9369 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9369
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: 12th & 13th Annual Colorado Water Workshop.
• USFW Year: 1987.
• USFW - Doc Type: Western State College of Colorado.
• Copyright Material: NO

Historical Factors iD Colorado's E~ic Develo.-eut

MiDiDg 8Dd Railroads: 1860-1900.

The modern economic history of the region that is now Colorado began with
the discovery of gold near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte
River in 1858. It should come as no surprise that the location is virtually
in the center of what is today the Denver metropolitan area. Other cities
made equally good claims for becoming the principal city of the Rocky Mountain
region in the years immediately following the discovery of gold--Golden wanted
desperately to be a major city and Cheyenne was given a major heads tart when
the transcontinental railroad was routed through it--but a combination of
luck, persistence and geographic advantage gave the edge to Denver.

The Colorado gold boom was on in full force after the first strike was
confirmed by a second major discovery on Clear Creek in the spring of 1859.
Horace Greeley, publisher of the enormously influential New York Tribune, came
out to see first-hand what the fuss was about. When he reported to his
t'eaders that the Clear Creek strike could be worth anywhere between $21 and
$494 dollars B day, men poured into the region; some estimated 500 newcomers a
day were crowding into the 4 square mile area (Abbott, 1976). Eventually most
of those men moved to other locations or went home empty handed, but the
initial in-migration was enough to start a sustained mining industry.

The discovery of gold soon lead to the discovery of other precious metals
and the value of the industr.y as a whole increased rapidly. In the decade of
the 1860's, the value of all metals extract.ed t.otaled $2H million. This rose
to $50 million in the next decade, $225 million in the third, and to $324
million in the 1890's, By 1920, the Colorado Rockies had yielded almost. $1.5
billion dollars worth of gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper (Frush, 1959),

By 1890, there were three main mining regions in the State. The oldest
was the Front Range mineral belt west of Denver. Central City and Leadville
were its gold, silver and copper production and smelting centers. The second
region was Cripple Creek near Colorado Springs, which was the most productive
gold region in the stat.e. The third was the San Juan region in the southwest
part of the State, with the towns of Silverton, Telluride and Ouray as' the
major contributors of gold, silver and copper. The regions were connected to
each other and to Denver by an intr'icate network of railroads, 4176 miles in
all (Dorsett, 1986). In Denver, five major railroads connected Colorado to
markets allover the nation.

The railroads were just one of many industries that flourished as a
result of mining, but maybe the most important one because it made many
regions of Colorado easily accessible for the first time, Prior to 1860,
Colorado was separated from the rest of the nation by six days of tortuous
stage travel. There was an almost total lack of transportation in the western
part of the State (Athern, 1976). Clearly, if Colorado was to prosper
economically, transportation would have to improve. An effort was organized
to persuade the Union Pacific to route its transcontinental line through
Colorado and over Berthoud Pass at an estimated cost of $100,000 per mile of
track (maintenance costs in the winter were conveniently ignored). Whatever
chance Colorado had of convincing the Union Pacific to build across Colorado
vanished in 1866 when an October snow storm on the pass nearly killed the
Union Pacific's chief engineer who was surveying the proposed route. The

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