The Trail of Gold and Silver: Mining in Colorado, 1859-2009, by Duane A. Smith, $26.95. The problem with reviewing Duane A. Smith’s books is that they gain on you. You haven’t finished writing one review when the next one arrives. Smith is Colorado’s most prolific historian, which could be a recipe for a lot of sloppy writing. But Smith is a fine historian, and “The Trail of Gold and Silver” is as good a story of Colorado’s precious metals boom as you’ll find.
The gold rush to the Rockies began in 1858 with the discovery of gold in Cherry Creek. It brought thousands of prospectors in search of quick riches, first panning the creeks, then searching for the mother lode. “The higher the silver strike, the richer the ore” was one bit of wisdom.
Prospectors built cabins on such steep hillsides that a Central City resident wrote in 1864, “If you go into the backyards of the houses, you are in danger of falling down the chimney (of the house below it).”
Gold lured the men to Colorado, but many fortunes came from silver, although it was said that it took a gold mine to operate a silver mine.
Silver also produced some of the rawest towns, such as Leadville — “Vice in its most civilized and repugnant form is everywhere rampant,” a reporter noted. A visitor remarked that by gaslight, Leadville was “an awful spectacle of low vise.”
In a lively account, Smith writes that few of the prospectors who struck it rich ended up with huge fortunes. Finding the precious metal was what mattered, and they sold out, and perhaps wisely. Developing a mine was costly — and litigious. “No litigation equals a mining litigation in its intensity and bitterness,” one mining man said.
Ultimately, mining was not so much about the lonely prospector and his burro as it was about industry. A mine was an industrial operation that required investment and technology. Some of the biggest fortunes were made by those who developed ways to extract ore. The employees were wage earners, and the boom towns quickly became urbanized. Smith weaves all this together in an account that is as entertaining as it is educational.
The Road that Silver Built: The Million Dollar Highway, by P. David Smith, $18.95. President Herbert Hoover called the views on the Million Dollar Highway, the road that links Ouray and Silverton, “the most scenic and spectacular I have ever seen.” He might add the scariest, too, at least for a paved federal highway.
The area along the highway is so extraordinary in fact, that it was considered as the site of Rocky Mountain National Park, contends author P. David Smith. But the route had some 10,000 mining claims in private hands, so the park designation went instead to the Estes Park area.
The first portion of the road was completed in 1881, and charges for its use were steep: $2 for a wagon, 50 cents for a horse and rider. The road was harrowing with steep drop-offs, but it was upgraded when precious metal was found on Red Mountain, although for a long time the road was so narrow that two wagons couldn’t pass.
In this well-illustrated account, Smith tells the story of the building of the road along with the history of the mountain towns, from early mineral discovery into the 20th century. During Prohibition, some 60 bootleggers operated in one Silverton alley, and in 1932 the town had 32 prostitutes.
Denver’s Extraordinary Faith-Healing Messiah, by Bill Blanning, $22.50. In the summer and fall of 1895, Francis Schlatter drew enormous crowds in Denver as he preached and healed the sick. Schlatter refused money, went where “Father” told him to go, and ate little, although in a meal breaking a 40-day fast, he consumed 11 eggs, nine slices of bread, 11 ladles of gravy, three pieces of chicken, cake, cheese, pickled apples and four glasses of port. He followed the meal with peaches and grapes.
His followers claimed Schlatter was divine. He once refused to touch a stranger because the man, Schlatter claimed, was a murderer. After a couple of months, the healer disappeared from Colorado, spending time on the Morley ranch in New Mexico, according to writer Agnes Morley Cleaveland in her book “No Life for a Lady.”
Schlatter’s ministrations were covered in front-page stories by newspapers in Denver and across the nation, attracting the sick from all over the country, and cities elsewhere extended invitations for Schlatter to visit. “Denver’s Extraordinary Faith-Healing Messiah” is a collection of these stories.
Schlatter was treated mostly with respect by reporters, many of whom witnessed the preacher’s miracles. Oddly enough, only one of them asked Schlatter if he were Christ. The man’s answer was yes.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist who writes regularly on regional nonfiction.
