Windy Point: A Photographic Essay

By Steven Wade Veatch

A collection of rare photographs of Windy Point, a tiny map-dot community situated on a saddle between Bull and Raven hills in the Cripple Creek Mining District, have turned up in the archives of the Cripple Creek District Museum.

A generalized map of the Cripple Creek Mining District. A red arrow shows the location of Windy Point. North is toward the top of the map. Modified from Munn (1984).

Margaret Benson (Mortensen), who spent part of her childhood in Windy Point, donated those photos which belong to another time. The photographer was Nils Tycho Schedin who, with John Lehman, had a photography studio on Bennett Avenue in Cripple Creek in the early 1900s. Schedin was known in the area for his gelatin silver prints. He later moved to Leadville and had a photography studio there from 1908 to 1923 (Colorado Mountain History Collection). Margaret Benson’s father was a close friend of Nils Schedin.

A view of Windy Point. Mines and prospects cover the landscape. This is written on the back of the photo: "The hillside at Windy Point as it looked in 1904." Photo by Nils Tycho Schedin circa 1904. From the Margaret Benson (Mortensen) collection, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum A8367.

The Windy Point area was open and rugged country that spread out in all directions. A few clumps of trees dotted the landscape. It was high country, swept by stubborn winds that seemed to come in one way and then another. It is now a place lost to time.

Windy Point was one of the smaller communities in the Cripple Creek Mining District where miners made their homes and worked in nearby mines (Collins, 2016). The Directory of the Cripple Creek Mining District for 1900 listed only 44 households and one business, the Windy Point Boardinghouse, run by S.C. Hoskins, who had six boarders living there. 

The women of Windy Point maintained a sororal relationship and staged social activities ranging from quilting to hosting various meetings. A reporter for the Cripple Creek Morning Times wrote about a Miss Brown, who hosted a meeting of a local club in her Windy Point home in January 1900 (Collins, 2016).

The Benson family lived in Windy Point for several years. John Benson and his wife brought up their daughter Margaret (Mortensen) there. The persistent wind reminded the Benson family of the difficulty in living at this high elevation and enduring winters that were so cold that the air cracked like ice. 

This rare photo shows the John Benson home in Windy Point, a simple wooden frame building.  Everyone is dressed up. Margaret Benson (Mortensen) wrote on the back of this photo: "Our home at Windy Point. My parents John and Christina Benson and myself (Margaret)." Photo by Nils Tycho Schedin circa 1904. From the Margaret Benson (Mortensen) collection, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum A8368. 

Members of the Benson family sitting in their yard. Mining activity can be seen in the background. Margaret Benson (Mortensen) wrote on the back: "My mother Christina Benson and Grandma Colley and myself in our yard in Windy Point.” Photo by Nils Tycho Schedin circa 1905. From the Margaret Benson (Mortensen) collection, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum A8369.

Floyd Miller also called Windy Point home. During the violent 1903-1904 labor strike in the district, Harry Orchard supposedly gave Floyd Miller money to buy explosives for him (Turner, 1907). Orchard used the explosives to make a bomb. On June 6, 1904, a bomb, made with between 150 and 200 pounds of dynamite, exploded at the Independence Depot of the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad, killing 13 non-union men waiting for a train (Jameson, 1998).

Windy Point was near several mines, including the New Haven and Joe Dandy. The local mines were busy, and the sounds of gold mining hung in the air. Cages shook and rattled as they carried men and ore up and down shafts. Whistles blew, ore cars clacked, bells rang, and mills thumped. The wind played among the mine headframes, making them moan. An article in the Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette (1904) described a gold strike at the Ramona mine on the southwestern slope of Bull Hill, next to the War Eagle mine. A later report revealed the shaft at the Happy Year mine, straight as a straw, had reached a depth of 350 feet by 1916, and the War Eagle continued shipments of ore (Carroll, 1916).

Windy Point was also a stop, about one-half mile south of the town of Midway, on the “High Line” of the Cripple Creek District Electric Railway (Directory of the Cripple Creek Mining District, 1900). The High Line trolley ran between Cripple Creek and Victor and went through several towns and mines as it wound its way up Bull Hill, reaching an altitude of 10,500 feet; a trip billed as the highest electric railway in America (Cafky, 1955).

The “High Line” of the Cripple Creek District Electric Railway nearing Midway in the winter. Undated photo by Edgar Yelton. Courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum 9254.

Riders were treated to scenic panoramas where purple mountains—old as time—cut into a quiet sky behind rounded hills. When service started on January 3, 1898, the trolley reached an average speed of about 10 miles per hour, making the round trip between Cripple Creek and Victor in 90 minutes (Street Railway Journal, 1898). Trolley speeds were later increased to make the round trip in one hour (Street Railway Journal, 1898). Later, trolleys ran every two hours on the High Line route. Additional runs were made during shift changes at the mines (Cafky, 1955).  

To the Bensons, Windy Point was a gritty place where one day faded away into another—an endless sameness of mining in the gold camp. After a few years, the Benson family said goodbye to their friends and left. Others left too. And as the gold boom subsided and time passed, people continued, one by one, to leave until Windy Point was empty and as still as a stone.

The old days of Windy Point are gone, vanished from sight and memory. Much of the town’s history is lost to the erosive power of time. After the gold boom, Windy Point became a ghost town and a place for tourists to come for scenic views. And now that is gone. Current mining operations have removed Windy Point from the landscape. These rare photos and essay will hopefully serve to coax Windy Point out of the shadows of history and back into the light. 

References and further reading

Cafky, M., 1955, Rails Around Gold Hill: Denver, Rocky Mountain Railroad Club, p 176. 

Carroll, F., 1916, Fourteenth Biennial Report Issued by the Bureau of Mines of the State of Colorado for the Years 1915 and 1916:  Denver, Eames Brothers State Printers, p. 43.

Collins, J. M., 2016, Lost Ghost Towns of Teller County: Charleston, History Press., p. 158-159.

Colorado Mountain History Collection, Lake County, Colorado website retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/cmhcleadvilleco/posts/ on November 3, 2020.

Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, 1904, Five Feet of Ore: Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, January 21, 1904, p. 9, col. 3.

Directory of the Cripple Creek Mining District for 1900, 1900, Cripple Creek, Cripple Creek District Directory Co, p. 508-509.

Jameson, E., 1998, All that Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple Creek: Chicago, University of Illinois Press, p. 218.

Munn, B., 1984, A Guide to the Mines of the Cripple Creek District: Colorado Springs, Century One Press.

Street Railway Journal, 1898, Interurban Railroading at Cripple Creek, Street Railway Journal, Vol 14, No. 11, p. 701-704.

Turner, G. K., 1907. The Actors and Victims in the Tragedies, McClure’s Magazine, Vol. 29, p. 526.

Acknowledgments

I thank Ben Elick for preparing and modifying the map used for this paper. I thank Shelly Veatch for reviewing the manuscript, and Dr. Bob Carnein for his valuable comments and important help in improving this paper. 

Pieplant: A Taylor Park Mining Camp

 By Steven W. Veatch

The story of the Pieplant mining camp, in Taylor Park, begins with the Ute people who hunted and roamed this land of dense forests, rushing streams, and imposing mountains. During the summer of 1860, a prospector by the name of Jim Taylor was rounding up stray horses when he rode into this remote region. The area soon became known as Jim Taylor's Park, then as Taylor Park. With the discovery of gold in 1867, placer mining began to appear (Parker, 1992). 

Figure 1. Taylor Park Reservoir is a 2000 surface acre reservoir located 29 miles northeast of Gunnison. Photo date 7/2020 by S. Veatch.

The directions to Pieplant are easy: from the north end of Taylor Park Reservoir, head north several miles on road 742. Watch for a forest road on the right-hand side. There is a sign pointing to the town/mill site. Turn right and follow this dirt road for about four miles to a clearing where several old log cabins mark the little settlement of Pieplant. 

Miners built the town beside a wide meadow near Pieplant Creek, below the summit of Jenkins Mountain (13,432 feet). Both the town and creek were named for the clumps of rhubarb (pieplant) growing wild along the banks of the creek. Pieplant Creek flows southwest from Jenkins Mountain and ranges from less than one foot to seven feet across.

Prospectors worked gold placers along Pieplant Creek as early as the 1890s. These placers did not produce much gold. Miners later established the mining camp of  Pieplant around the turn of the 20th century (Vandenbusche, 1980). Over forty men worked at the Pieplant mine, which was about a mile away from the settlement (Vandenbusche, 1980). 

By 1903, Pieplant had 100 residents, a post office, and a stamp mill (Vandenbusche, 1980). Four-horse teams hauled ore in wagons down a steep road on Jenkins Mountain to the mill (Wolle, 1962). The mill, built by Wood's Mining and Milling Company of Kansas, handled 200 tons of ore each day from the Pieplant and other area mines (Pieplant, n.d., Eberhart,1969). The mill was 280 feet long and 110 feet wide, and employed 50 men (Vandenbusche, 1980). Day (1906) mentions that gold bullion was shipped from Pieplant’s “cyanide plant” in 1905.

 

A newspaper article from the Turret Gold Belt (1905) describes some of the excitement of the mining camp:

"Just a year ago (1904) the Burton brothers of Virginia sold to John Lynch of this city [Turret] and J. W. Harrison, a capitalist of St. Louis, a group of four claims known as the Clinton group and which adjoins the property of the Woods Gold Mining company at Pieplant. The consideration of the sale was $16,000, and the claims are practically undeveloped. That the judgement of the purchasers was good has now been proven, as their tunnel a few days ago cut a lead [vein] which is fourteen feet between walls and from which highly satisfactory assays have been had. The average of the entire lead is good, and a portion of the vein carries gold and copper to the value of $120 per ton, while picked samples run way up into the hundreds. As soon as the assay certificates were received Mr. Lynch started at once for the East, where a plan of development will be decided upon. . . .While this district is rich in minerals lack of transportation has held it back for a number of years."

According to the Twin Lakes Miner (1906), J.W. and M.H. Woods had driven a 1,700-foot tunnel that ran along a gold vein for 1,300 feet. The best gold values, according to the article, were ahead of the tunnel where the “ore shoot widened to 4 to 7 feet in width.”

The town began to decline after 1908 as the veins thinned out and transportation costs exceeded profits from mining (Pieplant Mill, nd). Soon after 1910, Pieplant was abandoned and cows grazed there. A few of the log cabins (figures 2 and 3), the collapsed ruins of the Pieplant mine, and part of the mill building (figure 4) remain today—reminders of the early mining operations that occurred there.

Figure 2. In 2006, the Forest Service and Passport in Time put a new roof on this Pieplant cabin in their preservation efforts. Photo date 7/2020 by S. Veatch.

Figure 3. A Pieplant miner’s cabin along a meadow. The long poles supported a porch roof. Photo date 7/2020 by S. Veatch.

Figure 4. View of Pieplant mill ruins. The Pieplant mine is located about one mile north of the mill on Jenkins Mountain. Photo date 7/2020 by S. Veatch.

Pieplant is located on the western flank of the Sawatch Mountains, below Jenkins Mountain. Grizzly Peak (13,281 feet) is to the east. Locally, Paleozoic sediments mask folded and faulted Precambrian rocks. The area experienced uplift, folding, and thrust faulting during the Laramide Orogeny. Sometime in the Miocene Epoch crustal movement began again, resulting in a series of faults. 

During the Pleistocene Epoch, ice was the last major geologic agent to shape the area. Alpine glaciers moved down the mountains—carving preexisting fluvial erosional valleys into distinctive U-shapes or filling them with unsorted glacial till. 

Gravity and alluvial processes concentrated native gold in local placer deposits (Parker, 1974). The gold, hosted in Quaternary alluvium, appears as wires, small flakes, and as sporadic small nuggets (Parker, 1992). Early miners in the area worked Pieplant Creek gold placers below 9,850 feet in elevation (Parker, 1992). Despite careful prospecting, the source of the placer gold has never been discovered.

However, other minerals besides gold and black sand (magnetite) are found in the area. Pan concentrates yield columbite-tantalite, the ore of tantalum (Parker, 1992). This black mineral is not magnetic and is the principal ore of tantalum (Ta), a rare metallic element discovered in 1802 by a Swedish chemist, A.G. Ekeberg. The hard, malleable blue-gray metal has several industrial uses. 

Monazite, a slightly radioactive mineral, shows up as blackish to greenish grains in gold pans (Parker, 1992). Monazite is the primary ore of the rare earth metals cerium and lanthanum. These metals have multiple industrial uses. Because of monazite’s high density (specific gravity is 4.6 to 5.7), monazite grains, along with the gold, collected into placer deposits. Other heavy minerals that appear in pan concentrates are zircon and garnets (Parker, 1992). The sources of the heavy minerals are local granites and pegmatites (Parker, 1992).

Today Pieplant is a quiet place where a few cabins and structures remain near the edge of an open meadow. Pieplant Creek, which flows nearby, is still a good place to search for flakes of gold, especially in ravines and outwash terraces, on slopes, and in gulches.

References and Further Reading:

Day, D. T., 1906, Mineral Resources of the United States Calendar Year 1905: Washington, Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey.

Eberhart, P., 1969, Guide to the Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps: Chicago, Sage Books.

Parker, B. H., Jr. 1974, Gold placers of Colorado: Colorado School of Mines Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 3.

Parker, B.H. Jr., 1992, Gold Panning and Placering in Colorado: Denver, CO Information Series 33. Colorado Geological Survey.

Pieplant Mill. Retrieved from https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/gmug/landmanagement/resourcemanagement/?cid=stelprdb5432060/ on July 12, 2020.

Turrett Gold Belt, 1905, Taylor Park Producers: Turrett Gold Belt, November 1, 1905, p.1, c. 3.

Twin Lakes Miner, 1906, Good News for Pieplant Gulch: Twin Lakes Miner, Aug. 11, 1906, p. 1, c. 3.

Vandenbusche, D. 1980, The Gunnison Country: Gunnison, B&B Printers.

Wolle, M.S., 1962, Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado: Denver, Sage Books.

 

 

Uptop: A Winter Poem

By Steven Wade Veatch

A winter wind blows swirling flakes of snow
that blankets the quiet town of Uptop. 
Light from a coal-oil lamp casts
a golden glow down a silent, powdery street.

People of Uptop long for spring days;
the shifting realm of white to robust green
when flowers spread a chorus of colors
in an alpine crescendo.

For decades they came over highland passes;
searching for gold in streams or silver in veins.
Others started ranches where the grass was good. 
And each one tamed the mountain wilderness.

The depot built by section hands still stands 
that once met fortune seekers coming over the Pass.
Today the rails are gone and travelers are rare.
Only a few stay in the small town of Uptop.

On Sunday at the Chapel by the Wayside
a church bell rings—renewing spirits
of humbled hearts who stay another year,
in the forgotten town of Uptop, Colorado.

_______________________________________
Directions to the ghost town of Uptop, Colorado:
Two turnoffs to Uptop ghost town are located off Hwy 160:
• 20 minutes east of Ft. Garland, CO: turn at mile marker 276.
• 15 minutes west of La Veta or 20 minutes west of Walsenburg: turn at mile marker 281.

Cripple Creek’s Mule Skinners

By Steven Wade Veatch

In the late 1890s, Cripple Creek was the site of Colorado’s last gold rush and soon became known as the World’s Greatest Gold Camp. Ore from Cripple Creek’s gold mines was hauled in large wooden wagons by four or six mules or horses to a team. Skilled drivers, known as mule skinners or simply skinners, could “skin” or outwit stubborn mules and compel them over rugged roads hauling ore, goods, and materials in and out of the gold camp.

Some mules were as mean as a surprised grizzly. Other mules were more obliging to the skinner. A good skinner could control his team and drive heavy, cargo-laden wagons along winding mountain roads raising dust at two to two-and-a-half miles per hour.

A group of scrubbed up, dressed up mule skinners relax on a boulder in a rugged mountain clearing. In the background is a large tent and several horses grazing in the meadow. These skinners worked for A.E. Carlton’s Colorado Trading and Transfer Company in Cripple Creek. By the time this photo was taken (1906), the company had a thriving business transporting ore from the mines to the Midland terminal railhead. Photo © Cripple Creek District Museum.

A mule skinner’s job was arduous. It took dogged determination and an understanding of a team of mules to make an efficient driving outfit. The work, sometimes dangerous and always hard, had long hours, starting at five in the morning and lasting long after the sunset. Young, ready men who could take the punishing work performed this job the best. Though no mules were ever skinned, these men would boast, “I can pop my initials on a mule’s behind.”

Most of the skinners were as lonely as a seagull in an Iowa cornfield, and some skinners were as mean and stubborn as their mule. The skinners, in their quest for company, headed for the dancehalls that lined Cripple Creek’s notorious Meyers Avenue.

This imagined scene applies to so many of these trips:
It’s Saturday night, the sun has gone down behind Mt. Pisgah and a full moon is beginning to rise at the bottom of the sky. Coyotes prowl behind Mineral Hill in howling packs while the mournful whistle of the Midland Terminal locomotive wails through the city of Cripple Creek. 

A chill shivers the night air as a small cadre of mule skinners walk down Bennet Avenue on their way to Meyers Avenue to spend the evening in a dance hall—a place more alluring than the dream of buried gold. It’s time for a big night. On Bennett Avenue, they walk past Kurth’s music store and peek through the window at the phonographs and pianos on display. The skinners continue to a grocery where the pungent smells of coffee, cheese, and pickles in this cornucopia of plenty spill out onto the street. One skinner walks in to buy a plug of Brown’s Mule chewing tobacco and carefully counts out the money for the grocer. Next, they go past a hardware store where the window displays new picks and shovels with white-pine handles. As the skinners turn onto Meyers Avenue, a cat creeps along the boardwalk and then zooms into the dark alley. The skinners are as free as the night and stand together looking at the lights that flash and flare along the rip-roaring pleasure street. The wooden stomp of horse hoofs, the rolling wheels of buggies, and the sound of music fills the night air.

The group of skinners choose a likely dancehall to enter, a hopping hive of humanity. The young men step into the smoke-filled, raucous dancehall and eagerly part with their hard-earned cash. Girls bring whiskey and beer to miners sitting at the tables. Men jam around the bar while drinking and talking about gold mines. The piano player pounds away while other musicians play their fiddles. Most of the dances were too complicated for the skinners, unlike the other fast-drinking, fancy-stepping clientele, so they wait for the musicians to play the Monterey, a more straightforward dance they knew.

The interior lights illuminate the dancehall girls who appear as enchanting beauties—a sight for the skinner’s wearied eyes. The skinners, with work-roughened hands and hammering hearts, each grab a girl and step out on the wooden dance floor where they join the others, dancing to the band’s rendition of Mule Skinner’s Delight. They go around and around in a circle—markedly self-aware—as the caller proclaims, “honors to your partner, honors to the corner, swing your partner and all promenade.” When they finish the dance, the skinners and their girls line up at the bar for a few drinks. The mule skinners, full of brag, talk about their mules or horses and the perils their jobs until a work-worn miner yells: “another Mule Skinner’s Delight!” The dance was on, with skinners spinning in a whirl as a happy reverie fills their minds and the night drifts on.

The mule skinners in the Cripple Creek Mining District played an essential role in bringing goods to the district and hauling gold ore to mills for processing or to railroads for shipment. The skinners did not disappear like yesterday’s snow but stepped into the pages of history. They even became folk icons when, in 1930, Jimmy Rodgers and George Vaughn wrote a song called Blue Yodel No. 8, also known as Mule Skinner Blues. Bill Monroe’s 1939 version of Mule Skinner Blues became a hit, and since then a variety of recording artists, including bluegrass and folk musicians, have performed the song. These songs immortalized the skinners who played a vital part in Cripple Creek, the “World’s Greatest Gold Camp.”

Amethyst crystals found at the Buckskin Mining District

Recently a member of the Lake George Gem and Mineral Club took to the field to search for rocks and minerals from the Buckskin Mining District.  The District was established in 1859 when this part of Colorado was still part of Kansas Territory.  Buckskin Creek was a source of gold nuggets.  The gold played out in a few years.  Silver was later found in the upper reaches of the gulch.

This silver ore specimen contains a void that is lines with
amethyst quartz crystals. The area is noted for its silver
production.