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I I I I I I I I I I I I f I I I I I I BACKGROUND INFO~mTION BRECKENRIDGE HISTORY The first white settlers came to the Breckenridge area to prospect gold in the spring of 1859. The presence of gold was immediately established and in that first summer approx- imately 1000 miners arrived in the area. In 1860, George E. Spencer founder the town of Breckenridge from a group of cabins located one half mile above French Gulch on the Blue River. ~he town was established solely for the exploitation of the area's rich gold potential and hence growth was closely tied to the success of the mining operations. The mining district proved to be exceptionally rich. A fourteen pound gold nugget, the largest discovered in the State, was taken from Farncomb Hill near Breckenridge. The area con- tinued to yield gold to placer and lode miners through the 1890's. The population of the town reached an all time high in the 1880's in conjunction with the area's largest mining boom. The completion of a railroad line from Denver through -Breckenridge to Leadville in 1883 further established the town. In 1898, the first dredging for the placer gold was attempted. Huge rafts, each equipped to separate the gold from the alluvium, dug their own navigable channels across the floodplain leaving behind the giant arc shaped heaps of waste gravel that can still be seen lining the Blue River. By 1925, most of the gold-rich alluvium had been dredged and large- scale mining in the area ended. '- Until the establishment of Breckenridge as a resort area in the early 1960's, the population was relatively dormant, dropping to a low in 1930 of 336. Recent increases have returned the town to half its 1880 population, or approx- imately 900 people. BLUE RIVER AND TRIBuTARIES Breckenridge is located in the upper drainage basin of the Colorado River. The principal tributary flowing through the (~oc ,Mr~J J