Colorado's Pikes Peak Gold Rush was an event of enormous social and cultural significance, changing the basic economy and lifestyle of the entire region. Pikes Peak became synonymous with the wild westward rush that ensued.

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. The majority of the gold was found north of Pike's Peak, up to the Denver - Boulder area. 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! This book, "Pike's Peak Gold Rush - One Miner's Account" traces the path of Chalkley J. Hambleton, from Chicago, transporting a fourteen-wagon oxen train loaded with a twelve-stamp quartz rock crushing machine and all necessary tooling, food and wares to set up a gold mining operation in Colorado, a truly engaging account for any wild west reader.