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NM Form 1"0" OMB A PWW N0.1024-WIS <br /> (sae) <br /> United States Department of the Interior <br /> National Park Service <br /> National Register of Historic Places <br /> Continuation Sheet <br /> Section number 8 Page 6 <br /> Henry M. Teller was another major entrepreneurial figure to direct the <br /> growth of the district economy. He was a premier example of the frontier <br /> town booster and builder who spurred early economic growth in Western mining <br /> towns. Teller was a prominent State politican and local entrepreneur who <br /> settled in Central City in 1862. He had a formative influence on Gilpin <br /> County economic growth in the 1870s. He became president of the Colorado <br /> Central Railroad, the Rocky Mountain National Bank in Central City, and the <br /> Rocky Mountain Telegraph Company. In 1877, immediately following Colorado's <br /> admission to Statehood, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He also served <br /> as Secretary of the Interior under President Chester A. Arthur. <br /> B. Fire, Rebuilding, and Maturation: 1870s <br /> In the wake of the economic recovery around 1870 came also a profound social <br /> change. The early shift from placer to deep and hard-rock mining created a <br /> two-class social order for the miners. Those without money whose claims <br /> played out were forced to work as day laborers. In 1863, they received a <br /> daily wage of $2.50 or $3.00 a day, while flour alone cost $18 a sack. More <br /> than 100 miners went on strike in 1863 and again in 1864 for a dollar more <br /> daily pay. However, there were no general strikes as in Leadville and other <br /> camps over the next decades. This was attributed by observers to the fact <br /> that the Cornish and Irish miners who were the dominant ethnic groups <br /> represented in the population "lived excellently" on their own resources, <br /> many as "lease miners." Many jointly leased inactive claims and maintained <br /> their economic independence. The Cornish also were excellent masons and thus <br /> had a dual means of income. <br /> Class conflict in the district was more often internecine than between <br /> laborers and the elites, as in other industrial areas. The year of the <br /> strike, the local press reported a "riot" between the Irish of Nevada Gulch <br /> and the Cornish of Spring Gulch.' The real reason the labor movement in the <br /> Gregory district was weak was the rivalry and division between the Irish and <br /> American miners against the Cornish. The latter formed the Central City <br /> Miners' Union in 1873, but the other groups refused to join them. Managers <br /> were able to recruit enough Irish and Midwestern miners to take their places <br /> when they went on strike, and the merchant community refused to extend <br /> credit to the striking Cornish. Thus the brief effort by the Cornish miners <br /> to shut down the mines when owners reduced wages to $2.70 a day failed.' <br /> Continued economic prosperity further mitigated labor conflict, and <br /> residents of the three towns in the mining district enjoyed 2 more decades <br /> of a satisfactory standard of living and general community harmony. Most of <br />