CRYSTAL CITY MAIN STREET—Crystal Club, printing office, and hotel are some of the buildings still standing. —Photo courtesy John B. Schutte, Glenwood Spgs., Colo.
CRYSTAL, The Miners’ Ideal Camp
(Elevation Approximately 9,000 Feet)
One half mile beyond the junction of the North Fork with the Crystal River it reaches the little hamlet of Crystal City, magnificently located in a small dale surrounded by several lofty peaks: Sheep Mountain, Mineral Point, Crystal Peak, Bear Mountain (the one covered with tall pines), White House, and Treasure Peaks. Crystal City was another typical mining town of 70 houses, several general stores, a school house (still standing), Crystal Club (still standing) and several other saloons, a newspaper—The Silver Lance followed by The Crystal River Current (still standing), a concentration mill and a smelter. The peak of its population was about 650 inhabitants (some say 2,000). While a railroad was never completed from Crested Butte, a telegraph line was installed. John Davisson, now of 855 Elm St., Grand Junction, Colo., patrolled this line on snowshoes as “trouble shooter” during the Winters of 1906-’07-’08.
The demonitization of silver in 1893 and the inability to get adequate means of transportation for lead, zinc, and other ores, the town of Crystal City was practically depopulated soon after the turn of the century until 1916. Then it again looked as if the prospectors’ dream might come true: the population again rose to several hundred; the Lead King mine, the Black Queen mine, and the Sheep Mountain tunnel were reopened; the smelter and concentration mill were reconditioned; a blacksmith shop, cook house, and bunk houses were located two miles above Crystal City on Rock Creek. But by the middle of 1917 everything again shut down and the people drifted away.
Aug. 25, 1917, Marble Booster newspaper:
“Crystal mines are in their infancy. It would take a million men a thousand years to exhaust the hills up that way of their silver, copper, lead and zinc.”
Many interesting stories are told of the early days in Crystal City by some of its first settlers. One told by F. W. (Dad) Reyland was that one wintery day when the snow had drifted above the doors of many of the buildings, they decided to liven things up a bit by having a dance. Now the dance hall was one of the buildings completely covered by snow. So they decided to tunnel in to the door, making niches in the sides of the tunnel in the snow every few feet in which to anchor candles to guide the guests to the dance hall. The dance was a huge success and stirred the town out of its boredom.
Another was told by one who was working in the Colorado Trading & Development Co. store at the time. During the winter months the mail was brought up from Marble by a carrier on snowshoes, who as a rule could get through with very little trouble. But once when a very deep feathery snow had fallen he was unable to get through for over a week. The egg supply at the store was exhausted; so they decided to send a man down to try to get some. He made it down all right but had to wait several days for the snow to crust over before coming back. Then he carried the case of eggs strapped on his shoulders the six miles back to Crystal City. In the meantime the price of eggs soared.
In 1938 Emmet S. Gould of Aspen came to Crystal City looking for ore to run through a recently purchased mill. He became interested at once in the area not only for its potential mineral wealth, but also its wild beauty. He bought several mining claims and city lots with their cabins.