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Leadville, Colorado

Leadville is a statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 2,633 at the 2020 census. It is situated at an elevation of 10158 ft. Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the United States and is surrounded by two of the tallest peaks in the state.

Leadville is a former silver mining town that lies among the headwaters of the Arkansas River within the Rocky Mountains. The Leadville Historic District, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, contains many historic structures and sites of Leadville's mining era. In the late 19th century, Leadville was the second most populous city in Colorado, after Denver.

Settlement

The Leadville area was first settled in 1859 when placer gold was discovered by A. G. Kelley in California Gulch, and by Abe Lee in April (25/26) 1860, during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. Prospectors panned for gold in the stream that ran through California Gulch in what became the town of Oro City (oro is the Spanish word for gold). Horace Tabor, who became known as the "Leadville Silver King", and his wife Augusta were among the first prospectors to arrive in Oro City. Horace was appointed as the postmaster of Oro City on November 30, 1868. His wife made money as postmistress, banker, cook, and laundress while Tabor was a prospector.

The early miners had noted that mining for placer gold was hampered by heavy black sand in the sluice boxes, and in 1874 it was discovered that the heavy sand that impeded gold recovery was the lead mineral cerussite, which has a high silver content. Prospectors traced the cerussite to its source, present day Leadville, and by 1876 had discovered several silver-lead lode deposits. As the gold has been tapped out of the gulch and attention was averted to nearby Leadville, a mile or two away, Oro City became a ghost town.

Founding of Leadville
Leadville was founded in 1877 by mine owners Horace Tabor and August Meyer at the start of the Colorado Silver Boom. Tabor's house was also built in 1877, at 116 E. 5th Street. The town was built on desolate flat land below the tree line. The first miners lived in a rough tented camp near the silver deposits in California Gulch. Initially, the settlement was called "Slabtown", but when the residents petitioned for a post office, the name "Leadville" was chosen. By 1880, Tabor and Meyer's new town had gas lighting, water mains, 28 mi of streets, five churches, three hospitals, six banks, and a school for 1,100 students. Many business buildings were constructed with bricks hauled in by wagons.

In early 1878, Meyer, along with Leadville's pioneer smelter entrepreneur, Edwin Harrison, after whom the famed Harrison Avenue is named, and Tabor established a post office in Leadville, with George L. Henderson designated as postmaster on July 16, 1877. The post office and the telegraph office both prospered, with Tabor serving as postmaster from February 19 to December 13, 1878. It was said that the Leadville post office was the busiest one between St. Louis and San Francisco. In 1878, the town's first hospital, St. Vincent's, was opened.

The town's first newspaper was The Reveille, a Republican weekly, in 1878. Three months later, a competing Democratic weekly, The Eclipse, emerged. The Chronicle was the town's first daily and first newspaper in America to employ a full-time female reporter. Like the Rocky Mountain News, The Chronicle took the lead in outing criminals and thieves, in an attempt to clean up the town's shady business culture. Despite violent threats, the Chronicle survived without major incident.

William Nye opened the first saloon in 1877, and it was followed by many others. The same year the Coliseum Novelty was the first theater to open. It offered sleeping rooms upstairs for a nightly rate and provided a variety of entertainments: dancing girls, dogfights, cockfighting, wrestling and boxing matches, and rooms for gambling. In June 1881, it burned to the ground. Ben Wood, who arrived in Leadville in 1878, opened the first legitimate theater, Wood's Opera House, with a thousand seats. It was a first-class theater, where gentleman removed their hats and did not smoke or drink in the presence of a lady. Less than a year later, Wood opened the Windsor Hotel. His opera house was regarded as the largest and best theater constructed in the West, an honor it held until the opening of the Tabor Opera House. Horace Tabor's Opera House was the most costly structure in Colorado at the time. Building materials were brought by wagons from Denver. The massive three-story opera house, constructed of stone, brick, and iron, opened on November 20, 1879. Tabor, originally from Vermont, became the town's first mayor. After striking it rich, he had an estimated net worth of 10 million dollars and was known for his extravagant lifestyle. In February 1879 the Lake County seat was moved to Leadville, where it has remained ever since. In 1879, An impressive courthouse was built on the west side of Harrison Avenue, joined by a new post office that same year. Telephone service was introduced by Western Union on May 15, 1879, and gas lighting downtown was installed on November 18 that same year. Billings and Eilers Smelter installed a generator and lights for the town on May 13, 1881. On May 19, 1882, a large fire broke out at the corner of Harrison Avenue and East Chestnut.

Horace Tabor divorced his wife of 25 years and married Baby Doe McCourt on September 30, 1882, who was half his age. Tabor was by then a US senator, and the divorce and marriage caused a scandal in Colorado and beyond. For several years, the couple lived a lavish lifestyle in a Denver mansion, but Tabor, one of the wealthiest men in Colorado, lost his fortune when the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act caused the Panic of 1893. He died on April 10, 1899, of appendicitis, destitute but remained convinced that the price of silver would rebound. According to legend, he told Baby Doe to "hold on the Matchless mine... it will make millions again when silver comes back." She returned to Leadville with her daughters, Silver Dollar and Lily, where she spent the rest of her life believing Tabor's prediction. At one time the "best dressed woman in the West", she lived in a cabin at the Matchless Mine for the last three decades of her life. On March 7, 1935, after a snowstorm, she was found frozen in her cabin, aged about 81 years.

Mining and smelting

Mining in the Leadville area began in 1859 when prospectors discovered gold at the mouth of California Gulch. By 1872, placer mining in California Gulch yielded more than $2,500,000, roughly. In 1876, black sand, once considered bothersome to placer gold miners, was discovered to contain lead carbonates, leading to a rush of miners to the area and the founding of the town in 1877. By 1880, Leadville was one of the world's largest and richest silver camps, with a population of more than 15,000. Income from more than thirty mines and ten large smelting works produced gold, silver, and lead amounting to $15,000,000 annually. The Leadville strike of 1880 was the first major labor conflict in the central Colorado silver boomtown, shutting down most of the area’s mining district from May 26, 1880.

According to one historian of the era, "The outpouring of the precious metal from Leadville transformed the struggling Centennial State into a veritable autocrat in the colony of states. As if by magic the rough frontier town of Denver became a metropolis; stately buildings arose on the site of shanties; crystal streams flowed through the arid plains and the desert blossomed and became fruitful. Poverty gave way to the annoyance of wealth and the fame of silver state spread throughout the world."

Swindles were not uncommon in the mining community. When the Little Pittsburg mine was exhausted of its rich ore body, its managers sold their shares while concealing the mine's actual condition from the other stockholders. "Chicken Bill" Lovell dumped a wheelbarrow load of silver-rich ore into a barren pit on his Chrysolite claim in order to sell it to Horace Tabor for a large price. Tabor had the last laugh when his miners dug a few feet farther and discovered a rich ore body. Some time later the manager of the Chrysolite mine fooled an outside mining engineer into overestimating the mine's ore reserves.

The city's fortunes declined with the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, although afterwards there was another small gold boom. Mining companies came to rely increasingly on income from the lead and zinc. The district is credited with producing over 2.9 million troy ounces of gold, 240 million troy ounces of silver, 1 million short tons of lead, 785 thousand short tons of zinc (discovered in 1911 ), and 53 thousand short tons of copper. A bitter strike by Leadville's hard rock miners in 1896–97 led to bloodshed, at least five deaths, and the burning of the Coronado Mine. In a letter to a London business contact, mine owner Eben Smith wrote, "The strikers got the worst of it in the raid on the Coronado and Emmet [mines], there were 10 or 12 killed; we do not know how many, and a great number wounded; they take care of their wounded the same as the Indians but every now and then a fellow turns up that the rats have been eating or who has gone to decay that we know must have been shot ..."

World War II caused an increase in the demand for molybdenum, used to harden steel. It was mined at the nearby Climax mine, which at one time produced 75 percent of the world's output. By 1980, the Climax Mine was the largest underground mine in the world. Taxes paid by the mine provided Leadville with good schools and libraries and provided employment for many residents. When the market dropped in 1981, Leadville's economy suffered and many people lost their jobs. With little industry other than the tourist trade, most of the former miners left, and the standard of living declined. Climax reopened in 2008 and started production in 2010. It currently is the most efficient mine producing molybdenum in Colorado and is estimated to have a production life of thirty years.

The many years of mining left behind substantial contamination of the soil and water and the Environmental Protection Agency designated some former mines Superfund sites, such as California Gulch. As of 2019, the EPA reports: "A vast majority of the cleanup at the site has been completed, so current risk of exposure is low. Pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children are still encouraged to have their blood-lead levels checked."

Leadville's colorful past

As the population boomed, by 1878, Leadville had the reputation as one of the most lawless towns in the West. The first city marshal was run out of town a few days after he was appointed, and his replacement was shot dead within a month by one of his deputies. Fearing the town would be lost to the lawless element, Mayor Horace Tabor sent for Mart Duggan, who was living in Denver, as a replacement. Duggan was well known at the time as a fearless gunfighter. Using strong-arm and lawless tactics, during his two stints as marshal, Duggan brought order to Leadville by 1880 when he stepped down. He was shot and killed in 1888 by an unknown assailant, most likely an enemy he had made when he was a Leadville marshal. Historian Robert Dearment writes, "Mart Duggan was a quick-shooting, hard-drinking, brawling tough Irish man, but he was exactly the kind of man a tough, hard-drinking, quick-shooting camp like Leadville needed in its earliest days. His name is all but forgotten today, but the name "Matt Dillon" is recognized around the world. Such are the vagaries of life." Alice Ivers, better known as Poker Alice, was a card player and dealer of the Old West who learned her trade in Leadville. Born in Devonshire, her family moved to America when she was a small girl. They first settled in Virginia, where she attended an elite girls' boarding school. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Leadville when the silver boom drew hundreds of new residents to the area. At the age of twenty she married a mining engineer who, like many of the men at that time, frequented the numerous gambling halls in Leadville. Alice went along, at first just observing, but eventually she began to sit in on the games as well. After a few years of marriage her husband was killed in a mining accident and she turned to cards to support herself. Alice was attractive, dressed in the latest fashions, and was in great demand as a dealer. Eventually Alice left Leadville to travel the gambling circuit, as was common of the male gamblers of that time. She continued to dress in the latest fashions but took to smoking cigars. Well known throughout the West, gambling halls welcomed her because she was good for business. Alice said that she won more than $250,000 by gambling during her lifetime.

In the spring of 1880, Texas Jack Omohundro and his wife Giuseppina Morlacchi arrived in Leadville. Morlacchi, a famous Italian prima ballerina who had introduced the Can-can dance to the United States, performed several plays at the Grand Central Theatre, including Around the World in 80 Days and The Black Crook. Texas Jack, who had starred in The Scouts of the Prairie with Buffalo Bill Cody and Ned Buntline, and later in The Scouts of the Plains with Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok, played shows at the Chestnut Street Theatre. Texas Jack had served in the Confederate Army at age 16 and subsequently joined the Tabor Light Guard, a local militia unit. Jack died of pneumonia on June 28, 1880. His funeral was held at the Tabor Opera House, and he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. On September 8, 1908, Texas Jack's best friend and former costar Buffalo Bill Cody visited Leadville with his Wild West Show and dedicated the permanent memorial that marks Texas Jack's grave today. The Texas Jack Association erected highway historical markers on roads in and out of Leadville.

In the summer of 1879, American author and illustrator Mary Hallock Foote arrived in Leadville. It is believed her time in Leadville inspired her writing.

In 1882, shortly after the gun fight at the O.K. Corral, Doc Holliday arrived in Leadville, where he dealt faro. On August 19, 1884, he shot ex-Leadville policeman Billy Allen, who had threatened him for failing to pay a $5 debt. Despite overwhelming evidence implicating him, a jury found Holliday not guilty of the shooting or attempted murder.

Gunfighter and professional gambler Luke Short also spent time in Leadville.

Margaret "Molly" Brown, who became known as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", moved to Leadville in 1885, when she was 18 years old. In 1886 she married a mining engineer who was twelve years older, James Joseph Brown at the Church of Annunciation. The Brown family acquired great wealth in 1893 when Brown was instrumental in the discovery of a substantial gold ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine.

The mine was owned by his employers, the Ibex Mining Company. Margaret Brown became famous because of her survival of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, after exhorting the crew of Lifeboat No. 6 to return to look for survivors. A 1960 Broadway musical based on her life was produced, along with a 1964 film adaptation of the musical, both titled The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her home in Denver has been preserved as the Molly Brown House Museum.

Meyer Guggenheim of the Guggenheim family started out in Leadville in mining and smelting. The family went on to possess one of the largest fortunes in the world. Family members have become known for their philanthropy in diverse areas such as modern art and aviation, including several Guggenheim Museums.

Oscar Wilde appeared in April at the Tabor Opera House during his 1882 American Aesthetic Movement lecture tour. The reviews were mixed, and the press satirized Wilde in cartoons as an English dandy decorated with sunflowers and lilies, the floral emblems of the Aesthetic Movement. A Kansas newspaper described the event:

"Oscar Wilde's visit to Leadville excited a great deal of interest and curiosity. The Tabor-opera house where he lectured was packed full. It was rumored that an attempt would be made by a number of young men to ridicule him by coming to the lecture in exaggerated costume with enormous sunflowers and lilies and to introduce a number of characters in the costume of the Western 'bad men'. Probably, however, better counsel prevailed and no disturbance took place."

Mayor David H. Dougan invited Wilde to tour the Matchless Mine and name its new lode "The Oscar". Wilde later recounted a visit to a local saloon, "where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice – 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'"

Several other notable figures visited the Tabor Opera House, including boxer Jack Dempsey.

Post-mining era

The town has made major efforts to improve its economy by encouraging tourism and emphasizing its history and opportunities for outdoor recreation. The National Mining Museum and Hall of Fame opened in 1987 with a federal charter that was drawn in by Leadville offering a good deal on the former high school building.

In 1983, Ken Chlouber partnered with Merilee Maupin to founded the Leadville Trail 100 Run, a 100-mile ultramarathon through the rugged mountain terrain around the town. It succeeded, leading them to found the still-extant Leadville Race Series, which contains a variety of races. The Leadville Race Series has become a popular endurance race series, attracting hundreds of athletes to Leadville each year. Leadville is often used as a base for altitude training and hosts a number of other events for runners and mountain bicyclists.

Geography

At an elevation of 10158 ft, Leadville lies close to timberline, which in Colorado is from 11000 to 12000 ft. The surrounding peaks are all well above 12,000 feet, and are thus bare of trees. Leadville has the highest elevation of any city in the United States.

Leadville lies in a valley at the headwaters of the Arkansas River which flows through the southern Rocky Mountains and eventually empties into the Mississippi River. It is situated between two mountain ranges, the Mosquito Range to the east and the Sawatch Range to the west, both of which include several nearby peaks with elevations above 14000 ft, the so-called fourteeners. Mount Elbert, 12 mi southwest of Leadville, is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and the highest point in the Colorado and the entire Mississippi River drainage basin. An ultra-prominent 14440 ft fourteener, Mount Elbert is the highest summit of the Sawatch Range and the second-highest summit in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney in California. Mount Massive, 10.6 mi west-southwest of Leadville, at 14428 ft is the second highest summit in the Rocky Mountains and state of Colorado, and the third highest in the contiguous United States.

Turquoise Lake lies on the western outskirts of Leadville. The surface available for recreation includes 780 acre. Turquoise Lake is a feature of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Recreation is managed by the Forest Service for the Bureau of Reclamation as part of San Isabel National Forest.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Leadville has an area of 2.9 sqkm, all land. The lower part of California Gulch runs past the southern edge of the city, flowing west 3 mi to the Arkansas River.

Climate
Leadville has an alpine subarctic climate (Dfc) with cold winters and mild summers, bordering on a cold semi-arid climate (Bsk). The average January temperatures are a maximum of 29.5 F and a minimum of 4.6 F. The average July temperatures are a maximum of 71.0 F and a minimum of 39.2 F. There are an average of 271.7 mornings annually with freezing temperatures, which can occur in any month of the year. The record high temperature was 86 °F on July 17, 2023. The record low temperature was −38 °F on February 1, 1985.

Average annual precipitation is 13.52 in. The wettest calendar year was 2014 with 18.08 in and the driest 1994 with 8.27 in. The most precipitation in one month was 4.83 in in January 1996. The most precipitation in 24 hours was 1.70 in on February 13, 1986. Average annual snowfall is 156.9 in. The most snowfall in one year was 247.9 in in 1996. The most snowfall in one month was 64.1 in in April 1995.

Historic sites and districts

The Leadville Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1961. The district encompasses 67 mines east of the city up to the 12000 ft elevation, and a defined portion of the village area, with specific exclusions for various buildings. The principal historic buildings are the Tabor Grand Hotel, St George's Church, Temple Israel, African Methodist Episcopal Church (est. 1881)African Methodist Episcopal Church (est. 1881), the Annunciation Church, Tabor Opera House, City Hall, Healy House, Dexter Cabin, Engelbach House, Tabor House, and the Golden Burro Cafe and Lounge, as well as mining structures and small homes.

The National Mining Hall of Fame on West 9th Street is dedicated to commemorating the work of miners and people that work with natural resources. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Major exhibits include an elaborate model railroad, a walk-through replica of an underground hardrock mine, the Gold Rush Room with specimens of native gold, a large collection of mineral specimens, and a mining art gallery. The site also includes the Matchless Mine and cabin, former home of Baby Doe Tabor.

Some historic sites are linked by the Mineral Belt National Recreation Trail, an 11.6 mi all-season biking/walking trail that loops around Leadville and through its historic mining district. In part it follows old mining-camp railbeds. Interpretative kiosks recount the history and a photograph of what was on that particular site more than a century ago. The trail is well-marked with interpretive signs and altitude and mileage markers.

Created by Executive Order in 1889 to increase the supply of fish for inland waters, the Leadville National Fish Hatchery was established.

Camp Hale is located 15 mi north of Leadville in the Eagle River valley north of Tennessee Pass. It was a U.S. Army ski warfare training facility constructed in 1942 for what became the 10th Mountain Division. Some of the nation's finest skiers were employed as instructors. Soldiers were trained in mountain climbing, Alpine and Nordic skiing, and cold-weather survival, as well as various weapons and ordnance. When it was in full operation, approximately 15,000 soldiers were housed there. As the only source of recreation for the trainees, Leadville was persuaded to change its moral character, perceived "to be on a rather low plane" at the time. In 2019, Camp Hale was designated as a National Historic Site offering a self-guiding tour with interpretive signs at ten stops and a larger interpretive site at the main entrance. President Biden used his authority under the Antiquities Act in 2022 to establish the 53,804-acre Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, preserving the area’s important historic, prehistoric, natural, and recreational values.

10 mi north of Leadville the old downhill training slope, Cooper Hill, located atop Tennessee Pass on the Continental Divide, now operates as the Ski Cooper resort. Much of the area is above the tree line, providing a panoramic view of the peaks of the Sawatch Range to visitors. A memorial to troops of the 10th Mountain Division is located at the summit.

The Evergreen Cemetery was the first cemetery in Leadville, established on November 1, 1879.

The town's first library was built in 1904.

A federal building was built in 1905 on Harrison Avenue and 8th Street. It served as the town post office until 1973.

K-12 Education
Leadville's K-12 education is served by the Lake County School District.

Higher Education
Leadville is home to a campus of Colorado Mountain College. At an elevation of 10,200 feet, CMC Leadville is the highest elevation college campus in the United States. The Leadville campus is also home to Colorado Mountain College's cross-country team.

Culture and sport
Boom Days, held on the first full weekend of August, is a tribute to the city's mining past. The event has been honored by Congress as a Local Legacy Event. The festivities held over three days include mining competitions and burro racing, motorcycle games, a rod and gun show, live music, a craft fair and parade. The annual skijoring event and Crystal Carnival take place in March. This is a horse-drawn skiing for the family since the 1960s. The town has frequent, sometimes small parades held in the downtown area, such as the quirky St Patrick's Day Practice Parade.

The Leadville Trail 100, an ultramarathon, takes place each August since 1983 on an out-and-back course on trails around Turquoise Lake, over Hagerman Pass, the Colorado Trail, through Twin Lakes, across the Arkansas River, up and over Hope Pass, to the ghost town of Winfield.

The Mineral Belt Trail is an 11.6 mi, two-way non-motorized paved trail around the city that was opened in 2000. Five access points offer opportunities to walk shorter sections: Ice Palace Park, Lake County Middle School, Dutch Henry Hill, California Gulch, and the East 5th Street Bridge. Mineral Belt is completely ADA-accessible for wheelchairs and strollers, cyclists, runners and in-line skaters.

The "Route of the Silver Kings" is a driving tour of the 20 sqmi historic mining district. The tour passes mines, power plants, ghost towns and mining camps.

Outdoor recreation
Situated within the San Isabel National Forest and surrounded by three wilderness areas, Leadville is popular with hikers and campers. The Mount Massive Wilderness and Buffalo Peaks Wilderness are within 10 mi of the city, and the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness is within 20 mi.

Turquoise Lake lies on the western outskirts of Leadville. Recreation facilities consist of eight campgrounds and two boat-launching ramps. The surface available for recreation includes 780 acre. Primary recreation activities include camping and fishing. Fish species include mackinaw trout, rainbow trout, and brook trout. The facilities are closed in winter due to ice and snow, but they remain a popular area for ice fishing. Turquoise Lake is part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Recreation is managed by the Forest Service for the Bureau of Reclamation as part of the San Isabel National Forest.

The Top of the Rockies Byway, designated a National Scenic Byway in 1998, is a highway that travels 75 mi starting in Aspen and traveling through Leadville to either Minturn or Copper Mountain. Seldom dropping below 9000 ft, it drives over three mountain passes that are above 10000 ft, and there are views of six mountains of over 14000 ft. The Top of the Rockies Byway runs through three national forests: Pike, Arapaho, and White River. The Camp Hale Memorial is located along the byway, where soldiers trained on skis to fight in the Apennine Mountains of Italy during World War II. The road passes through the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area and Arkansas River Headwaters State Park.

Mosquito Pass is located east of Leadville. It can be traversed only on foot, an off-road motorcycle, or with a proper four-wheel drive vehicle. It is typically passable only during the summer months.

Transportation

Leadville is served by Lake County Airport. However, there is no scheduled airline service available from this airport. The closest airports to provide scheduled services are Eagle County Regional Airport and Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, both 62 mi away.

Highways

 * [[Image:US 24.svg|25px]] US 24 is an east–west highway running from Interstate 75 near Clarkston, Michigan, to Interstate 70 near Minturn, Colorado. Its western terminus is located just 32 mi north of Leadville. It is the main route to the Eagle-Vail valley to the northwest and Colorado Springs, 128 mi to the southeast.
 * [[Image:Colorado 91.svg|25px]] State Highway 91 is a 22.5 mi highway that connects Leadville with Interstate 70 near Copper Mountain. It is the quickest route to get from Leadville to Denver, 100 mi away.

Railways

 * On July 22, 1880, the Denver & Rio Grande Railway arrived on a 3 ft narrow-gauge railway branch from Malta, 4 mi to the west. General Grant and his wife were on hand to celebrate the arrival. Third rail was added in 1888, and from 1940 it was only standard gauge. The last 1.8 mi were abandoned by Union Pacific in 1998. This severed the connection between the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad and the rest of the railroad system. The remaining three miles from Malta have not seen any traffic in many years.
 * In the past, D&RG operated branch lines from Leadville to Oro City (1883–1941), Ibex/Chrysolite (1898–1944), Graham Park (1898–1941) and Fryer Hill (1881–1944). Another branch run over Fremont Pass as far as Robinson, Wheeler, and Dillon (1881/2-1923).
 * In 1887, the Colorado Midland Railway arrived in Leadville.
 * The former Colorado & Southern Railway line from Leadville to Climax is now operated as a tourist line by the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad.
 * In 2010, rail and coach commuter service was proposed between Minturn and Dotsero, in 2012 from Leadville to Vail and Dotsero with intermediate stations at Minturn, Avon, Eagle and Gypsum.

title: Leadville, Colorado


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Pike's Peak gold rush

The Pike's Peak gold rush (later known as the Colorado gold rush) was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history.

The participants in the gold rush were known as "Fifty-Niners" after 1859, the peak year of the rush and often used the motto Pike's Peak or Bust! In fact, the location of the Pike's Peak gold rush was centered 85 mi north of Pikes Peak. The name Pike's Peak gold rush was used mainly because of how well known and important Pike's Peak was at the time. The rush created a few towns such as Denver City and Boulder City that would develop into cities.

Overview
The Pike's Peak gold rush, which followed the California gold rush by approximately a decade, produced a dramatic but temporary influx of migrants and immigrants into the Pike's Peak Country of the Southern Rocky Mountains. The rush was exemplified by the slogan "Pike's Peak or Bust!", a reference to the prominent mountain at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains that guided many early prospectors to the region westward over the Great Plains. The prospectors provided the first major European-American population in the region.

The rush created a few gold rush towns such as Denver City and Boulder City that would develop into cities. Many smaller camps such as Auraria and Saint Charles City were absorbed by larger camps and towns. Scores of other mining camps have faded into ghost towns, but quite a few camps such as Central City, Black Hawk, Georgetown, and Idaho Springs survived.

Discovery

For many years, people had suspected the mountains in present-day Colorado contained numerous rich gold deposits. In 1835, French trapper Eustace Carriere lost his party and ended up wandering through the mountains for many weeks. During those weeks he found many gold specimens which he later took back to New Mexico for examination. Upon examination, they turned out to be "pure gold". But when he tried to lead an expedition back to the location of where he found the gold, they came up short because he could not quite remember the location.

On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall found placer gold near Coloma, California, and unbeknownst nine days later, Mexico ceded California and the rest of northern Mexico to the United States with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The California Gold Rush ensued. In the spring of 1850, John Beck led a party of predominately Cherokee veterans of the Georgia Gold Rush to the California gold fields. The party followed the Trail of Tears west, and on June 22, 1850, they crossed the South Platte River (a few miles north of what is today Denver) and camped near the confluence of two streams. One of the prospectors, Lewis Ralston panned for gold near the mouth of the smaller stream (in what is now Gold Strike Park in Arvada, Colorado.) He found about ¼ troy ounce (8 g) of gold, then worth about five dollars (about $550 USD today.) While Ralston was elated, the rest of the party was unimpressed and continued on to California the next morning. Ralston continued panning for gold, but gave up after a few days and caught up with his party.

As the hysteria of the California Gold Rush faded, many discouraged gold seekers returned home. Rumors of gold in the Rocky Mountains persisted and several small parties explored the region. In the summer of 1857, a party of Spanish-speaking gold seekers from Taos, New Mexico, worked a placer deposit along the South Platte River about 5 mi above Cherry Creek at a location later known as Mexican Diggings near Grant-Frontier Park in Denver. William Greeneberry "Green" Russell was a Georgian who worked in the California gold fields in the 1850s. Russell was married to a Cherokee woman, and through his connections to the tribe, he heard about Ralston's 1850 discovery of gold along the South Platte River. Green Russell organized a party to prospect along the South Platte River, setting off with his two brothers and six companions in February 1858. They rendezvoused with Cherokee tribe members along the Arkansas River in present-day Oklahoma and continued westward along the Santa Fe Trail. Others joined the party along the way until their number reached 107.

Upon reaching Bent's Fort, they turned to the northwest, reaching the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte on May 23. The site of their initial explorations is in present-day Confluence Park in Denver. They began prospecting in the river beds, exploring Cherry Creek and nearby Ralston Creek but without success. In the first week of July 1858, Green Russell and Sam Bates found a small placer deposit near the mouth of Little Dry Creek that yielded about 20 troy ounces (620 g) of gold, then worth about 380 dollars (about $44,000 USD today.) This was the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region. The site of the discovery is in the present-day Denver suburb of Englewood, just north of the junction of U.S. Highway 285 and U.S. Highway 85. This discovery was announced with great excitement by the Kansas City Journal of Commerce on 26 August 1858 with the headline, "THE NEW ELDORADO!! GOLD IN KANSAS!!"

Initial boom

The first decade of the boom was largely concentrated along the South Platte River at the base of the Rocky Mountains, in the canyon of Clear Creek in the mountains west of Golden City, at Breckenridge and in South Park at Como, Fairplay, and Alma. By 1860, Denver City, Golden City, and Boulder City were substantial towns that served the mines. Rapid population growth led to the creation of the Colorado Territory in 1861.

The Pike's Peak gold rush sent many Americans into a frenzy, prompting them to pack up their belongings and head to Colorado. This initial boom influenced people to begin falsifying information, often sending people out to the west without any proof of a true presence of gold. As early as the spring of 1859, people raced to the Pike's Peak country. Some even dared to go out in the winter of 1858 to try to get a head start, only to realize that they would have to wait until the snow melted to begin mining.

Free gold
Hardrock mining boomed for a few years, but then declined in the mid-1860s as the miners exhausted the shallow parts of the veins that contained free gold, and found that their amalgamation mills could not recover gold from the deeper sulfide ores. Colorado produced 150,000 ounces of gold in 1861 and 225,000 troy ounces in 1862. This led Congress to establish the Denver Mint. Cumulative Colorado production by 1865 was 1.25 million ounces, of which sixty percent was placer gold.

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title: Pike's Peak gold rush


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Vivek Basrur, Mumbai (Bombay), India

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Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester

Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester (c. 1208 – 4 August 1265), later sometimes referred to as Simon V de Montfort to distinguish him from his namesake relatives, was an English nobleman of French origin and a member of the English peerage, who led the baronial opposition to the rule of King Henry III of England, culminating in the Second Barons' War. Following his initial victories over royal forces, he became de facto ruler of the country, and played a major role in the constitutional development of England.

During his rule, Montfort called two famous parliaments: the Oxford Parliament stripped Henry of his unlimited authority, while the second included ordinary citizens from the towns. For this reason, Montfort is regarded today as one of the progenitors of modern parliamentary democracy. As Earl of Leicester he expelled Jews from that city; as he became ruler of England he also cancelled debts owed to Jews through violent seizures of records. Montfort's party massacred the Jews of London, Worcester and Derby, killing scores of Jews from Winchester to Lincoln. After a rule of just over a year, Montfort was killed by forces loyal to the king in the Battle of Evesham.

Family
Montfort was a younger son of Alix de Montmorency and Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, a French nobleman, and leader of a Crusade against the Cathars in south-west France. His paternal grandmother was Amicia de Beaumont, the senior co-heiress to the Earldom of Leicester and a large estate owned by her brother Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester, in England.

With the irrevocable loss of Normandy, King John refused to allow the elder Simon to succeed to the earldom of Leicester and instead placed the estates and title into the hands of Montfort senior's cousin Ranulf, the Earl of Chester. The elder Simon had also acquired vast domains during the Albigensian Crusade, but was killed during the Siege of Toulouse in 1218 and his eldest son Amaury was not able to retain them. When Amaury was rebuffed in his attempt to get the earldom back, he agreed to allow his younger brother Simon to claim it in return for all family possessions in France.

Simon arrived in England in 1229, with some education but no knowledge of English, and received a sympathetic hearing from King Henry III, who became well disposed towards foreigners speaking French, then the language of the English court. Henry was in no position to confront the powerful Earl of Chester, so Simon approached the older, childless man himself and convinced him to cede him the earldom. It would take another nine years before Henry formally invested him with the title Earl of Leicester.

Early life
As a younger son, Simon de Montfort attracted little public attention during his youth, and the date of his birth remains unknown. He is first mentioned when his mother made a grant to him in 1217. As a boy, Montfort accompanied his parents during his father's campaigns against the Cathars. He was with his mother at the Siege of Toulouse in 1218, where his father died after being struck on the head by a stone pitched by a mangonel. In addition to Amaury, Simon had another older brother, Guy, who was killed at the siege of Castelnaudary in 1220. As a young man, Montfort probably took part in the Albigensian Crusades of the early 1220s. He and Amaury both took part in the Barons' Crusade.

In 1229 the two surviving brothers (Amaury and Simon) came to an arrangement with King Henry whereby Simon gave up his rights in France and Amaury gave up his rights in England. Thus freed from any allegiance to the king of France, Montfort successfully petitioned for the English inheritance, which he received the next year, although he did not take full possession for several years, and did not win formal recognition as Earl of Leicester until February 1239. Montfort became a favourite of King Henry III and even issued a charter as "Earl of Leicester" in 1236, despite having not yet been granted the title.

In that same year, Simon tried to persuade Joan, Countess of Flanders to marry him. The idea of an alliance between the rich County of Flanders and a close associate of Henry III of England did not sit well with the French crown. The French Queen Dowager Blanche of Castile convinced Joan to marry Thomas II of Savoy instead.

Royal marriage

In January 1238, Montfort married Eleanor of England, daughter of King John and Isabella of Angoulême and sister of King Henry III. While this marriage took place with the king's approval, the act itself was performed secretly and without consulting the great barons, as a marriage of such importance warranted. Eleanor had previously been married to William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and she had sworn a vow of perpetual chastity upon his death, when she was sixteen, which she broke by marrying Montfort.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Rich, condemned the marriage for this reason. The English nobles protested the marriage of the king's sister to a foreigner of modest rank. Most notably, the king's and Eleanor's brother Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, rose up in revolt when he learned of the marriage. King Henry eventually bought off Richard with 6,000 marks and peace was restored.

The marriage brought the manor of Sutton Valence in Kent into Montfort's possession.

Relations between King Henry and Montfort were cordial at first. Henry lent him his support when Montfort embarked for Rome in March 1238 to seek papal approval for his marriage. When Simon and Eleanor's first son was born in November 1238 (despite rumours, more than nine months after the wedding), he was baptised Henry in honour of his royal uncle. In February 1239, Montfort was finally invested with the Earldom of Leicester. He also acted as the king's counsellor and was one of the nine godfathers of Henry's eldest son, Prince Edward, who would inherit the throne and become Edward I ("Longshanks").

Expulsion of Jews from Leicester
As Earl of Leicester, Montfort expelled the small Jewish community from Leicester city in 1231, banishing them "in my time or in the time of any of my heirs to the end of the world". He justified his action as being "for the good of my soul, and for the souls of my ancestors and successors".

His parents had shown a similar hostility to Jews in France, where his father was known for his bigoted Christianity, and his mother had given the Jews of Toulouse a choice of conversion, expulsion or death. Robert Grosseteste – then Archdeacon of Leicester and, according to Matthew Paris, de Montfort's confessor – may have encouraged the expulsion, although he believed that the Jews' lives should be spared. Expelling the Jews enhanced Montfort's popularity in his new domains because it removed the practice of usury (practised exclusively by Jews since it was forbidden to Christians).

Leicester's Jews were allowed to move to the eastern suburbs, which were controlled by Montfort's great-aunt Margaret, Countess of Winchester, who had taken advice from Grosseteste.

Crusade and turning against the king
Shortly after Prince Edward's birth, there was a falling out between the brothers-in-law, Henry III and Montfort. Montfort owed a great sum of money to Thomas II of Savoy, uncle of Queen Eleanor, and named King Henry as security for his repayment. The king evidently had not approved this, and was enraged when he discovered that Montfort had used his name. On 9 August 1239, Henry is reported to have confronted Montfort, called him an excommunicant and threatened to imprison him in the Tower of London. "You seduced my sister", King Henry said, "and when I discovered this, I gave her to you, against my will, to avoid scandal." Simon and Eleanor fled to France to escape Henry's wrath.

Having announced his intention to go on crusade two years before, Simon raised funds and travelled to the Holy Land during the Barons' Crusade, but does not seem to have faced combat there. He was part of the crusading host which, under Richard of Cornwall, negotiated the release of Christian prisoners including Simon's older brother, Amaury. In autumn 1241, he left Syria and joined King Henry's campaign against King Louis IX in Poitou in July 1242. The campaign was a failure, and an exasperated Montfort declared that Henry should be locked up like King Charles the Simple. Like his father, Simon was a soldier as well as a capable administrator. His dispute with King Henry came about due to the latter's determination to ignore the swelling discontent within the country, caused by a combination of factors, including famine and a sense, among the English Barons, that King Henry was too quick to dispense favour to his Poitevin relatives and Savoyard in-laws.

In 1248, Montfort again took the cross with the idea of following Louis IX of France to Egypt. However, at the repeated requests of King Henry, he gave up this project in order to act as the king's Lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine (Gascony). Bitter complaints were excited by the rigour with which Montfort suppressed the excesses of the Seigneurs and of contending factions in the great communes. Henry yielded to the outcry and instituted a formal inquiry into Simon's administration. Simon was formally acquitted on the charges of oppression, but his accounts were disputed by Henry, and Simon retired to France in 1252. The nobles of France offered him the Regency of the kingdom, vacated by the death of Queen Blanche of Castile. The earl preferred to make his peace with Henry III, which he did in 1253, in obedience to the exhortations of the dying Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. He helped the king deal with disaffection in Gascony, but their reconciliation was a hollow one. In the Parliament of 1254, Simon led the opposition in resisting a royal demand for a subsidy. In 1256–57, when the discontent of all classes was coming to a head, Montfort nominally adhered to the royal cause. He undertook, with Peter of Savoy, the Queen's uncle, the difficult task of extricating the king from the pledges which he had given to the Pope with reference to the Crown of Sicily; and Henry's writs of this date mention Montfort in friendly terms. However, at the "Mad Parliament" of Oxford (1258) Montfort appeared with the Earl of Gloucester, at the head of the opposition. He was part of the Council of Fifteen who were to constitute the supreme board of control over the administration. The king's success in dividing the barons and in fostering a reaction, however, rendered such projects hopeless. In 1261, Henry revoked his assent to the Provisions of Oxford and Montfort, in despair, left the country.

War against the king

Simon de Montfort returned to England in 1263, at the invitation of the barons who were now convinced of the king's hostility to all reform, and raised a rebellion with the avowed object of restoring the form of government which the Provisions had ordained. Cancellation of debts (owed to Jews) was part of his call to arms.

At the time, the King was periodically raising punitive taxation on the Jews, causing them to sell their debt bonds cheaply to raise cash to pay their taxes. The bonds were sold to the richest courtiers at cut down prices, leading many indebted middling landowners to lose their lands. This fed into rising anti-Semitic beliefs, fuelled by the church. Measures against the Jews and controls over debts and usury dominated debates about royal power and finances among the classes that were beginning to be involved in Parliament.

The debt "cancellations" however involved massacres of Jews by his followers, to obtain their financial records, for instance in Worcester and London. The Worcester attack and killings were led by de Montfort's son Henry, and Robert Earl Ferrers. In London, one of his key followers John FitzJohn led the attack, and is said to have killed leading Jewish figures Isaac fil Aaron and Cok fil Abraham with his bare hands. He allegedly shared the loot with Montfort. Five hundred Jews died.

His son Simon led a further attack on Jews in Winchester. Jews in Canterbury, were murdered or driven out by a force led by Gilbert de Clare. De Montfort's followers massacred most of the Jews who lived in Derby in February 1262. There was further violence in Lincoln, Cambridge, Wilton and Northampton.

Each attack was aimed at the seizure of the records of debts, stored in locked chests within each community, called 'archae'. Archae were legally mandated by the king for Jews to be allowed to conduct any business. They were destroyed or gathered for instance at Ely by the rebels.

Henry quickly gave in and allowed Montfort to take control of the council. His son Edward, however, began using patronage and bribes to win over many of the barons. Their disruption of parliament in October led to a renewal of hostilities, which saw the royalists able to trap Simon in London. With few other options available, Montfort agreed to allow Louis IX of France to arbitrate their dispute. Simon was prevented from presenting his case to Louis directly on account of a broken leg, but few suspected that the king of France, known for his innate sense of justice, would completely annul the Provisions in his Mise of Amiens in January 1264. Civil war broke out almost immediately, with the royalists again able to confine the reformist army in London. In early May 1264, Simon marched out to give battle to the king and scored a spectacular triumph at the Battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264, capturing the king, together with Prince Edward and Richard of Cornwall, Henry's brother and the titular King of Germany.

Montfort announced after the Battle of Lewes that all debts owed to the Jews were cancelled, as he had promised.

Rule and parliamentary reform
Montfort used his victory to set up a government based on the provisions first established at Oxford in 1258. Henry retained the title and authority of King, but all decisions and approval now rested with his council, led by Montfort and subject to consultation with parliament. His Great Parliament of 1265 (Montfort's Parliament) was a packed assembly to be sure, but it can hardly be supposed that the representation which he granted to the towns was intended to be a temporary expedient.

Montfort sent his summons, in the king's name, to each county and to a select list of boroughs, asking each to send two representatives. This body was not the first elected parliament in England. In 1254, Henry was in Gascony and in need of money. He gave instructions for his regent, Queen Eleanor, to summon a parliament consisting of knights elected by their shires to ask for this 'aid'. Montfort, who was in that parliament, took the innovation further by including ordinary citizens from the boroughs, also elected, and it was from this period that parliamentary representation derives. The list of boroughs which had the right to elect a member grew slowly over the centuries as monarchs granted charters to more English towns. (The last charter was given to Newark in 1674.)

The right to vote in Parliamentary elections for county constituencies was uniform throughout the country, related to land ownership. In the Boroughs, the electoral franchise varied and individual boroughs had varying arrangements.

Fall from power and death
The reaction against Montfort's government was baronial rather than popular. The Welsh marcher lords were friends and allies of Prince Edward, and when he escaped in May 1265, they rallied around his opposition. The final nail was the defection of Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, the most powerful baron and Simon's ally at Lewes. Clare had grown resentful of Simon's fame and growing power. When he and his brother Thomas fell out with Simon's sons Henry, Simon the Younger, and Guy, they deserted the reforming cause and joined Edward.

Though boosted by Welsh infantry sent by Montfort's ally Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Simon's forces were severely depleted. Prince Edward attacked his cousin, his godfather's son Simon's forces at Kenilworth, capturing more of Montfort's allies. Montfort himself had crossed the Severn with his army, intending to rendezvous with his son Simon the Younger. When he saw an army approaching Evesham, Montfort initially thought it was his son's forces. It was, however, Edward's army flying the Montfort banners they had captured at Kenilworth. At that point, Simon realised he had been out-manoeuvred by Edward.

An ominous black cloud hung over the field of Evesham on 4 August 1265 as Montfort led his army in a desperate uphill charge against superior forces, described by one chronicler as the "murder of Evesham, for battle it was none". On hearing that his son Henry had been killed, Montfort replied, "Then it is time to die." Before the battle, Prince Edward had appointed a twelve-man death squad to stalk the battlefield, their sole aim being to find the earl and cut him down. Montfort was hemmed in; Roger Mortimer killed Montfort by stabbing him in the neck with a lance. Montfort's last words were said to have been "Thank God". Also slain with Montfort were other leaders of his movement, including Peter de Montfort and Hugh Despenser.

Montfort's body was mutilated in a frenzy by the royalists. News reached the mayor and sheriffs of London that "the head of the earl of Leicester ... was severed from his body, and his testicles cut off and hung on either side of his nose"; and in such guise the head was sent to Wigmore Castle by Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer, as a gift to his wife, Maud. His hands and feet were also cut off and sent to diverse places to enemies of his as a great mark of dishonour to the deceased. Such remains as could be found were buried before the altar of Evesham Abbey church by the canons. The grave was visited as holy ground by many commoners until King Henry caught wind of it. He declared that Montfort deserved no spot on holy ground, and had his remains reburied in another "secret" location, probably in the crypt. The remains of some of Montfort's soldiers who had fled the battlefield were found in the nearby village of Cleeve Prior.

Montfort's niece, Margaret of England, later killed one of the soldiers responsible for his death, purposely or inadvertently.

Matthew Paris reports that the Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, once said to Montfort's eldest son, Henry, "My beloved child, both you and your father will meet your deaths on one day, and by one kind of death, but it will be in the name of justice and truth."

Legacy
Following Montfort's death, he became the focus of an unofficial popular miracle cult, centred on his grave in Evesham Abbey. It was practised in secret for at least two years because of an official ban, but lasted until c. 1280, with pilgrims continuing to visit his grave for some years thereafter. The so-called Evesham "miracle book" documents some 200 alleged miracles associated with his name.

Napoleon Bonaparte described Simon de Montfort as "one of the greatest Englishmen". Today, Montfort is principally remembered as one of the fathers of representative government.

Montfort bears responsibility for persecution of Jews. In addition to his expulsion of Jews from Leicester, his faction in the Second Baron's War initiated pogroms killing perhaps the majority of Jews in Derby and Worcester and around 500 in London. The violence and killings unleashed by the war targeting Jews carried on after his death. Jews were living in such terror that King Henry appointed burgesses and citizens of certain towns to protect and defend them because "they fear[ed] grave peril" and were in a "deplorable state." Leicester City Council made a formal statement in 2001 that "rebuked De Montfort for his blatant anti-Semitism".

Evesham Abbey and the site of Montfort's grave were destroyed with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. In 1965, a memorial of stone from Montfort-l'Amaury was laid on the site of the former altar by Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Harry Hylton-Foster and Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey.

Various local honours were dedicated to his memory, and he has become eponymous several times over. De Montfort University in Leicester is named after him, as is the nearby De Montfort Hall, a concert venue. A statue of Montfort is one of four to adorn the Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower in Leicester. A relief of Montfort adorns the wall of the Chamber of the United States House of Representatives.

Montfort's banner, known as the "Arms of Honour of Hinckley", blazoned Party per pale indented argent and gules, and displayed in stained glass in Chartres Cathedral, is used in the coat of arms of the town of Hinckley, part of his earldom in Leicestershire, and by many of its local organisations. Combined with his personal coat of arms, the banner forms part of the club crest for the town's football club Hinckley A.F.C.

A school and a bridge on the north-east stretch of the A46 in Evesham are named after him.

Descendants
Simon de Montfort and Eleanor of England had seven children, many of whom were notable in their own right:
 * 1) Henry de Montfort (November 1238–1265)
 * 2) Simon de Montfort the Younger (April 1240–1271)
 * 3) Amaury de Montfort (1242/3–1300)
 * 4) Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola (1244–1288)
 * 5) Joanna de Montfort (born and died in Bordeaux between 1248 and 1251).
 * 6) Richard de Montfort (d.1266). Date of death is not certain.
 * 7) Eleanor de Montfort (1252–1282). She married Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, honouring an agreement that had been made between Earl Simon and Llywelyn. Eleanor, Lady of Wales, died on 19 June 1282 at the royal Welsh home at Abergwyngregyn, on the north coast of Gwynedd, giving birth to a daughter, Gwenllian of Wales. After Llywelyn's death on 11 December 1282, Gwenllian was captured by King Edward I and spent the rest of her life in a convent.