This gold dredge, still floating in its pond just south of Fairplay, operated from 1941 to 1952. With chains of buckets like those in the foreground, it dug gravel 70 feet below water level, carving a 35-foot bank above water level; in effect it mined to a depth of 105 feet. This dredge extracted nearly 115,000 ounces of gold from about 33 million cubic yards of gravel (John Chronic photo)
Another gold field discovered in 1859 was in the northwest corner of South Park, along the headwaters of the South Platte River. Several mining camps were established here. After early production of rich [placer] deposits, claims were consolidated and large flumes constructed so that gold could be recovered by hydraulic mining. In this type of mining, streams of water from high-pressure hoses are directed at gravel surfaces. The gravels are washed into long sluiceboxes, where gold is caught in riffles. Hydraulic mining continued upstream from Fairplay until about 1900.
In 1922 a dredge was constructed near Fairplay to process gravel along the South Platte and in the valley floor. An even larger dredge, constructed in 1941, operated until 1952, when rising labor costs overrode the narrow margin on which it operated. At the time operations ceased, the dredge was recovering about six cents in gold for each cubic yard of gravel processed.
[Placer] gold has always been the principal mineral product of the Fairplay area, but [native gold] also occurs in the surrounding mountains in quartz [veins], and many small mines were developed to extract it. Sulfide ores were also mined; they contained silver, lead, and zinc as well as gold. In the Mosquito Pass and Horseshoe Amphitheater areas, there is renewed activity now because of the recent rise in the price of silver.
Silverton
Gold was discovered in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado in 1870. The earliest mine, near what is now Silverton, was located by a group of prospectors sent out by Governor Pile of New Mexico Territory. Since the site was on Ute Indian land, real mining did not begin until a treaty allowing it was ratified in 1874.
Production in the Silverton district has been from [veins] in Tertiary volcanic rocks within an elliptical area known as the Silverton cauldron. Here the volcanic rocks, part of the several thousand feet of [lava] flows and ash falls of the San Juan volcanic field, were cracked and faulted by a second period of igneous activity. Ores formed in the cracks and fissures.
In the 1870s the Silverton district was very remote, and difficulties with transportation retarded activity there. In 1882, however, a narrow-gauge railroad was built connecting Silverton with Durango, and the problem of transporting ore out of the isolated mountain valley was simplified. The railway still exists; a train makes daily passenger runs during the summer—the only remaining operating narrow-gauge line in the United States. The track follows the Animas River canyon, whose cliffs and crags are dotted with long-abandoned mines, prospect holes, and mine buildings, monuments to the tenacity and determination of the men who mined here.
Production in this district was more than $22,000,000 in gold and $20,000,000 in silver between 1874 and 1923. New activity is evident here, as in other silver-rich areas of Colorado, because of recent demand for silver, lead, and zinc.
