Idaho Springs—Central City—Blackhawk—Nederland—Boulder; 43 miles State 279 and State 119 - Graveled roadbed, usually open all year. Good accommodations.                    

This route traverses a section in which the first important gold strikes of the State were made; later, silver and tungsten were mined. Few mines remain in operation in this district where canyons, gulches, and mushroom camps once swarmed with miners, prospectors, and those who followed to share in the squandering of new-found gold. Here, within a few short years, laborers became millionaires, and broadcloth supplanted overalls; steel rails pushed swiftly into remote gulches; flimsy wooden buildings made way for stone and brick structures. North of Nederland are large glaciers in cirques and crevices. The whole area is dotted with summer houses and campgrounds.

In IDAHO SPRINGS, 0 miles (7,500 alt., 1,207 Pop.) (see Tour 7b), State 279 branches north from US 40 (see Tour 7b). Looping and twisting its way up Virginia Canyon along a new road that has replaced the steep and dangerous early stage route along the bottom of the ravine, State 279 swings northward to RUSSELL GULCH, 5.9 miles (9,500 alt., 93 pop.). The town and the gulch were named for Green Russell, a Georgian, whose party of several hundred members panned more than $20,000 of gold here in 1859. In September of that year 900 men were panning sands here and taking out an average of $35,000 a week. In 1862 Russell went South to join the Confederate Army, but was arrested in Santa Fe, N. M. Soon released, he returned to Colorado and remained until 1875, when he went to join the Cherokee in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, for his wife was a Cherokee from Georgia.

Passing numerous mine shafts and ore dumps, State 279 ascends a high ridge known as QUARTZ HILL and descends to CENTRAL CITY, 8.1 miles (8,560 alt., 572 pop.), seat of Gilpin County, once known as "the richest square mile on earth." The first impression is that the worst possible site was chosen for a settlement. Gregory Gulch, along which the town wanders, ascends steeply from the North Fork of Clear Creek, and houses cling precariously to the steep slopes of the gulch. Although some mining is carried on, Central City bears the marks of neglect and decay. Near the junction of the three principal streets are grouped the larger business structures of weathered frame and stone. Many have been abandoned but still flaunt old signs painted in the golden era when saloons and dance houses were crowded day and night. The surrounding hills, long since stripped of timber, are scarred with mine shafts and ore dumps. Near the center of town is a great yellow mound of mill tailings from the Glory Hole (see below) on Quartz Hill.

Within a few weeks of Gregory's rich strike here in 1859, this and neighboring gulches swarmed with thousands of gold seekers. The rush almost emptied the Cherry Creek settlements of Auraria and Denver City, which were seething with discontent as gold-hunters cursed the "Pikes Peak Hoax" that had brought them across the plains. Upon the scene appeared Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, who was determined to investigate for himself the mineral resources of the country. Miners welcomed him by "salting" a placer mine, shooting gold dust into it with a shotgun. Invited to take a pan and wash out gold, he did so and was amazed, as the miners had expected him to be. His glowing account of the richness of the Gregory diggings was published throughout the country and the rush increased.

Many camps sprang up along the gulch: Blackhawk, Gregory Point, Mountain City, Central City, Missouri City, and Nevadaville. Rivalry among them was intense; when a section of Nevadaville decided to break away and become a town, the Nevadaville authorities arrested the newly elected officials for "secession." Central City, named for its situation midway up the gulch, gradually outstripped other camps, absorbing several of them. Although one of the richest, it was also one of the quietest of the gold camps. At first a motley collection of log cabins and shacks, it was substantially rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1874.

The young Colorado Territory might not have survived its first few years had it not been for the outpouring of wealth from the golden "Kingdom of Gilpin." Other fields were soon depleted, and only the mines of Gilpin County—one of the original seventeen counties of the Territory—maintained a fairly stable population on the mountain frontier. Here was the cradle of much of Colorado's mining law; miners' courts were organized within a few weeks of the first strike. On the model of California camps the diggings were organized as a mining district with a president, sheriff, and recorder of claims. No miner, except the original discoverer, could hold by right of discovery more than one creek, one gulch, and one mountain claim. Once staked, a claim had to be worked within 10 days to establish title. A lode claim was limited to 100 feet in length and 50 feet in width; a gulch claim, 100 feet in length, and extending from bank to bank; placer diggings, to an area 100 feet square. Gold seekers were more concerned with justice than legal procedure, as evidenced by an early rule that no man might employ a lawyer unless his adversary happened to be one.

Central City's history has been one of varying fortune. The first miners sought chiefly for rich placer beds and "blossom rock/' a gold-bearing decomposed quartz so soft that it could be dug from hillsides with pick and shovel. As these quartz veins pinched out and placer deposits were exhausted, production of the mines dropped until by 1864 only a few were being worked. When methods were perfected in the late l860's for treatment of refractory ores, the district enjoyed another boom. Mills and smelters were built in Blackhawk; the Colorado Central Railway was extended from Golden to Blackhawk in 1872, and later to Central City.

Again, as more valuable ore veins were exhausted, the mines became less profitable, and a new decline set in. Finally, mines and mills fell silent and many miners departed. Shaft houses collapsed and tunnels became choked with debris; even the herds of burros, once part of the scene, disappeared—probably, as one miner put it, because "everybody claimed them in summer and nobody owned them in winter." Nevadaville became a ghost town, and Central City and Blackhawk languished. The district, from which more than $67,000,000 has been produced since Gregory's strike, now (1940) mines little more than $500,000 of metals annually.

From Gregory Gulch came many men later prominent in the political and financial worlds. Among them were Henry M. Teller and Jerome B. Chaffee, first United States Senators from Colorado. Teller, who served in the Congress for 29 years, was also Secretary of the Interior in President Chester B. Arthur's cabinet. Others were Henry R. Wolcott, smelter manager, later State senator and long a Republican, leader in Colorado; George Pullman, who perfected the sleeping car; and W. A. Clark, who worked the Bobtail Mine (see below), later going to Montana where he became a copper king and United States Senator. Another was James B. Belford, dubbed the Red-headed Rooster of the Rockies, a member of the Colorado Territory Supreme Court, later a representative in the Congress, where he helped shape the mining laws of the Nation.

Central City is perhaps the best known of all old Colorado mining towns because of the play festival (see The Arts) held each July at the OPERA HOUSE, Eureka St., W. of Main St., erected after the fire of 1874 had destroyed the town's ramshackle playhouses. Four years later the stone building with its four-foot walls was completed. The theater proper is admirably proportioned and decorated simply in Empire style. On its stage appeared Edwin Booth, Lotta Crabtree, Christine Nilsson, Janauschek, Modjeska, and other celebrated players and singers of the day. Although Central City early displayed a love for the theater, the opera house was not a financial success, and at one time it was proposed to convert it into a courthouse. The structure at length passed into the hands of Peter McFarlane, one of the original contractors, whose heirs presented it to the University of Denver in 1931. Through the sale of memorial chairs the building was renovated, and the dimmed frescoes, painted by Mossman, a San Francisco artist, were restored by Allen True of Denver. Under the sponsorship of the Central City Opera House Association, the first play festival was held in 1932, with Lillian Gish in Camille, and subsequent productions have drawn critics and audiences from all parts of the country. During the three weeks of festivities the town recaptures a measure of the gaudy and riotous color of its past; many attend the theater in old-time costumes; night clubs, bars, and a livery stable converted into a dance house of the l860's are crowded nightly.

The TELLER HOUSE, Eureka St. between the opera house and Main St., a plain brick structure, was the last word in frontier hostelries when completed in 1872. At the time of President Grant's visit in 1873, he walked from the stagecoach to the hotel on a path of silver bricks. Such evidence of respect on the part of their elders did not deter small boys from mounting to the roof of a stable opposite and throwing snowballs at Grant's plug hat. The hotel is conducted in conjunction with the Opera House. Original murals in the bar were uncovered in 1932 after twelve layers of wallpaper had been removed.

Left from Central City on a dirt road is NEVADAVILLE, 2.9 miles, which once had a population of 800, now a true ghost town. A few people live here, but the doors of most of the weathered and dilapidated buildings creak idly in the wind, and the city hall and fire station stand empty.

Left 0.1 miles from Nevadaville to the junction with a dirt road; L. here 0.6 miles along the steep face of Quartz Hill to the GLORY HOLE, one of the most impressive sights in the Central City district. This great mining pit, the lower levels of which are still worked for ore, is a huge rift almost 1,000 feet long and 300 feet deep in places. Shafts of old mines here were filled with dynamite and exploded, which literally blew out the heart of the mountain.

At the boundary between Central City and Blackhawk a granite monument (R) marks the SITE OF THE FIRST GOLD LODE DISCOVERY IN COLORADO, made by John H. Gregory on May 6, 1859. After mining $900 from the outcrop, he sold his claim for $21,000; it proved to be one of the richest in the history of the State.

Almost a unit with Central City, distinguishable only by the highway signs that mark the boundary, is BLACKHAWK, 9.5 miles (8,032 alt., 253 pop.), one of the first settlements in Gilpin County; it extends a mile along North Clear Creek and around the sharp promontory (L) of CASEY'S POINT, named for Pat Casey, who came into the region as a roustabout and discovered a rich lode that made him wealthy. He bought the finest clothing in town and drove about in an expensive carriage drawn by a span of spirited black horses. Although unable to read or write, he carried a memorandum book on which to jot down his business transactions. "I use up tin pincils a day," he often boasted, "and thin don't get half through me business."

The first smelter in Colorado, constructed here in 1868 by Prof. Nathaniel P. Hill, later a U. S. Senator, was removed to Argo, near Denver, ten years later. Here, too, the Hendrie brothers established the first mining machinery foundry in the Rocky Mountains. Among the celebrated lodes here was the Bobtail, so named because the first ore was hauled to the sluices by a bob-tailed ox harnessed to a forked limb over which rawhide had been stretched.

The highway ascends a shallow canyon dotted with ruins of abanboned mines. Here and there new mills are operating, reducing ores from the still valuable deposits of Gilpin County. Within the solid walls of many of the abandoned mills stands the original machinery, left to rust when the roofs collapsed.

In Blackhawk is the junction (L) with State 119, which the route now follows.

At 14.7 miles is the junction with State 58 (see Tour 7A).

ROLLINSVILLE, 22.2 miles (8,200 alt., 53 pop.), is a shipping point on the Denver & Salt Lake (Moffat) Railway. Much gold has been found here along South Boulder Creek, and operations are still carried on.

At 24.2 miles is the junction with State 72.

Right on this winding graded road into COAL CREEK CANYON; below the highway, the tracks of the Denver & Salt Lake (Moffat) Railway pass in and out of tunnels and over high trestles as they ascend the steep grade toward the Moffat Tunnel (see Tour 7b).

Only one town, PINE CLIFF, 4.5 miles (7,500 alt., 26 pop.), is passed, but numerous summer cabins and ranches are seen along the road, which extends to Denver, 33 miles

The highway gradually descends through an area spotted with deserted mills and shaft houses to the junction with a graded road, 26.2 miles

Left on this road is ELDORA, 3 miles (8,700 alt., 16 pop.), a scattering of frame and split-log cabins interspersed with a few old shacks covered with tarpaper. A one-time gold camp, Eldora was primarily important as a shipping point for the Caribou mines (see below).

The road sweeps northward through densely forested country, a region drained by numerous trout streams and dotted with campgrounds. At intervals, from the crests of the higher hills, is glimpsed the entire Front Range of the Rockies, from Mount Evans on the south to Longs Peak on the north.

NEDERLAND, 26.7 miles (8,200 alt., 285 pop.), a mining and resort village on the western shore of the lake formed by Barker Dam (see below), was formerly an important shipping and milling center for ores from mines farther west. "A dismal little mining town," wrote Helen Hunt Jackson in 1877, "only a handful of small houses and smelting mills. Boulder Creek comes dashing through it, foaming white to the very edge of town." It was named by the Dutch syndicate that owned the mines at Caribou (see below). While the town grew up as a gold and silver milling center, it was the center of the tungsten industry in the district from 1914 to 1918. The presence of tungsten in local ores was early known, but not until the first part of the twentieth century did its value as a steel hardener become known. Previously, the metal had been regarded a nuisance by miners who cursed it as "that damned black iron." At present (1940) a tungsten mill and several mines in the vicinity are operating.

1. Left from Nederland on State 160, a well-maintained graveled highway, a route of great beauty connecting with roads to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park (see Rocky Mountain National Park). The road traverses a high country of forests and meadows, paralleling (L) the Continental Divide. Bright wild flowers grow in profusion in the tree-ringed glades, and the many tiny streams are fringed with willows and shrubs.

LAKEWOOD, 7.3 miles, now but a point on the map, was once the site of the largest tungsten mill in the United States; only its concrete foundations remain.

Left from Lakewood 4 miles to the improved RAINBOW LAKES CAMPGROUND.

From the campground a foot trail winds 7.8 miles upward to the ARAPAHO GLACIER, resting high on the face of Arapaho Peak, easily visible from the plain. The ice flow is several hundred feet long, but its depth has never been determined. The glacier moves about 37 feet a year, which causes great fissures in the ice (trail fairly well-marked, but should not be attempted without a guide). Numerous climbers come here, particularly groups organized at the University of Colorado. Participation in one of these groups is advised, as lone hikers are sometimes lost on the heights where nights are very cold throughout the year.

On State 160 is WARD, 12 miles (9,250 alt., 34 pop.), another former raining town with streets that wind up and down steep slopes between clusters of old buildings, the majority deserted. One of its mines produced more than 2,000,000 ounces of silver during its three-year existence. The fireplace of the WARD HOTEL is constructed of gold ore. It has been suggested that the hill on which the town stands should be leveled for the mineral it contains.

At 122 miles is the junction with a graded road.

Left here 3.8 miles to the BRAINARD LAKE CAMPGROUND, at the eastern end of BRAINARD LAKE, a small but beautiful body of water near the foot of the Continental Divide.

From this campground a well-marked foot trail leads past LONG LAKE, 1 miles, and LAKE ISABELLE, 3 miles, both fed by glaciers, to ISABELLE GLACIER, 7.3 miles This glacier, one of the most spectacular in the State, is set in a great cup formed by three jagged shafts of Kiowa, Navaho, and Apache peaks, all of them rugged and stark, gouged and scored by ice sheets. From Brainard Lake Campground the climb to the glacier and return can be made within a day.

State 160 enters PEACEFUL VALLEY, 19.1 miles, a summer resort in South St. Vrain Canyon (cabins and hotel).

Left here on a trail (trip requires two days; do not attempt without guides and proper camping equipment) to ST. VRAIN GLACIER, 10 miles, near the head of South St. Vrain Creek; in the immediate vicinity are ROBERTS GLACIER and MILDRED GLACIER.

State 160 terminates at RAYMONDS, 22 miles, at the junction with State 7 (see Tour 4).

2. Left from Nederland on a dirt road along North Beaver Creek is CARIBOU, 5.5 miles (10,000 alt.), a silver camp established in 1869. The next year a half interest in the first strike sold for $50,000; it yielded $70,000 that year, and three years later it was sold to a Dutch syndicate for $3,000,000. The year of peak production was 1875 when $200,000 worth of ore was mined.

The highway follows the irregular line of the lake shore to BARKER DAM (R), 28.6 miles, a 185-foot concrete structure which stores water for use in the Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric Plant (see below).

TUNGSTEN, 29 miles (7,800 alt., 50 pop.), supported several ore mills during the First World War when tungsten was in great demand. Traffic on the highway became so heavy that guards were maintained at all curves in the canyon. As the price of tungsten declined, the mills were abandoned and razed.

East of Tungsten the route traverses a broad grassy park, inclosed on all sides by densely forested hills, to CASTLE ROCK (L), 30.6 miles, a huge serrated mass of black rock rising 300 feet above the canyon floor. Difficult of ascent, its summit is a popular goal for climbers. The walls of the canyon close in to form THE NARROWS, through which plunges Middle Boulder Creek.

At 34.3 miles is the junction with an improved foot trail.

Left here to BOULDER FALLS, 75 yds., the chief attraction of a five-acre park. Here the waters of North Boulder Creek spill 75 feet over the canyon wall to join those of Middle Boulder Creek.

State 119 follows the widening canyon between hills, a mass of green throughout the year, and crosses the eastern boundary of Roosevelt National Forest (see Tour 2), 37.5 miles

At 37.6 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Left on this road to SUGARLOAF, 4 miles (8,000 alt., 100 pop.), another of the old mining towns in the Boulder district. Here in Switzerland Park, a high fertile valley, mountain peas and potatoes are grown.

At 37.9 miles is the junction with another dirt road.

Right on this road to MAGNOLIA, 2.5 miles (7,500 alt., 125 pop.), a busy town after the discovery of gold in 1875, now a resort.

The highway descends Boulder Canyon, passing the BOULDER HYDROELECTRIC PLANT (R), 39 miles, a unit of the Public Service Company of Colorado, which supplies a large part of the electric power used in northern Colorado.

At 39.3 miles is the junction with the Flagstaff Mountain Road.

Right on this highway through the Boulder Mountain Parks system to the summit of FLAGSTAFF MOUNTAIN (7,047 alt.), 3.5 miles The road winds down to BOULDER, 7 miles (see below).

State 119 descends the canyon, passing numerous summer houses and cabins, to the junction with Four Mile Canyon Road, 40.1 miles

Left on this improved road to the heart of the once-rich Boulder County mining district. The highway follows the winding course of Four Mile Canyon; along the willow-fringed banks of Four Mile Creek flowers are in blossom most of the summer. In April and May appear numberless purple anemones (in picking flowers, watch for wood ticks, carriers of Rocky Mountain spotted fever). Later in the season, asters, daisies, wild roses, Indian paintbrush, and bluebells appear.

CRISMAN, 3.5 miles (5,300 alt., 35 pop.), dates from the discovery of gold here in 1875; today, unoccupied houses and store buildings are falling to decay.

The Four Mile Canyon Road gradually ascends; grades are steep, curves sharp, and the road is narrow (drive carefully).

At 5.3 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Right here 1.7 miles to SUNSHINE (7,200 alt, 65 pop.), founded in 1874 when gold and silver mines here were among the most productive in the district. An early prospector mined $17,500 of gold from a cut 10 feet deep and 20 feet long. Fearing his luck would not last, he sold his mine for another $17,500; the new owners took out $196,000 worth of ore in twenty months. At one time the camp had a population of 1,200. Although the rich lodes have apparently been exhausted, including the celebrated Inter-Ocean, the mines are still intermittently operated.

On the Four Mile Canyon Road is SALINA, 5.8 miles (6,500 alt., 125 pop.), an old mining camp founded by a group from Salina, Kans.; it lies at the confluence of Four Mile and Gold Run Creeks; along the latter the first gold discoveries in the Boulder district were made in 1858.

GOLD HILL, 8.8 miles (8,500 alt., 50 pop.), the first mining camp in the county, came into existence when gold was found here on January 15, 1859. Soon the Horsfal Lode, a great body of rich ore, was discovered and worked for many years. Gold Hill is now a popular summer resort. Still standing is the MINERS' HOTEL (visitors admitted), a 25-room log building erected in 1872, now the property of the Chicago Holiday Association, a social organization. Many of the original furnishings and decorations have been preserved; the weather boarding that once sheathed the building has been removed to expose the log walls. The hotel was renowned for its fine food, of which Eugene Field wrote:

'Nd I feel a sort of yearnin' 5\'nd a chokin' in my throat

When I think of Red Hoss Mountain 'nd of Casey's tabble dote.

The Gold Hill Mining District was created March 7, 1859, and adopted many regulations that established basic principles for present mining law. A leather-bound volume, containing the original handwritten regulations, is in the county office at Boulder.

The highway leaves Boulder Canyon, 46.9 miles, sweeping into more level country. Prominent are the FLATIRONS (R), a series of great rock slabs rising steeply up the face of the foothills. Climbing the Flatirons is dangerous; several persons have been killed by falls down the steep smooth face of these rocks.

BOULDER (5,350 alt., 11,223 pop.) (see Boulder), 43 miles, is at the junction with State 7 (see Tour 4).