The first explorers of the American West labeled maps of "Colorado" state area as a desert, beyond which were impenetrable mountains. "So it came about that the early rush of trade and emigration that beat out paths to the West passed Colorado by," Colorado, a Barrier That Became a Goal: Where Water Has Transformed Dry Plains Into Verdant Farms, and Highways Have Opened Up Mineral and Scenic Wealth, McFall Kerbey, National Geographic Magazine, July, 1932, p. 1. The Santa Fe Trail turned to the south. "The covered wagons of emigrants Oregon-bound in the early forties (1840s) and the rush of California forty-niners (1849) passed chiefly to the north" (p. 1).
"But not for long. Gold, always a magnet for men, dragged a horde of fortune-seekers to the edge of the mountains almost overnight in '58 and '59" (p. 1). "Gold has been a fetish in Colorado, as it has in all other parts of the world where it might be had for the digging; but it has played a mighty part in the State's life. . . interest in gold is continually kept alive" (p. 9).
The author ventured deep into a gold mine. "Mining is not the simple procedure of digging a hole and dragging out ore, as many a layman imagines. Big pipes conduct air under light pressure for ventilation, Smaller pipes carry highly compressed air for operating drills . . . others supplying lighting current; still others for telephones" (p. 13).
In addition to plains and mountains, Colorado contains a small desert, ten miles square. "The Great Sand Dunes National Monument is Uncle Sam's newest playground" (photo caption, p. 17).
There are immense challenges in building roads and highways through mountain passes. In Colorado are 48 peaks taller than 14,000 feet with hundreds over 10,000 feet. "Only a few years ago it was taken as a matter of course that all these high passes must be snowed in each winter and closed to traffic for months "but it was found cheaper to never let the snow and ice accumulate" (p. 22).
Following the Gold Rush, six years later, silver was discovered in Colorado. "In 1868, more ounces of silver were produced than gold, and this has been the case in every year since" (p. 22). Most minerals of the world are found and either mined or mineable in Colorado.
Another new (in 1931) federal park is Holy Cross National Monument, featuring a natural 2,000-foot tall cross in the side of a mountain filled with snow.
Other important (rare) metals from Colorado mines include molybdenum and vanadium. Coal mining also surpasses gold mining. Yet to be extracted in 1932 was oil from shale. At that time there were oil wells. One gold mine of that era was so inaccessible that the ore was transported by pack mule trains from Liberty Bell Mine near Telluride.
Towns were created and flourished due to mining, then waned and died after the mine was worked out. Colorado has its ghost towns.
On the eastern Colorado plains are many irrigated farms producing sugar beets which are manufactured into sugar in nearby factories. In 1931, the value of sugar from Colorado was more than ten times the value of gold extracted.
(Long article! Next blog: Part Two of Colorado)
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