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III. HISTORY Cripple Creek is one of the outstanding gold districts in the world. Discovery took place and the peak production was around 1900 and finally ceased in 1955. Almost all the production was from deep underground mines. When gold prices increased dramatically in the early 1970's and a number of companies considered opening up old mines at Cripple Creek. Several open pit mines were developed. Recently Nerco consolidated the lands in the district and carried out a thorough exploration. Nerco recently sold their Cripple Creek holdings to Minorco for 21 million dollars. The earliest record of any interest in the Turquoise at Cripple Creek is the early 1940's when Wallace C. Burtis leased the Florence claim from Charles W. Schroeder. Schroeder deeded the ' Florence claim over to Wallace Burtis shortly after entering into the leased for gem mining (Appendix A). Burtis went through the lengthy process of patenting the Florence claim from 1941-1951. An integral part of that process is proving the economic viability of extracting minerals from the lands encompassed by the patented application. Little is known of the activities on the Florence claim from 1951 to 1971. Turquoise was not popular during this time and there was not a good market for the raw material. Presumably, Wallace Burtis Sr. and his associates crafted jewelry from the crude turquoise he extracted from shallow mine workings for their own enjoyment. Turquoise became popular in the 1970's and prices rose dramatically. Wallace Burtis Jr. reports that he and his family dug 150-200 lbs. of turquoise per year over the twenty odd years from 1971 until present. They reportedly worked four days last year 1992 and recovered the washtub full shown in igu IV. GEOLOGY OF TURQUOISE DEPOSITS The original work done by Mr. Burtis and his predessor in the early 1940's was on a vein of turquoise that trended northwest along the south slope of Mineral Hill shown in Figure 5 (Burtis, 1993). This vein reportedly interested a more northerly trending - vein and at the intersection there was a larger mass of turquoise. Because the operations were underground at that time the pillar was left in place to support the back. Later this higher grade pod was probably exploited when the area of underground workings was developed as an open pit turquoise mine. The N 40~W turquoise vein was the basis for the location and patent of the Florence Lode claim (Figure 6). The more northerly trending structure is probably the Roanoke vein which according to the mineral survey trended north 13 degrees east. This structural trend appears to host turquoise for a considerable strike distance. The Turquoise Queen, which is on trend to the north some 3,000 feet and 200 feet higher in elevation contains turquoise. Mr. Burtis reported that a large open pit was worked for turquoise. Mr. Graham reported Illat the Roanoke shaft, which is just ORU:• pANSZE, GEOLDCISTS