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.

Few events have shaped the history, economy, and even geography of the state of Colorado quite like the Gold Rush. This book examines the events that led up to the discovery of gold, how the Gold Rush changed the cities and towns of Colorado, and the long-term effects on the state’s environment and natural resources. The informative text, supported by full color images and primary source documents, provides not only a chronology of events, but also historical perspective on how the past inevitably impacts the present.

On October 20, 1890, Bob Womack struck gold and staked his El Paso mining claim at Poverty Gulch, which eventually ignited the greatest gold rush in Colorado's history. During Bob's lifetime, over two hundred and fifty million dollars worth of gold was mined from the Cripple Creek Mining District, which Womack was instrumental in establishing. The story of the man and the gold discovery are told through first-hand accounts from not only Womack's quotes but other legendary figures such as Irving Howbert, Horace Bennett, Leslie Doyle Spell and William, and Ida Womack. Today, over one hundred and twenty-five years after that historic gold discovery, gold is still mined in the mining district of Cripple Creek. The legacy of Robert "Bob' Miller Womack will forever remain as the discoverer of "The Greatest Gold Camp On Earth."

Travel guide book inspired by the gold prospecting origin of Colorado. Includes touring information on all the major towns founded as gold mining camps as well as summaries of each town's origin story. Includes reviews and recommendations on historic districts to visit, mines to tour, driving tours of ghost towns and places to gold pan. Includes information on 16 historic districts, 31 museums, 18 mines, 186 gold panning sites across the state of Colorado. Thoroughly researched to confirm public access to the panning sites (no private property or areas subject to mining claim has been included - unlike other books.)Written by a long-time Colorado resident and gold prospector. Based on years of research and field work.Get your share of the gold by prospecting for it in historic, urban, and remote locations across the gold districts of Colorado.

Early Whitcomb's family needs a miracle. Their Iowa farm has been in the family for generations, but a long drought has withered their savings and left them in debt. Meanwhile, the great Chicago and Northwestern Railroad wants their land, and if the Whitcombs can't pay their loans, the local banker, Judge Fuslin, will foreclose and sell the farm as his own.

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.

Looks at the history of the gold industry in Colorado.

Traditional accounts of Colorado's history often reflect an Anglocentric perspective that begins with the 1859 Pikes Peak Gold Rush and Colorado's establishment as a state in 1876. Enduring Legacies expands the study of Colorado's past and present by adopting a borderlands perspective that emphasizes the multiplicity of peoples who have inhabited this region. Addressing the dearth of scholarship on the varied communities within Colorado-a zone in which collisions structured by forces of race, nation, class, gender, and sexuality inevitably lead to the transformation of cultures and the emergence of new identities-this volume is the first to bring together comparative scholarship on historical and contemporary issues that span groups from Chicanas and Chicanos to African Americans to Asian Americans. This book will be relevant to students, academics, and general readers interested in Colorado history and ethnic studies.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press This is the story of the other side of Colorado's best-known mountain- the region west of Pikes Peak. It includes stories of the first settlers and the founders of towns. It also tells of the bust years between world wars when the railroad tracks were pulled up and many communities vanished.