Leadville typifies the
Colorado boomtown. It all started about 1859 when the Slater Party
made an $8 million gold discovery at California Gulch. Thousands soon
flocked there, and prospectors
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exhausted gold
reserves by the mid-1860s. However, by 1880 the silver boom
began. Leadville quickly became the second largest
city in the state.
Leadville's origin is a
mother lode of gold, silver, lead, zinc and molybdenum. Founded with
the discovery of gold in California Gulch by a prospector named Abe
Lee, the town reached a population of nearly 40,000 residents by the
1880s and was a strong contender with Denver as the state's capital.
Many Victorian buildings still stand in both the shopping and
residential areas.
H.A.W. Tabor
and Baby Doe, the "Unsinkable Molly Brown," Dow & Jones, and the
Guggenheims are some of the magical names of the past among the
legends of the carbonate camp called Leadville. |
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