[USD]] today.) This was the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region. The site of the discovery is in the present-day Denver suburb of [[Englewood, Colorado|Englewood]], just north of the junction of [[U.S. Highway 285]] and [[U.S. Highway 85]].<ref name=PikesPeakGold/> This discovery was announced with great excitement by the ''Kansas City Journal of Commerce'' on 26 August 1858 with the headline, "THE NEW ELDORADO!! GOLD IN KANSAS!!"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Limerick |first=Patricia Nelson |author-link=Patricia Nelson Limerick |url=https://archive.org/details/ditchintimecityw0000lime/page/22 |title=A ditch in time: the city, the west, and water |last2=Hanson |first2=Jason L. |date=2012 |publisher=Fulcrum Pub |isbn=978-1-55591-366-3 |location=Golden, Colo |page=22 |access-date=8 November 2023}}</ref>

==Initial boom==
[[File:Pikes peak-gold rush-map01.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|A map from the late 1850s showing prominent routes to the gold regions]]

The first decade of the boom was largely concentrated along the South Platte River at the base of the Rocky Mountains, in the canyon of [[Clear Creek (Colorado)|Clear Creek]] in the mountains west of Golden City, at [[Breckenridge, Colorado|Breckenridge]] and in [[South Park (Park County, Colorado)|South Park]] at [[Como, Colorado|Como]], [[Fairplay, Colorado|Fairplay]], and [[Alma, Colorado|Alma]]. By 1860, Denver City, [[Golden, Colorado|Golden City]], and Boulder City were substantial towns that served the mines. Rapid population growth led to the creation of the [[Colorado Territory]] in 1861.

The Pike's Peak gold rush sent many Americans into a frenzy, prompting them to pack up their belongings and head to Colorado. This initial boom influenced people to begin falsifying information, often sending people out to the west without any proof of a true presence of gold.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-gold-rush|title=Colorado Gold Rush|date=May 6, 2016|publisher=Colorado Encyclopedia|access-date=November 16, 2017}}</ref> As early as the spring of 1859, people raced to the Pike's Peak country. Some even dared to go out in the winter of 1858 to try to get a head start, only to realize that they would have to wait until the snow melted to begin mining.<ref>{{cite web|title=Pike's Peak Gold Rush|url=http://www.explore-old-west-colorado.com/pikes-peak-gold-rush.html|website=Explore Old West Colorado|access-date=July 29, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808124130/http://www.explore-old-west-colorado.com/pikes-peak-gold-rush.html|archive-date=August 8, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Free gold===
{{Main|Gold mining in Colorado}}
Hardrock mining boomed for a few years, but then declined in the mid-1860s as the miners exhausted the shallow parts of the veins that contained free gold, and found that their [[Patio process|amalgamation]] mills could not recover gold from the deeper sulfide ores.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koschmann |first=Albert Herbert |title=Principal Gold-producing Districts of the United States |last2=Bergendahl |first2=Maximilian Hilmar |date=1968 |publisher=[[U.S. Department of the Interior]] |edition=610 |series=Geological Survey professional paper |location=Washington |page=86 |oclc=9694}}</ref> Colorado produced 150,000 ounces of gold in 1861 and 225,000 troy ounces in 1862.  This led Congress to establish the [[Denver Mint]].  Cumulative Colorado production by 1865 was 1.25 million ounces, of which sixty percent was [[placer gold]].<ref name="Voynick">{{Cite book |last=Voynick |first=Stephen M. |title=Colorado gold: from the Pike's Peak rush to the present |date=2002 |publisher=[[Mountain Press Publishing Company|Mountain Press]] |isbn=978-0-87842-455-9 |edition=2nd |location=Missoula, Mont}}</ref>{{rp|28–30}}

==See also==
*[[Australian gold rushes]]
*[[Colorado Silver Boom]]
*[[Horace Greeley]], namesake of [[Greeley, Colorado]], who mined for gold in the rush
*[[Klondike Gold Rush]]
*[[Silver mining in Colorado]]
*[[Ute people]]
*[[Witwatersrand Gold Rush]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{sister project links|auto=yes}}

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{{Gold rush}}
{{Financial bubbles}}
{{Colorado}}
{{Wild West}}

[[Category:American gold rushes]]
[[Category:Gold mining in Colorado]]
[[Category:Colorado Mining Boom]]
[[Category:Pikes Peak]]
[[Category:1858 in Kansas Territory]]
[[Category:American frontier]]
[[Category:Kansas Territory]]
[[Category:Jefferson Territory]]
[[Category:Economy of Colorado]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Colorado]]
[[Category:1858 in the United States]]
[[Category:19th century in Colorado]]