
Denver to Breckenridge
124.6 miles, 10.5 hours
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The expedition commenced after
spending the night at the world famous
Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.
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IDAHO SPRINGS: George Jackson came to Cherry Creek, now Denver, after hearing about a gold strike at the foot of the Rockies in 1858. Most prospectors were content to winter in Cherry Creek and wait for spring to arrive before starting the search for gold. George Jackson was too restless to wait and wandered to Chicago Creek, where he found gold in the creek's gravel. He went back to Cherry Creek and quietly formed the Chicago Mining Company, but word leaked out about his discovery and the rush was on. A town of log buildings quickly sprung up and was named Jackson's Diggings. It soon grew to 12,000 people and was renamed Idaho (gem in one of the Indian languages) Springs (for the hot and cold mineral springs here. The population stabilized at 4,000 and the town became a mining, ore processing, and transportation center. The log buildings were replaced by brick and the Colorado Central Railroad reached Idaho Springs in 1878. Between 1893 and 1910 the 5 mile long Argo tunnel was dug to Central City. The gold found along the way kept the town alive. Today tourism, the mineral springs, and Denver keep Idaho Springs healthy.
GEORGETOWN was founded in 1859 when George and David Griffith found $500 worth of gold along Clear Creek. Their discovery led many prospectors to the area which they called George's town, but very little gold was found. In 1861, silver was found, but the gold miners were not interested in it. Not until 1864 did silver attract prospectors. By 1867, with the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon Lode, Georgetown became a booming city. Georgetown had many saloons, gambling halls, and bawdy houses, but gunplay and crime seldom occurred. Wild Bill Hickock gambled at the Georgetown tables during 1872 but he caused no trouble.
Louis Dupuy's Hotel de Paris built in 1875, put Georgetown on the map as having the finest hotel in the Rockies. The silver crash of 1893 shut down the mines, but Georgetown lived on as a resort and tourist attraction.
LOVELAND PASS (11,992 ft): In 1878 Colorado's largest silver producer, Leadville boomed. The shortest route to supplies was through Clear Creek Canyon to Georgetown's railroad, but there was not a road. William Loveland, who had pushed the railroad through the canyon, rushed to beat the competition and finished the pass named for him in 1879. It served the Leadville, Montezuma, and Peru Mining Districts.
MONTEZUMA was founded by H.M. Teller, a future U.S. Senator, and D.C. Collier. Collier named the town for the old Aztec ruler of Mexico in 1863. Silver kept Montezuma alive, but transportation problems kept the population at 200 until Webster and Loveland Passes were built in the late 1870's when the population grew to 800. Silver mines, ore processors, and a saw mill were the largest employers and silver mining persisted into the 1950's. The local ski areas keep the town alive today.
WEBSTER PASS (12,096 ft): Originally called Handcart Pass, the name was changed to Webster Pass when the Webster Brothers built a toll road to bring silver ore from the Montezuma Mining District to the Denver South Park and Pacific's line at Webster. Webster was the end of the Denver South Park and Pacific's line in 1877. It was a busy and wild place where everyone heading to the boomtowns further west gathered. All of the days known vices - alcohol, gambling and prostitution were readily available. Things slowed down when the railroad terminus moved further west and Webster eventually died with the railroad in 1937. Between 1863 and 1864 the Jim Reynold's gang (thought to be Confederate guerillas) held up the gold bearing stage coaches that followed present day U.S. Highway 285 to Denver. It is believed that the gang buried the loot from their last robbery in the mountain valleys between Grant and Webster.
The gang was taken to Denver by a posse after being captured near Grant. From Denver a new posse was to take them to Fort Lyons, but the gang never made it. Rumor says they were shot by the posse one by one to learn the location of the buried loot. Some say the gold (maybe $600,000 worth) is still buried in Hall Valley or Webster. Others say a Texas lawman found it years ago. No matter what is true, people are still searching.
HANDCART GULCH was named after two Norwegian prospectors who, during the early 1860's, brought supplies in on handcarts. HALL VALLEY or Hallville had 300 very rowdy citizens who were also very independent. Two men were Iynched during that year for trying to control the town by force. At this time an English Company bought the Whale Mine, but it later went bankrupt through mismanagement.
RED CONE (12,801 ft) was a miners trail that is now used as a 4-wheel drive route the Divide.
SWANDYKE produced gold and silver from 1889 to 1910. Three hundred prospectors worked the surrounding area.
THE PILES OF ROCK found here are the results of dredge mining for gold. Huge boat dredges, up to 500 tons, floated on self-made ponds in the area waterways. They cut 50 feet deep and 200 feet wide swaths in the creek bottoms and separated the sand and rock from the gold.
PARKVILLE is now buried under tons of rock and earth that was the waste from mining, but in 1860 it was the boom town of Summit County. Two thousand people crowded this town in Georgia Gulch and it was the County Seat for a short time. Georgia Gulch was home for 10,000 prospectors. The easy gold petered out in a few years and the town died, but miners worked the area and buried the town throughout the 1870's and 80's. The cemetery is all that remains today.
GEORGIA PASS (11,585 ft) was a traditional Divide crossing used by both Ute and Arapahoe Indians. John C. Fremont avoided this route in 1844 because a large Arapahoe war party was using the trail. With the discovery of gold in Breckenridge, miners were crossing this trail from the Swan River to South Park in mass. By 1861 wagons were crossing the Pass.
BRECKENRIDGE was reached by the Pikes Peak gold seekers in August of 1859. They immediately found gold, but only in small amounts. William H. Iliff made the first big find later that month and the rush was on. This rush lasted several years until the easy to reach placer gold was exhausted. The second rush came in 1879 when quartz lodes were found and by 1885, two thousand people lived in Breckenridge. This quartz boom also died as the ore was exhausted. In 1898 the last gold boom started when Ben Stanley Revett put the first dredge boat into service. This destructive form of mining lasted until World War II. The results of the dredge can be seen on every waterway around Breckenridge. In 1962 the ski area opened and revitalized the area.