![]() ![]() Finally, they blasted and sacked the gold-laced rock in the vug wall. Under the watchful eyes of armed guards, miners worked for a month to clean out what was named the “Cresson Vug.” Miners filled 1,400 sacks with gold flakes worth $400,000, then filled another 1,000 sacks with lower-grade material worth $100,000. In 1914, miners at Cripple Creek’s Cresson Mine blasted into a large vug 20 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 40 feet high that was lined with crystallized gold. Some ores were actually graded in dollars per pound, rather than the traditional troy ounces per ton. ![]() Ores grading several hundred troy ounces of gold per ton were surprisingly common. (Steve Voynick)Ĭripple Creek gold occurred in elemental form and as the telluride minerals calaverite and sylvanite. ![]() Al Mosch, owner and tour guide at the Phoenix Gold Mine in Idaho Springs, welcomes visitors to an underground tour. That year, Cripple Creek produced two-thirds of all the gold mined in the United States. Production at Cripple Creek peaked in 1900 when 475 mines turned out 900,000 troy ounces-28 metric tons-worth $18 million. Not knowing the actual extent of his discovery, he sold out for $300-only to learn later that he had found one of North America’s richest gold deposits. But unlike Thomas Walsh, Womack did not go from rags to riches. In 1892, high on the western side of Pikes Peak at a lonely cow camp called Cripple Creek, Womack found gold-bearing rock that graded 12 troy ounces to the ton. Read Part I >īy 1890, Colorado produced a quarter-million troy ounces of gold annually, a figure that would soon quadruple, thanks to an itinerant cowboy and part-time prospector named Bob Womack. (Steve Voynick)Įditor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series exploring the evolution of gold mining in Colorado. The Argo Gold Mine and Mill in Idaho Springs is a popular showcase of Colorado’s gold-mining history. ![]()
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