Laserfiche WebLink
NPS Form 104W* CHUB fimww No- laww1! <br /> (mil <br /> United States Department of the Interior <br /> National Park Service <br /> National Register of Historic Places <br /> Continuation Sheet <br /> Section number $ Page 9 <br /> gold standard after 15 years of silver coinage, along with reduced <br /> production expenses due to development of a new cyanide process of <br /> smelting."' <br /> D. Steady Decline: 1900-1918 <br /> Despite the brief resurgence in 1897, by the end of the century only six of <br /> an original 77 companies were still operating. These were evenly <br /> distributed throughout the district. They included the Consolidated Gregory <br /> Mine at Black Hawk, and the Kansas-Burroughs at Nevadaville, each of which <br /> had 5 miles of underground development. Others were the Perigo Mine 4 miles <br /> north of Central City, and the Gunnell and Pactolus at Central City with 2 <br /> miles each of subterranean tunneling. Nevadaville still boasted the deepest <br /> shaft, which was at the California Mine, extending 2,250 feet below the <br /> surface. <br /> Until World War I, the mining communities maintained an economic status quo, <br /> but there was none of the expansiveness and optimism of the previous <br /> century. Demographic changes reflected the new character of the area. Three <br /> thousand people remained, but there still were one-third more men than women <br /> and a disproportionate number of adults compared to the number of children. <br /> In 1900, over one-third of Gilpin County residents still were foreign-born, <br /> as they had been in 1870. However, now they were of a different ethnic <br /> extraction. The Welsh, Irish, Cornish, Germans, and Chinese of the early <br /> period, were replaced by new groups who had immigrated from Austria, the <br /> Scandinavian countries, and Italy. The new Austrians and Italians were <br /> "Tyrolese miners," numbering about 500, or one-sixth of the population in <br /> 1900. They were willing to accept lower wages than the Cornish and other <br /> older groups, again causing ethnic conflict. <br /> A steady economic decline began in the first decade of the 20th century that <br /> was not to reverse. Mining had remained expensive for 3 decades; water <br /> still was scarce on the surface but a hindrance to deep lode mining below. <br /> The California was pumped out for the last time in 1902. The process took 4 <br /> months using two 500-gallon barrels. At the same time, commodity prices <br /> were rising faster than the price of gold, and World War I greatly escalated <br /> this trend. By 1918, when the United States entered the war, mining <br /> operations were almost completely suspended; thus the period of significance <br /> for the NHL District ended. The Gilpin Tramway was abandoned in 1917, and <br /> many businesses closed. In 1920, only 440 people remained in Central City, a <br /> town with a previous population high of 3,000 twenty years earlier.1e <br />