The Miners: "They Builded Better Than They Knew"
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Niountain Studies Institute - Mining in the San Juans -I Page 1 of9 1136401-R8 SDMS 2^ f«!fe.%» /^••.\1(H:m'l.ahrS111 dies .[nsli.lulL\:-_/-?!--:_; "" i«s»*iES^^K^51SSeiSl3l^aS:iISS^ The Miners: "They Builded Better Than they Knew" by DUANE A. SMITH Adapted from. The Western San Juan Mountains: Their Geology, Ecology & Human History (used by permission of University Press of Colorado) They intrigued the Spanish, lured the fifty-niners, and provided a home for severa generations of eager prospectors and determined hardrock miners. To all of them were known as the San Juan Mountains. Some of Colorado's highest and most rug peaks insured a challenge for anyone who sought to wrestle their mineral resourc from the granite-ribbed depths. For over 250 years, determined men have attemp extract the treasure. The Spanish came first in the eighteenth century; the Utes, who earlier had traver these mountains for centuries, did not stop to mine. The Utes objected to the Spa intrusion, one reason that the trespassers from the Rio Grande Valley did not ling Certainly by the time of Juan Maria de Rivera's expedition of 1765, many of the intriguing Spanish place-names were already in common use. New Mexican miner come, worked for a season or two, and gone home; they were trespassing on the resources and did not wish to give him his royal fifth of all the ore mined, as the I demanded. There can be no doubt that the Spanish explored deeply into the San Juans. The Times (September 4, 1876), for example, stated that "old openings and tools" we found in Poughkeepsie Gulch, and a year later the Engineering and Mining Journal described an "abandoned open cut" that had been found along a silver vein on the of Lake Como. The Spanish came and went, leaving behind names and fascinating stories of lost mines and buried treasure that still lure people today and trap the u into futile searches. In the 1820s trappers were w the San Juan streams for anot natural resource—beavers. According to later reports, the http://www.mountainstudies.org/databank/history/Miners.htm 2/9/04 Mountain Studies Institute - Mining in the San Juans Page 1 of9 1136401-R8 SDMS "•^BT" •^•i,>4 v^$x<' '^'•'•'^1 " ^-'^^ii... ^.^*| |In$:iitul& SAN JUAN MOUNTAiNS,J f About MSI if Ng^s^Events ir Education If Research li Data . If Resource"s~lf Search IP H( The Miners: "They Builded Better Than they Knew" by DUANE A. SMITH Adapted from. The Western San Juan Mountains: Their Geology, Ecology & Human History (used by permission of University Press of Colorado) They intrigued the Spanish, lured the fifty-niners, and provided a home for severa generations of eager prospectors and determined hardrock miners. To ail of them were known as the San Juan Mountains. Some of Colorado's highest and most rug peaks insured a challenge for anyone who sought to wrestle their mineral resourc from the granite-ribbed depths. For over 250 years, determined men have attemp extract the treasure. The Spanish came first in the eighteenth century; the Utes, who earlier had traver these mountains for centuries, did not stop to mine. The Utes objected to the Spa intrusion, one reason that the trespassers from the Rio Grande Valley did not ling Certainly by the time of Juan Maria de Rivera's expedition of 1765, many ofthe intriguing Spanish place-names were already in common use. New Mexican miner come, worked for a season or two, and gone home; they were trespassing on the resources and did not wish to give him his royal fifth of all the ore mined, as the I demanded. There can be no doubt that the Spanish explored deeply into the San Juans. The Times (September 4, 1876), for example, stated that "old openings and tools" we found in Poughkeepsie Gulch, and a year later the Engineering and Mining Journal described an "abandoned open cut" that had been found along a silver vein on the of Lake Como. The Spanish came and went, leaving behind names and fascinating stories of lost mines and buried treasure that still lure people today and trap the u into futile searches. In the 1820s trappers were w the San Juan streams for anot natural resource—beavers. According to later reports, the -, .?*<»»_ http://www.mountainstudies.org/databank/history/Miners.htm 2/9/04 Mountain Studies Institute - Mining m the San Juans Page 2 of 9 known Kit Carson, among others, "strongly insisted" that these southern ranges w "prolific in mines of gold, silver and other precious stones." By the time of the fam 1859 Pikes Peak rush, the legends and stories of the San Juans were wafting on t wind, hard to pin down but tantalizing to ponder. The fifty-niners rushed instead t Gregory's Diggings and Payne's Bar on the eastern slopes ofthe Rockies, where C City and Idaho Springs soon would be. The San Juans lay weeks of mountainous t away, a trip that seemed unnecessary in light of the great strikes of that glorious on the Front Range. Nevertheless, within a year Charles Baker would be in the pa the western side ofthe mountains that bears his name and where Silverton now s Baker led a small party into the San Juans in August 1860, after which he enthusiastically promoted his discoveries. One member of the party described the mountains he had just visited as "the highest, roughest, broadest and most abrup the ranges." He concluded his article in the October 12, 1860, Rocky Mountain Ne with the exhilarating observation that in this "range the metalliferous developmen this region, if not ofthe North American continent, reaches its culminating point." was what the readers wanted to see, as plans for a rush in the spring of '61 got underway. The rush came as anticipated, generally by way of New Mexico and up the Animas on Baker's toll road, which passed through Animas City, another Baker-inspired cr Unfortunately, this rush failed for several reasons: not enough placer gold, unfrie Utes, an isolated site, and a climate and elevation not conducive to months of prospecting. By fall the rushers were gone, and the San Juans had regained their customary solitude. Not for long, however, would they remain quiet. Those rumor legends still beckoned, and others came to try their luck. Once the Civil War ende peace returned to a troubled United States, more rushers moved in. The fact that San Juans remained, in the words of contemporary Colorado author Frank Fossett "terra incognita" only enhanced the speculation of what might be found among th high peaks and deep canyons. In 1869 prospectors worked their way up the Dolores River as far as present-day the next year, men struggled back into Baker's Park. This time they came to stay, although initially they worked only from late spring to fall, when the snows forced closing of operations. No longer was the search simply for placer mines; lode min were discovered and opened, and by 1874 small settlements were appearing near gateways to the San Juans and in some of the mountain valleys. Permanent settle took root when year-round mining became possible. One of the most interesting of the early pioneers, John Moss, focused his attentio Plata Canyon. Moss negotiated a treaty with the Utes for the land and brought in California capital to underwrite his mining. Parrott City, at the mouth ofthe canyo served as his headquarters. For several years he and his followers prospected and mined in the area, digging not only for precious metals but also for coal. Isolation, profits, and Moss's own eccentric nature doomed his effort. His was the first, but last, of the attempts to find the mother lode in that canyon's depths. http://www.mountauistudies.org/databank/history/Miners.htm 2/9/04 Mountain Studies Institute - Mming in the San Juans Page 3 of 9 Among the first results of the renewed interest in the San Juans was conflict with Utes, who had been guaranteed this land by treaty. Most San Juan miners, unlike did not stop to negotiate with the Utes, simply assuming the land to be theirs by f right. Government was under pressure from both sides, one that had treaty rights another that wanted better (meaning more profitable) use made of the region. Th result was the signing of the Brunot Agreement (September 1873), in which the U ceded 3.5 million acres, the heart ofthe mining country. In return, the Indians re $25,000 annually and retained the right to hunt on the ceded land as long as gam lasted and peace was maintained. Within a decade, the Utes were gone from much of Colorado's Western Slope as a of the continuing friction between the two peoples and the killing of Nathan Meeke Meeker, a sincere but misguided agent to the White River Utes, had served in the northwestern part of the state. The misunderstandings and conflicts that characte confrontations between these different cultures and races elsewhere in the West repeated in the San Juans, and in the end the Indians gave way. As was typical in mining West, the end for the Utes came quickly and decisively. Meanwhile, settlement and development of the San Juans went on apace. Throug gateways at Lake City and Del Norte swarmed the miners, crossing over high mou passes, searching on mountainsides and in canyon valleys for their golden dream. Others followed the longer, more roundabout route up the Animas Valley. Some o remained there to begin farming and ranching to serve the needs of their contemporaries in the mountains, where the growing season seemed virtually nonexistent.