Mining Photography

In 1859, 100,000 folks started the journey to the Pikes Peak goldfields, but only 50,000 completed the trip. An additional 25,000 soon gave up and went back home. The remainder not only brought statehood to the central Rocky Mountains, but they also brought the industrial world to isolated areas in the high mountains, where they mined mineral deposits for gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper, among others. This book, Historic Photos of Colorado Mining, provides an introduction to Colorado's mining history through photographs from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Accompanying captions provide specific contexts for the photos and tell the story of the prospectors, miners, engineers, teamsters, railroaders, and townspeople who served as entrepreneurs and workers in industrializing the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Many ruins from the mining days are now recognized as historic landmarks. But the stories behind the ruins are often as fascinating as the ruins themselves—the struggle to survive and thrive in the wilderness is always a compelling tale.