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.

Entranced by visions of instant wealth, the fabled prospector and his trusty burro combed the hills of the Rocky Mountain West for that one huge deposit of pay ore. Close behind the prospector--and drawn by the same vision--came the speculator. Capital, a scarce though essential commodity on the frontier, was supplied by the speculators and made possible the development of a hardrock mining industry that helped shape the early history of the region. Between the Civil War and the turn of the century, the gold and silver mines of Colorado were a gaudy, unsavory, but important element in the American financial scene and in the economic history of the West. Joseph E. King, drawing upon contemporary sources, provides the first comprehensive and scholarly examination of eastern investors in Colorado and challenges the popular notion that eastern investors did little more than exploit the mines of Colorado. Not surprisingly, the prospector and the lusty boom towns he visited have often captivated the imagination of historians at the expense of the later stages in the development of a mineral industry. Professor King stresses the contributions of promoters, businessmen, and mining engineers in the development of the "Wild West."