A Cripple Creek Profile: Frank Finegan and His Requa Savage Mine

 By Steven W. Veatch

Francis “Frank” Finegan (1835-1914) was an adventurer who fought in the Civil War. And he was among the first group to arrive at the goldfields of the Cripple Creek mining district, where he located and patented several mines. Stockholders elected him president, treasurer, and general manager of the Requa Savage when he incorporated the mine on April 26, 1894 (Colorado State Mining Directory, 1898). 

Figure 1. The Requa Savage mine. A miner, named “Big Swede," stands by an ore cart under the headframe of the mine. Photographer and date unknown. Courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum. CCDM A 8315.

Finegan left enough of a record to trace his interesting journeys and see the stormy corners of his life. He was born in 1835 in Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland. In 1854, he sailed out of Liverpool to New York City (Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado, 1899). He then left New York City and lived for a time in Hartford, Connecticut, where he worked as a stonecutter and mason. He moved to California in 1857 and mined on the American River, the site of the original 1848 gold discovery in California. One year later, he sailed to Australia and farmed near Ballarat. With three partners, he located a gold mine near there. The partners worked it until 1859, when they sold their interests, each pocketing $35,000—a whopping $1,091,375 in 2020 dollars (Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado, 1899). 

Finegan left Australia and returned to California for a few months in 1860. He then moved to New York City. On April 12, 1861, at 4:30 am, while Finegan was fast asleep, Confederate General Beauregard ordered his gunners to open fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Cannons roared like a crack of thunder. Explosions lit up the darkness and smoke settled over the fort. Thirty-four hours later, the besieged Union garrison raised a white flag and surrendered. The Confederates committed an act of war that forced President Abraham Lincoln to act. Two days later, Lincoln called for volunteers to fight in a war to preserve the Union. 

Finegan answered Lincoln’s call. He joined the 69th New York Regiment that month and was mustered into service for three months. The 69th Regiment was part of the Irish Brigade, which at the beginning included the 63rd, 69th, and the 88th New York Regiments and the 28th Massachusetts Regiment. The 116th Pennsylvania Regiment, made up of Irishmen from Philadelphia, was added during the fall of 1862 (R. Sauers, personal communication). The Irish Brigade quickly built a reputation for fierce fighting on the battlefield, and Finegan found a passage into hell when he fought in many of its engagements.

The 69th New York Regiment fought in the First Battle of Bull Run under the command of General William T. Sherman. During that battle, Confederate forces took Finegan prisoner. The Confederates released him on parole (Both sides had no means to take care of prisoners; Grant later stopped the practice of releasing prisoners). Once released, Finegan reenlisted for three years and returned to the battlefield. 

Finegan saw combat at the Battle of Fair Oaks (Henrico County, Virginia) on May 31 and June 1, 1862. It was there that he saw the use of Union balloons, some reaching altitudes of over 1,000 feet, to report enemy positions and direct artillery fire. 

Later, at the Cornfield Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), Finegan went down hard with a savage head wound while carrying the flag (Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado, 1899). Almost 8,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded in the Cornfield Battle. 

Finegan fought in the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 - 3, 1863), where he witnessed horrific sights. He surely would have heard flags flap in the wind and bullets whizz by. The air was heavy with the scent of blood. There were fields of slaughtered and decaying bodies everywhere. While marching down a road jammed with troops and shining bayonets, he doubtless heard the cries of the wounded and the amputees, and then noticed a heap of amputated legs, feet, arms, and hands under a tree. During the Civil War, doctors performed a lot of amputations to prevent wounds from becoming infected. Antibiotics used to kill germs had not been invented yet. Gettysburg was the bloodiest clash of the Civil War and came with a high casualty list for both sides: 7,058 died; 33,264 wounded, and 10,790 went missing (LeBoutillier, 2017). As the war continued to intrude into his life, Finegan was becoming a hardened fighter who learned his skill on the battlefield.

Finegan, who was likely detached from the 69th Regiment, took part in the siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) as Grant directed artillery fire at the city. The air burst into flames as the shelling continued, and then Grant’s army relentlessly attacked the city for over 40 days. Eventually, the food and supplies ran out, forcing the soldiers and citizens of Vicksburg to eat mules and rats (Stanchak, 2011). The Confederate forces at Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863. Amid the broken bricks and fires, a few homebound citizens must have watched through shattered windows as the Union forces marched by.

Finally, Finegan survived two later battles: the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5 - 7, 1864), in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and the Spotsylvania Court House Battle (May 8 - 21, 1864). 

Finnegan was among many who witnessed the great suffering, horror, madness, and destruction of the Civil War that resulted in a horrific cost of life in the nation’s bloodiest war—at least 750,000 soldiers died, hundreds of thousands of others were wounded in battle, and an unknown number of civilians perished (McPherson, 2015). An estimated two percent of the population was killed (Ward, 1990). The Civil War set four million slaves free, brought the downfall of the Southern planter aristocracy, and preserved the Union as one nation, indivisible. 

Figure 2. Battle of Gettysburg. Painting by Thure de Thulstrup. Original scan: Library of Congress. Public Domain.

Having miraculously survived these bloodbaths, Finegan returned to New York City, where he mustered out in June, 1865. After he left the Army, Finegan returned to Australia once again. He settled in Victoria, where he worked in contracting and building. Then, in 1874, he moved to San Francisco where he worked as a stonecutter and mason. In 1880, he moved once again, this time to Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started a building business and lived at 225 S. Cascade. In 1881, he was elected alderman and served six years on the city council of Colorado Springs (Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado, 1899). 

In the shadow of Pikes Peak, peripatetic Finegan was becoming restless; excitement was absent in his life. This was about to change in 1891, when gold fever from the Cripple Creek mining district infected Finegan. The only cure for him was to come to the district and step into mining. About the time Finegan arrived in the district, a prospector, with the swing of his pick, revealed a streak of bright gold ore at a spot on the side of Beacon Hill. This discovery set in motion the establishment of the Requa Savage mine, in which Finegan was the driving force. Finegan incorporated the Requa Savage so optimists could invest in the mine. Now there were funds to hire engineers and miners and to buy machinery to develop it. 

Some maintain that Finegan named the mine after “Uncle” Benjamin Requa, an early settler, or for the nearby Requa Gulch. The gold mine was near Arequa, one of the oldest towns in the district. By 1896, the town of Arequa, named after Ben Requa, included the “A” as the first letter of its name, as seen in the map in figure 3 (Mackell-Collins, 2014). The Requa Savage was on the north side of the Gold Dollar mine (see map figure 3).

Figure 3. Map of the Cripple Creek Mining District, 1896. A red arrow points out the Gold Dollar mine. The Requa Savage mine is just north of the Gold Dollar. The town of Arequa is underlined in red. Map source: Hoyer-Millar (1896).

Figure 4. View of Beacon Hill. A red arrow shows the location of Arequa. Photographer unknown, date mid-1890s. From the Olla Burris collection, Cripple Creek District Museum. 

As time passed, the Requa Savage became known as a modest producer. According to the Mining and Engineering Journal (1910), the Requa Savage mine, in 1910, shipped two carloads of ore assaying at one ounce per ton. Other carloads yielded less gold, but the mine produced $100,000 that same year. 

The passage of time would not be kind to Frank Finegan. He fought cancer but lost that battle and died on October 22, 1914, in Colorado Springs, at 79. His family buried him in the Evergreen Cemetery. 

Figure 5. View of the Requa Savage mine. Ten miners pose in front of the mine. Photographer and date unknown. Courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum. 

History records that, over time, Finegan was one of several prominent men associated with the Requa Savage mine. Records show that by 1912, the One Hundred and One Mining Company owned the mine (Mining Science, 1912). In 1913 The Mining Investor reported that Democratic Colorado State Senator Louis A. Van Tilborg (1870-1937) worked the Requa Savage mine for a short time. Van Tilborg, a druggist and an assayer, was the mayor of Cripple Creek from 1907 until 1911. He served in the Colorado legislature from 1911 to 1914. The presence of gas forced Van Tilborg to suspend work at the mine. Once the mine resolved the gas issues, production resumed under the lease of Kermit MacDermid, of the C.K. and N. Mining Company (The Mining Investor, 1913). By this time, the Requa Savage’s surface plant included a shaft house equipped with a steam hoist and electric compressor. 

Although the Requa savage mine claimed a small area of land, it boasted five shafts. By 1914, the main shaft reached 700 feet deep (Consolidated Extension Mines Company, 1914). A crew of miners disappeared down the main shaft at the start of each shift and then drilled, blasted, and mucked in the shadows of the mine as they followed the occasional blossom of gold ore in barren rock. By 1914, the Requa Savage was owned by Rainbow Gold Mines Company. Rainbow Gold then leased it to another operator who, based on reports of good gold ore, planned to expand the development of the mine (Consolidated Extension Mines Company, 1914). 

A new group of investors reincorporated the Requa Savage Gold Mining Company in November, 1915, as the Requa-Savage Mines Company with offices at 112 N. Tejon Street in Colorado Springs (Weed, 1918). A report showed the mine was producing ore in 1929 (Kiessling, 1929).

According to The Mining Journal (1935), Commonwealth Gold leased the Requa Savage mine. Mr. Wellington Symes, who was the president and general manager of the property, subleased it to a group in Denver; and Andy Vidgen, the mine superintendent, purchased new machinery to increase ore production (The Mining Journal, 1935). 

As the years passed by, the ore decreased until the mine became unprofitable. The owners then closed the mine. Today, as you drive on Highway 67 between Cripple Creek and Victor, you will pass where the town of Arequa and the Requa Savage mine were once located. Both places now exist only in the pages of history. And we are reminded of Frank Finegan and how he emerged from obscurity and left his mark on time through his Civil War exploits and his ownership of a Cripple Creek mine. 

Acknowledgments

I thank the Colorado Springs Oyster Club critique group for reviewing the manuscript, and Dr. Bob Carnein for his valuable comments and help in improving this paper. 

References and further reading:

Colorado State Mining Directory, 1898: Denver, Western Mining Directory Company.

Consolidated Extension Mines Company, 1914, Referring to the Requa Savage mine on Beacon Hill in the Cripple Creek District, owned outright by Rainbow Gold Mines Company. United States Bureau of Mines: Colorado School of Mines Library Digital Collections, retrieved from https://mountainscholar.org/handle/11124/171813 on June 5, 2021. 

Hoyer-Millar, C. C., 1896, The Cripple Creek Gold-Fields, Colorado, U.S.A: London, Eden Fisher & Co. 

Kiessling, O.W., 1929, Mineral Resources of the US 1929: Washington DC, Dept of Commerce.

LeBoutillier, L., 2017, Secrets of the U.S. Civil War: North Mankato, MN, Capstone Press.

MacKell-Collins, J, 2014, Arequa Gulch: A Long Gone Town in Colorado, retrieved from https://janmackellcollins.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/arequa-gulch-a-long-gone-town-in-colorado/ on January 10, 2021.

McPherson, J., 2015, The War that Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters: New York, Oxford University Press. 

Mining Science, 1912, Denver, vol 65, no 1,682, April 18, 1912.

Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado, Part 2, 1899: Chicago, Chapman Publishing Company.

Stanchack, J., 2011, Eyewitness: Civil War: New York, DK Publishing.

The Mining Investor, 1913: Denver: The Mining Investor Publishing Co, no 1, vol 71, May 19, 1913.

The Mining Engineering Journal, 1910, New York, Hill Publishing Company, vol 89, Jan-June 1910.

The Mining Journal, 1935, February 28, 1935, pg. 18, retrieved from https://vredenburgh.org/mining_history/pdf/AMJ-1935.pdf on February 15, 2021. 

Ward, G.C., 1990, The Civil War: An Illustrated History: New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

Weed, W. H., 1918, The Mines Handbook: New York, W. H. Weed Publishing.

The Lennox House: A Mansion Built from Cripple Creek Gold

 By Steven Wade Veatch

William Lennox (1850-1936), after prospecting in the mountains near Fairplay, Colorado, headed down to Colorado Springs, a new town at the foot of Pikes Peak. He established himself as a businessperson and later invested in Cripple Creek mines. These mining investments made him a millionaire almost overnight. 

The now wealthy Lennox built a new home, one that would show his position in Colorado Springs’ society. He hired the well-known Denver architect Frederick J. Sterner to design his two-and-a-half story mansion across from Colorado College—at the northeast corner of North Nevada Avenue and Yampa Street. Lennox started his home building project in 1900 (at a cost of $50,000) and moved into his stylish home in May 1901 (Lennox, 1901). Lennox hired James H. Barry as the general contractor for the construction of his home (National Register of Historic Places, 1999).

Photo of the Lennox House, 1001 N. Nevada Avenue, Colorado Springs, Colorado. This cyanotype  was taken around 1901 (courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum). This was written in pencil on the back of the cyanotype: "Lennox's new house NE corner Yampa and Nevada.” 

Repeat photo of the Lennox House taken February 2021 by S. W. Veatch. 

The Lennox house was one of Sterner's first commissions in Colorado Springs, and soon his architectural designs were in high demand among the city's leading citizens. Sterner’s local projects included General William Jackson Palmer's (the founder of Colorado Springs) second Antlers Hotel and the renovation of Palmer’s residence, Glen Eyrie, both in 1901 (Lennox Walking Tour). 

The Lennox house featured elements of the Mission Revival style in an interesting display of large curvilinear parapets, smooth stucco walls, quatrefoil windows (an ornamental design of four lobes resembling a flower), arched windows, and porches with arcades. A stunning red tile roof topped the structure (Central Downtown Historic Walking Tour). 

Lennox finished the interior of the home with hardwood, an open design, lots of windows, and large doorways. Several large eye-catching fireplaces heated the home.

Perhaps on a warm summer afternoon, after years of visible success, Lennox walked down a path, fringed with blue flowers, to a bench between two cottonwood trees and sat down. A songbird chirped on a fence post. As calm as a stone in a pool of deep water, he looked at Pikes Peak and thought about his life, how it began, and how it had changed. 

Lennox, the child of Scottish immigrants, was born on Christmas Day in 1850 in Iowa. Looking back on his life in 1901, Lennox wrote, “I was brought up on my parent's farm and used to hard work . . . I attended the Iowa State University at Iowa City. I could not spare time from farm work to graduate but acquired sufficient learning to teach a country school” (Lennox,  1901).

With his parents and siblings, Lennox made the journey from Iowa to Denver on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and from there they traveled by stage on a rutted, dusty dirt road to Colorado Springs. They arrived in April 1872. According to Lennox, his parents “bought and moved to a ranch at Edgerton, on the west side of Monument Creek, about ten miles north of Colorado Springs” (Lennox, 1901). Just nine months earlier, on July 31, 1871, General William Jackson Palmer, a Civil War veteran and railroad tycoon, had established Colorado Springs. Promoters called it the Fountain Colony, and Colorado was still a territory. 

The same month they arrived in town, Lennox and his brother helped plant the first cottonwood trees General Palmer brought in to shade the wide streets of the business center of the city (Lennox, 1901). The trees gave the city a burst of green when it had been a treeless prairie.

The 22-year-old Lennox pondered infinite possibilities. He had both the appetite to succeed and the will to make it happen. He was a westward-looking man, and Fairplay was not too distant for hope. Lennox left Colorado Springs for a few months to prospect and mine near Fairplay. He then returned to Colorado Springs in 1873 and started a feed and livery business at the age of 23 (Lennox, 1901). The following year he added the handling of coal as the agent for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, and later a freight-transfer business entered his orbit of business enterprises (Lennox, 1901).

In 1876, Lennox married Belle Cowgill. He went to Iowa for the ceremony and returned to Colorado Springs with his bride. They had six children; two died in childhood. 

Lennox emerged as the largest coal dealer in the Pikes Peak region. He continued in the coal and transfer business until April 1901 (Lennox, 1901). 

While operating his coal yard, Lennox invested in mining operations in Gunnison, Summit, and Teller counties (National Historic Register of Historic Places, 1999). In 1891, Lennox bought Robert Womack’s El Paso lode (Portrait and Biographical Record, 1899). Womack was the first to find gold at Cripple Creek, in 1890, and his El Paso strike started a gold rush to the area. Lennox next organized the Gold King Mining Company, which included the El Paso lode. Lennox invested in other Cripple Creek mines. Along with Ed Giddings, who owned a department store in Colorado Springs, and Judge Colburn, Lennox leased the Strong mine in Victor (Sprague, 1953). One report states that the Strong lease brought $20,000,000 to the Lennox group (Newton, 1928). Lennox also became a major shareholder and officer of the Ajax mine, also in Victor (Wilkins, 1983).

The Gold King mine. Womack's claim came under the ownership of the Gold King Mining Company. Undated photo by A. J. Harlan. Courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum. CCDM A84-30.

Lennox became a millionaire as the Cripple Creek mining district became the foremost producer of gold in the nation (National Register of Historic Places, 1999). Luck had been Lennox’s constant companion.

While banking his Cripple Creek fortune, Lennox served as president of the Exchange National Bank in Colorado Springs. Furthermore, he served as vice-president and director of the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District Railway—the third railroad into the gold camp (Wilkins, 1983). He also owned large cattle ranches in Texas. 

This vintage color postcard depicts the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek Railway (also known as the Short Line) at St. Peter’s Dome. This line provided one of the most scenic train rides in the state. William Lennox invested in this railroad and served as vice-president and director of the line. From the S.W. Veatch postcard collection. 

In 1902, Lennox built the Lennox Hotel at 226-228 N. Tejon Street with furnished rooms on the upper floors that served middle-class tourists and railroad workers. The ground floor was a storefront for the Knight-Campbell Music Company.

Lennox Hotel circa 1903. There is a sign "Lennox" over the second floor windows and hotel doorway. The Knight-Campbell Music Co. occupies the storefront on the left side of the building. Note the wide street with streetcar tracks. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District, 001-5622.

        By 1921, the Lennox changed its name to the Albany Hotel. The Albany sent cars to the railroad depots to pick up passengers who were staying at the hotel. The hotel offered a guide and touring cars for the “Four Hour Circle Trip” that included Garden of the Gods, the Cliff Dwellings, Cave of the Winds, Ute Pass Canyon, Manitou and the local mineral springs, and the foothills of Pikes Peak (Albany Hotel Brochure, 1921). The hotel offered longer excursions that took guests up Pikes Peak, to Cripple Creek, and to the Royal Gorge. These scenic auto trips, operated by the Colorado Touring Company for the hotel, left directly from the Albany and returned passengers to the hotel at the end of the trip.

Room rates in 1921 started at $3.00 (about $44 in today’s dollars) for two people (Albany Hotel Brochure, 1921). Today the Albany Hotel provides apartment units with the ground floor divided into a lobby and a separate retail storefront. 

Interior of an Albany Hotel guest room circa 1921.
Photo from a brochure promoting the hotel.
From the S. W. Veatch collection. 

View of the Albany Hotel, originally the Lennox Hotel. Architect Thomas MacLaren designed the three-story commercial brick  building at 228 N. Tejon for William Lennox as a variation of the Classical Revival style. Photo date March 2021 by S. W. Veatch.

Lennox, concerned with the progress of the community, always looked ahead for the development of Colorado Springs. And, as a member of the Chamber of Commerce, he worked tirelessly to promote the city. He was deeply interested in education, and from the year he moved into his mansion (1901), he served on the Colorado College Board of Trustees until his death on August 13, 1936, at 85. 

In his will, Lennox left his house to Colorado College. After receiving Lennox's home from his estate in 1936, the college engaged local architect Edward L. Bunts to design plans to remodel the home as a student center. The college spent $40,000 renovating the property for use as a multi-purpose student center that functioned as a place for student dining, recreation, the student government offices, the college newspaper, and social gatherings from 1937 to 1959. A few years after it opened as a student center, the college bookstore used the second floor. Henry E. Mathias, the former head of the Geology Department, acted as the center's director. 

In 1959, the newly constructed Rastall Center opened as the new student center. The Lennox house, after another remodel, became home to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity for 30 years. The college conducted an intensive German language program there in the summers. 

In 1989, the college renovated the building for use as a coed dormitory. The college listed the Lennox house on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Today, Lennox’s home is known as the Glass House, a co-ed residence for 20 students to explore and expand multicultural awareness. 

The Lennox House is an important landmark in Colorado Springs for its architecture and history. The building, built with money from Cripple Creek gold, shows the association of William Lennox, a Colorado Springs pioneer and a wealthy Cripple Creek mining investor, and the college that he financially supported. And the Lennox house still stands, just like Pikes Peak—defiant against time.

Acknowledgments

I thank Shelly Veatch and the Colorado Springs Oyster Club critique group for reviewing the manuscript, and Dr. Bob Carnein for his valuable comments and important help in improving this paper. 

References and Further Reading:

Albany Hotel Brochure, 1921, Advertising brochure promoting the hotel and Colorado Springs.

Central Downtown Historic Walking Tour, Colorado Springs, 2004: retrieved from https://coloradosprings.gov/sites/default/files/planning/cenwalkingtour.pdf, on March 15, 2021.

Lennox House, History Walking Tour, Colorado College: retrieved from https://www.coloradocollege.edu/basics/campus/tour/historic/lennox.html, on February 9, 2021.

Lennox, W., 1901, Century Chest Collection, 1901. Letter written August 4, 1901 to My Great Grand Children, Colorado Springs: retrieved from https://digitalccbeta.coloradocollege.edu/pid/coccc:10790, on February 9, 2021. Note: This letter, written by William Lennox, is from a time capsule, the “Colorado Springs Century Chest Collection, 1901. It was stored for 100 years in various locations on the Colorado College campus. On January 1, 2001, the chest was opened at the Tutt Library of Colorado College. The college scanned items from the chest and transcribed many of the letters.

National Register of Historic Places, 1999, Registration form: Lennox House, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado, National Register #99001266 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service.

Newton, H. J., 1928, Yellow Gold of Cripple Creek: Anecdotes and Romances of the Mines, Mining Men, and Mining Fortunes: Denver, Nelson Publishing Company.

Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado: Containing Portraits and Biographies of Many Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present, 1899: Chicago, Chapman Publishing Company.

Sprague, M., 1953, Money Mountain: The Story of Cripple Creek Gold: Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.

Wilkins, T. E., 1983, Short Line to Cripple Creek: The Story of the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District Railway: Golden, The Colorado Railroad Museum, Colorado Rail Annual Number 16. 

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.

 

 

The Miner’s Photograph: A Pathway to the Past

By Steven Wade Veatch

This photograph, taken around 1899, shows my ancestors posing at their modest frame home, where they lived one step away from Cripple Creek’s gold rush world of cardplayers, whisky drinkers, and midnight carousers. The scene depicts my great-grandfather (Robert Pickering Plews), my great-grandmother (Janet Plews), and two of their daughters in front of their miner’s cabin, built from pine boards, on a hillside in the newly established mining town of Elkton, Colorado.

Robert Plews (32), with two daughters, Elizabeth (4) and Mabel (3) and his wife Janet (25), stand in front of their small home in Elkton, Colorado, one of the towns in the Cripple Creek Mining District. Photo date circa 1899, from the S. W. Veatch collection.

My great-grandparents were from England. Two years after my great-grandfather married my great-grandmother, he left England—by himself—to build a better life in Cripple Creek’s goldfields for the family that he left behind.

Robert Plews was a hope-chaser. He carried his dreams from England across the Atlantic and then 1,700 miles to the Front Range and Cripple Creek. He arrived in the gold mining district in 1897. Victoria was the Queen of England, William McKinley was the US President, and Marconi had sent his first wireless transmission. The Colorado Rockies meant a new chance for him at a place with unlimited opportunities. He went to work at the busy Elkton mine. After my great-grandfather established himself in the mining camp, he sent for his wife, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Mabel, who were still in England. They left Newcastle in the northeast of England in 1899 and immigrated to Elkton.

I discovered this photograph recently, tucked away in an old box. I am drawn to this image’s simple charm. It’s a staged scene: the family hired a photographer, dressed up and posed for the camera. And, it would not have been an inexpensive endeavor at the time. The photo is an affirmation of their place and position in society. My great-grandparents wanted to preserve this sense of success in a new country.

In the photograph, the modest home in the mining camp is a tidy place. My great-grandfather raised six daughters there. A seventh daughter later grew up in Cañon City, Colorado. Great-grandfather Plews was the strict English father of legend, who made all of his daughters behave at a time when children were to be seen and not heard.

In stark contrast to the rustic cabin, everyone is dressed as if they came from a holiday party, not a rough-and-tumble mining camp. The clothes are stylish and expensive. My great-grandfather is smartly attired. A simple watch fob hangs out of a pocket of his waistcoat. He wears sleeve garters on his ready-made shirt. Shirts in those days came in only one sleeve length; and the garters allowed him to adjust the sleeve so that the cuffs were the correct length. My great-grandmother’s long dark dress covers her high-button shoes. She covers her abdomen with her hand and arm, as did many women of the day who were pregnant. She was pregnant with my great-aunt Emma. The two young girls, newly arrived from England, are in white dresses. One has ribbons in her hair.

According to my grandmother, my great-grandfather satisfied his hunger for learning by reading books late into the night, some of which were about mining. His hunger for education resulted in several promotions at the Elkton mine. He eventually became the hoist operator there. While he worked at the mine, the shafts sank lower and lower, and the horizontal drifts dug deeper into the rich goldfields, while tailings piled up on the surface. My great-grandfather worked at the Elkton mine for 21 years.

This photograph is a path for me into my past. I can connect with my great-grandfather and imagine his days of mining, and how that work somehow reached through several generations to me, explaining, in part, my interest in mining and geology from an early age. I can envision how my great-grandmother baked, cooked, cleaned and sewed for a family of nine. And I think of their lives, deeply lived in Colorado’s last gold rush.

Today, the cabin is no longer there; modern gold mining operations replaced it and the town of Elkton. Yet, everything my great-grandfather created there would live on through his seven girls, their children and beyond. I am a direct descendant of one of his daughters, and remain deeply rooted to the Cripple Creek Mining District.

The Cresson Mine: The Untold Stories

By Benjamin Hayden Elick and Steven Wade Veatch

The Cresson mine (figure1), situated between Cripple Creek and Victor, Colorado, was established in 1894 (MacKell, 2003). No one is certain who started the mine, but records show that two brothers, insurance agents J.R. and Eugene Harbeck from Chicago, were early owners. After a hard night of drinking, they sobered up the next day and learned of their new acquisition (MacKell, 2003). The Cresson Mining and Milling Company was organized a year later, in 1895, to raise capital and operate the mine (Patton and Wolf, 1915). The mine continued operating through several leases with low but steady proceeds.

Figure 1. Early view of the Cresson mine, Cripple Creek, Colorado. 

Photograph date circa 1914, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum. 

The Cresson mine became profitable when Richard Roelofs, a known mining innovator, was hired by the Harbecks as mine manager in 1895. Roelofs wrote on an undated letterhead: “I was a prospector, a leaser, a miner, an assayer and chemist, an underground shift boss, foreman, superintendent and then general manager of one of the greatest of Colorado’s mines” (Roelofs, n.d.).

Roelofs (figure 2) was a newcomer to Colorado, as many were when the Cripple Creek gold rush ignited in 1891. He moved to Cripple Creek in 1893 with his wife, Mabel. They had one child, Richard Jr., who was born on August 19, 1894 in Cripple Creek.

Figure 2. Richard Roelofs, manager of the Cresson mine. 

Photograph date 1914, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum.

Not only did Roelofs have to manage the Cresson mine, he had to raise his son alone. Shortly after the birth of Richard Jr., Mabel left her husband and went to Philadelphia, taking their infant son with her. She left Cripple Creek to pursue riches. Then, in July 1895, police arrested Mabel Roelofs for passing bad checks (Keels, 2018). Richard Jr. was sent back to Cripple Creek to join his father. Mabel Roelofs later fled to New York, where she continued a life of crime working con after con. As authorities began to close in, she committed suicide by poisoning in 1908 (Keels, 2018). Richard Roelofs, in his employment contract, earned a percentage of the Cresson mine’s profits, making him a very rich man. If Mabel Roelofs had stayed with Richard, she would have shared in his fabulous wealth.

Roelofs introduced new technology and mining techniques at the Cresson mine, including an aerial tramway he designed that transported ore to a railway at the bottom of the large hill on which the Cresson sat. The tramway reduced the costs of transporting ore (Sprague, 1953). Roelofs deepened the shaft and enlarged the mined-out voids (or stopes). The Cresson’s stopes were the largest in the district, at almost 100 m in width and hundreds of meters high. It is estimated that several houses could fit inside the stopes of the Cresson (Jensen, 2003; Sprague, 1953). Roelofs’s work allowed the mine to be debt free by 1911, and it earned $150,000 annually between 1912 and 1913.

Miners discovered the famous Cresson vug by accident on November 25, 1914 (Smith Jr., Feitz, and Raines, 1985). While following large ore shoots on the 12th level, miners broke into the large chamber (or “vug”) which was in the shape of a pear (Patton and Wolf, 1915). It was approximately 12 m tall, 7 m long, and 4 m wide. The walls were lined with delicate, sparkling crystals of gold tellurides. However, many had fallen to the floor—disturbed by nearby blasting (Jensen, 2003).

The ore minerals in the vug were mostly the gold tellurides sylvanite and calaverite. Sylvanite is comprised of gold, silver and tellurium, while calaverite contains only gold and tellurium. The tellurides within the Cresson vug occurred as crystals, varying in length from 1 mm to 3 mm. On some crystals of calaverite, pure gold was found, suggesting chemical alteration (Patton and Wolf, 1915). These ore minerals penetrated beyond the surface of the vug into the surrounding rock to depths of up to 1.5 m (Mehls and Mehls, 2001).

The gold camp was soon buzzing with conversation about the vug and word of the discovery spread across the nation. National newspapers said the vug “staggers the imagination,” and another paper declared it “the most important strike ever made in the Cripple Creek District” (Various period newspapers: Cripple Creek District Museum, n.d.). This astonishing discovery supported Cripple Creek’s claim that it was the “World’s Greatest Gold Camp.”

The vug, and a considerable amount of Cresson ore, was a part of the Cresson pipe, or blowout. The Cresson pipe is an elliptical cylinder of lamprophyric material (mafic rocks) 100 m to 150 m in diameter (Jensen, 2003). The lamprophyric matrix graded into a lighter colored carbonate matrix (Jensen, 2003). The entire blowout is encased inside a diatreme, a carrot-shaped volcanic complex, emplaced in the Oligocene (about 30 Ma) that reached deep into the crust (Jensen, 2003). The perimeter of the pipe produced 2,000,000 ounces of gold, indicating major deposits of gold-bearing solutions along the contact between the Cresson pipe and the diatreme (Jensen, 2003).

The gold ore from the vug was so valuable that Roelofs quickly took measures to prevent theft or high grading. He ordered a storehouse built underground (on the same level as the Cresson vug) into an old drift and secured it with solid steel doors. Bags of gold ore were stacked by hand and securely locked inside. A newspaper article described the magnitude of ore as “they had stacked between 80 to 100 tons of the phenomenally rich ore at the time of my visit, and from all indications, will continue stacking this ore for some time” (Various period newspapers: Cripple Creek District Museum, n.d.). At times, up to $500,000 (1914 value, or $36,250,000 in today’s dollars) worth of gold ore was stored there.

The Cresson vug’s valuable gold ore also needed special handling. Roelofs hired guards to protect the vug and ore. The guards watched over the ore on every part of its journey through mining, transportation and processing—keeping it safe from thieves. Two to three armed guards worked each shift underground, providing constant protection for the ore and vug. To prevent high grading, Roelofs allowed only two of the most trusted and senior miners to work the vug at a time, and always under close supervision.

The Cresson mine took precautions to secure the ore while it traveled on the railways to smelters. These measures included locked box cars and guards carrying sawed-off shotguns and rifles, who rode inside and on the top of the cars (Newton, 1928). Accounts claim that gold ore was scraped off the vug’s walls and then shoveled into large canvas bags (figure 3). It took four weeks to mine the vug out (Cunningham, 2000).

Figure 3. Canvas bags of gold ore from the Cresson vug are brought to the surface. 

Men are getting the bags ready for shipment. 

Photograph date 1914, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum. 

There were two main grades of ore from the Cresson vug: the first grade included ore worth over $5,000 (1914 dollars) per ton and the second grade from $1,000 to $1,500 (1914 dollars) per ton ("$10,000,000 Strike in Cresson Mine Proves Again that Colorado is the Paradise for the Gold Hunter," 1914, p. 5). The higher-grade ore had 250-plus ounces of gold per ton, while the second grade of ore had 75-plus ounces per ton, based on the 1914 gold price of $20 per ounce (Historical Gold Prices, 2015).

In all, a whopping 60,000 ounces of gold was recovered from the vug (Hunter, 2002). The total value of the vug’s ore in 1914 gold prices was $1,200,000 (Smith Jr., Feitz, and Raines, 1985). Based on today’s gold values, the vug’s rich ore would be worth over $87,000,000.

The discovery of the Cresson vug prompted other mines in the district to deepen their shafts, since the vug was found on a deep level of the Cresson. Mine owners also expanded exploration in their mines.

Roelofs, at the age of 50, sold out in 1917 and spent the next 30 years comfortably in New York while spending time abroad, mostly in Paris Richard. He died at the age of 82 in 1939 (Sprague 1953).

The Cresson mine was operated for 66 years, finally closing in 1961 (Munn, 1984). After finishing as one of the top producing mines in the district, its buildings were torn down and the head frame and its machinery were moved to a park in Victor.

In the early 1990s, exploration geologists discovered a 2.5 million-ounce gold deposit in the same area as the historic Cresson mine, called the Cresson deposit. The Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company submitted permit applications in 1994 for open pit mining of the Cresson deposit and surrounding areas. Mining started in December 1994 and, by the end of 1995, 76,500 ounces of gold were produced. The Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company is still mining the area today under the ownership of Newmont Goldcorp with headquarters in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

The original Cresson mine shaft is long gone and, in its place is the Cresson open pit at 518 m deep (Poulson, personal communication, 2019). Newmont will deepen the pit another 91 m for an ultimate depth of 609 m. At this point, a portal for underground exploration is planned at the bottom of the pit. This project is planned in two phases. In phase one, a decline drift is planned with 762 m of easterly exploratory drifting underneath the Cresson pit. The intention is to establish drill bays at the end of the drift for core drilling below the historic Orpha May and Vindicator mines. The estimated cost of this phase is $26 million. Phase two includes 3,048 m of exploration drifting and positioning core drilling bays at an additional $100 million cost. The goal is to prove the potential for underground mining projects. If Newmont Goldcorp’s investment council approves this plan, the project would start as early as the first quarter of 2020 (Poulson, personal communication, 2019).

The Cresson mine took its place among the important mines in Cripple Creek as a result of its early establishment in the district, an innovative mine manager, expansive underground workings and the discovery of the rich Cresson vug. Mining continues at the Cresson today.

References Cited

$10,000,000 Strike in Cresson Mine Proves Again that Colorado is the Paradise for the Gold Hunter. (1914, December 30). Denver Post, p. 5.

Cunningham, C. (2000). Cripple Creek Bonanza: From Gold to Gambling. Ridgway, CO: Wayfinder Press.

Historical Gold Prices. (2015). Retrieved from Only Gold: http://onlygold.com/Info/Historical-Gold-Prices.asp

Hunter, E. T. (2002). A Thumbnail Sketch of the Cripple Creek/Victor Mining District's History. Manuscript on Newmont Gold Corp website: https://www.newmontgoldcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ccv_history.pdf.

Jensen, E. P. (2003). Magmatic and Hydrothermal Evolution of the Cripple Creek Gold Deposit, Colorado, and Comparisons with Regional and Global Magmatic-Hydrothermal Systems Associated with Alkaline Magmatism.  PhD Thesis. Departement of Geosciences, University of Arizona.

MacKell, J. (2003). Cripple Creek District: Last of Colorado's Gold Booms. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing.

Mehls, S. F., and Mehls, C. D. (2001). Goin’ Up to Cripple Creek: A History of the Gold Belt Byway. Lafayette, CO: Western Historical Studies.

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

Newton, H. J. (1928). Yellow Gold of Cripple Creek: Romances and Anecdotes of the Mines, Mining Men, and Mining Fortunes. Denver: Nelson Publishing Company.

Patton, H. B., and Wolf, H. J. (1915). Preliminary report on the Cresson gold strike at Cripple Creek, Colorado. Golden: Colorado School of Mines Quarterly. Vol 9, No. 4, p. 199-217.

Poulson, B. (2019, Febuary). Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine . (S. Veatch , Interviewer)
Roelofs, R. (n.d.). Undated letter, Cripple Creek District Musuem. Retrieved 2018.

Smith Jr., A. E., Feitz, L., and Raines, E. (1985). The Cresson Vug Cripple Creek. The Mineralogical Record, Volume 16, p 231-238.

Sprague, M. (1953). Money Mountain: The Story of Cripple Creek Gold. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Various period newspapers: Cripple Creek District Museum, n.d. (n.d.).

To Stop a Thief: A Letter Warning Cripple Creek’s Winfield Scott Stratton

By Steven Wade Veatch

It began with a letter that Augustus Dominick Bourquin, a Colorado prospector, wrote to warn Winfield Scott Stratton, the Cripple Creek mining mogul and owner of the Independence Mine, about one of his employees at the mine.

W. S. Stratton (1848-1902) came to the Cripple Creek Mining District in 1891 when he was 42 years old and staked the Independence Mining claim on July 4, 1891. The Independence was among the major producing mines in the district and made Stratton a multi-millionaire. This image is in the public domain in the United States.

Bourquin’s letter is an exceptional illustration of a primary source that offers a first-hand eyewitness account of events. It helps us take a front-row seat to the unfolding of history. Bourquin’s letter is among Stratton’s historic papers that are stored at the Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In his letter, Bourquin warns Stratton that one of his employees, John Stark, is a thief. According to Bourquin’s letter, John Stark was an unscrupulous man that committed acts of larceny wherever he went. Stark even raided the caches of clothes and supplies miners left covered with rocks along the trail on their way to the Klondike goldfields, depriving those miners of necessary supplies. Bourquin’s letter also mentions the problem of high-grading or theft of gold in the Cripple Creek mining district. Here is his letter:

Aspen, Colo. Oct. 17th, ’98.

W. S. Stratton

Victor, Colo.

Dear Sir—

I feel that it is my duty to give you a little of the history of a man who is now in your imploy [sic]. A man who has proven himself a thief on every occasion where he has had an opportunity to pilfer from others. That man is no other than John Stark. Mr. Stratton, I returned in Aug. from the Klondike and was a partner during the winter with Stark. There was [sic] four of us in partnership on a lay, or lease, on Bonanza Creek.[1] Stark began pilfering aboard the steamship Cleveland on his way north from Seattle.[2] Stole his winter supplies from one of the Mercantile Co’s at Fort Yukon.[3] He robed [sic] one of our partners of every dollar of gold dust he had, on the pretense, that he, Stark, would take it down and deposite [sic] it with his own in Dawson.[4] Stark skipped the country between two days and carried off all the dust, leaving our partner stranded in Dawson where he is today.

Stark robed [sic] caches of clothing and provisions whenever he had an opportunity, against my protest. He stole clothing and provisions from the cache of some poor fellows who had to walk out of the country during the winter on account of a shortage of food. Stark robed [sic] me of nearly $200 of which I cannot recover as the theft was commited [sic] in Canadian Teritory [sic]. [5] The Mercantile Co. who he robbed in Fort Yukon were [sic] on his track in Dawson, when he, under an assumed name, left Dawson between two days in a small boat, about June 1st.

Stark often spoke of his work on the Independence mine. Said he has some rich ore from the mine; one piece worth eighty dollars. Spoke of your keeping detectives around all the time but they were not sharp enough to catch anyone. Said he had cut a rich streak of mineral fifteen inches thick and timbered it in, with the help of the Super, hoping someday to get a lease on the ground. According to his statement the superintendent stood in with him, but his name I have forgotten. This unscrupulous scoundrel spoke very disrespectful [sic] of you at different times. Said you had nicely furnished rooms in Cripple for no other purpose, that he knew of, but to take lewd women and have a good time. Mr. Stratton, I have given you simply an outline of the methods practiced by that scoundrel, that you may not be deceived by him. I regret to hear that he has secured a trusty position on your property when there are more worthy people to be had. I can make an affidavit to thease [sic] statements should you desire.

Very respectfully,

A.D. Bourquin

Although it is clear from the letter that Bourquin had a negative attitude toward Stark based on his alleged dealings with him, perhaps we can judge the veracity of his claims by studying Bourquin’s life story. Augustus Dominic Bourquin was born in 1852 in Tidioute, Pennsylvania. Known as “Gust” to his friends, this free-spirited young man craved adventure and excitement. 

Figure 2. Photo of A.D. Bourquin (1852 to 1899). His father was Swiss and his mother was French. Bourquin was noted in the Aspen newspapers as being a principal in the Austin Mining Excavating Company.  Photo source: Robert Clark (great-grandson). Used with permission. 

In 1875, Bourquin first moved west and worked a placer mine in Arizona. Later, he worked in the mines at Red Bluff, California and Reno, Nevada. Bourquin returned home in the fall of 1877 and worked on the family farm in Pennsylvania (Bourquin, 1951). Next, he traveled to Kansas in 1879, where he homesteaded (Bourquin, 1951). Bourquin moved to Kansas at a bad time—a drought held Kansas in its dry and dusty grip. The Manhattan Nationalist, on April 25, 1879, had this to say: “The wind made the bleeding soil of Kansas sift through a pine board on Monday [April 21]. The poor housekeeper that had just shaken carpets and cleaned windows, sighed mournfully as they [sic] saw the sand heaps on windowpane and floor” (Malin, 2018). This relentless drought ended his days of homesteading, and in the spring of 1880, Bourquin, along with his two brothers George and Jess, traveled west as they drove a team of mules and a wagon to Denver (Clark, 2018). The brothers then sold the mules and Bourquin trekked to Aspen, Colorado. He operated several mining claims in the area and served as councilman for the City of Aspen (Clark, 2018).

Bourquin caught a bad case of gold fever and joined the Klondike Gold Rush. After spending a season in the Klondike washing gold-laden gravels in Bonanza Creek, he returned to Aspen, Colorado.

Bourquin died a few months after he mailed his letter to Stratton. He had caught the flu while working on a mining claim and died five days later, on Jan 14, 1899, at the age of 46 (Clark, 2018). The Woodmen of the World, a fraternal benefit society designed to provide insurance and financial security for its members, buried him in the Aspen Grove Cemetery in Aspen, Colorado. Bourquin’s family then moved his body to the Red Butte cemetery after it opened in 1900. His mother Celestine is buried in the same plot, along with his brother Amos, Amos' wife, and their daughter.

And so, a letter reveals a first-hand account of an episode in the writer’s life. The letter led to research that painted a portrait of the writer, A.D. Bourquin, who spent a life well-lived as a miner and adventurer. He followed the trails that pointed to gold and silver deposits, no matter how difficult the passage.  All regarded him as fine man and a pioneer who guided his family to the West.

Although we will never know if Stratton answered Bourquin’s letter, it is known that John Stark, after his adventures in the Klondike, returned to the Cripple Creek Mining District and worked as Stratton’s foreman at the Independence Mine. Eighteen months later, Stark was promoted to superintendent of the Independence Mine (The Fortunes of a Decade, 1900). It seems that Stratton did not read Bourquin’s letter or believe what it said about his foreman, and as a result, we may never know the facts that surrounded Stratton’s decision to ignore the warning in Bourquin’s letter.

References

Andrews, C. L. (1916, January). Marine Disasters of the Alaska Route. The Washington HIstorical Quarterly, 7(1), 21-37. Retrieved December 2, 2018, from www.jstor.org/stable/40428352

Bourquin, G. M. (1951, October 22). Letter to Edna Florence Bourquin Reynolds.

Clark, R. (2018, December 2-5). Great-grandson of A.D. Bourquin. (S. Veatch, Interviewer)

Malin, J. C. (2018, December 1). Dust Storms: Part Two, 1861-1880. Retrieved from Kansas Historical Soceity: https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-dust-storms-part-two-1861-1880/13031

McLaughlin, L. (2018, Devember 7). Yukon History. Retrieved from Hougen Group: http://hougengroup.com/yukon-history/yukon-nuggets/year/1897/#STARVATION

The Fortunes of a Decade. (1900). Colorado Springs: Sargent and Rohrabacher for the Evening Telegraph.

What Was the Klondike Gold Rush? (2018, June 28). Retrieved from Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Site: https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm

Woodin, W., & Spude, C. H. (2016). All for the Greed of Gold: Will Woodin's Klondike Adventure. Seattle: Washington State University Press.

Notes on the letter

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[1] On August 16, 1896 prospectors discovered gold on Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The watercourse became the center of the Klondike Gold Rush (1897-1898). This discovery triggered a stampede of thousands of prospectors and fortune seekers to the area (What Was the Klondike Gold Rush?, 2018).

[2] The Cleveland, operated by the North American Trading & Transportation Company, was one of many steamships that carried passengers to and from the Klondike goldfields (Woodin & Spude, 2016). The company sold fares only to the “hardiest of men.” The demand for a ticket was high. After leaving Seattle’s docks, the Cleveland went as far as Fort St. Michael, where a connection was made with river steamers that took passengers and goods up the Yukon River to the mines. Fort St. Michael was established by the US Army in 1897 to establish order during the Klondike Gold Rush and served as a major gateway through the Yukon River to the area. In 1903, the Cleveland was lost in the Bering Sea and was never recovered (Andrews, 1916).

[3] Fort Yukon, during the Klondike Gold Rush (“Starvation Winter” of 1897–1898) took in 200 prospectors from Dawson City who were short of supplies (McLaughlin, 2018).

[4] Dawson City, the center of the Klondike Gold Rush, began in 1896, where it displaced a native encampment. The city grew into a busy place of 40,000 by 1898. A year later, after the gold rush ended, its population plummeting to 8,000 people.

[5] The stolen $200 is equivalent to $2,855 in 2018 dollars.