Granite, Colorado

The headwaters of the Arkansas 17 miles north of Granite

Granite is located midway between Leadville to the north, and Buena Vista to the south. The Arkansas River, which once saw extensive placer mining during the Colorado Gold Rush, runs through Granite. It is the sixth longest river in the US; the headwater is 17 miles north in the Leadville area. Granite is located between two mountain ranges: Mosquito Range to the east and the Sawatch Range to the west, and it is within approximately 10 miles of two of the highest peaks in the contiguous United States. To the northwest lies Mount Elbert, the highest of the fourteeners in the Sawatch Range and second highest peak in the contiguous United States. Neighboring Mount Massive is the third highest peak. Nearby Independence Pass, at 12,100 feet (3,687 m), is the highest paved crossing of the Continental Divide in the United States.[4] The elevation, 9,012 ft (2,747 m), brings cool summers and cold winters to the area. Winter temperatures frequently drop to -25 and -30 (USDA zone 4).[5] Surrounded by moisture-robbing mountains, the climate is semiarid, though deep winter snows are common.

Oro City ~ circa 1874 - 1879

The Pike's Peak Gold Rush that began in 1859 brought an unprecedented number of people into the Colorado Territory. Among the earliest gold discoveries in Colorado were placer deposits near the headwaters of the Arkansas River in Oro city.[6] In 1860, Cache Creek, a mining camp near Granite, became the first settlement of note with a population of about 300, which, by the following year exploded to a population of 3,000. Following the discovery of gold in Low Pass Gulch in 1867, the town of Granite, located on either side of the Arkansas river, attracted many of the miners who previously inhabited the town of Cache Creek. The settlement included a three-mile stretch of river and one mining claim extended two-miles up Cache Creek. In 1867 free quartz gold was discovered and a mill was built. In 1868 the county seat was moved to Granite from the neighboring town of Dayton near present-day Twin Lakes, no longer in existence.[7][8]

Pack train bound for the Dyer mine

1874 and 1875 brought the "Lake County War", a war involving a group of men from the nearby town of Nathrop known as "The Regulators", to Granite. The war reached its climax when members of the “Committee of Safety” killed Probate Judge Elias Dyer, the son of the well-known minister John Lewis Dyer, in his own courtroom. [9] The vigilante committee had been trying to rid the county of "lawbreakers" using illegal arrests, coerced confessions and forced exile as tools in its campaign. No one was ever convicted of Judge Dyer's murder.[9] Murders were common, but convictions were not. More than one hundred homicides occurred during this period without a single conviction; it was almost impossible to get witnesses to swear to the killings.[10] The early prospectors included Horace Tabor, who later moved up the valley to Leadville where he was to find his fortune in the Colorado Silver Boom that swept Leadville in 1879. In a much-publicized scandal Tabor divorced his wife and married young and beautiful Elizabeth "Baby Doe" McCourt, twenty years his junior. The Tabors had two children, Lily and Silver Dollar. They lost their wealth when the price of silver dropped in 1893 and Tabor died in 1899 with a final request of Baby Doe that she maintain the claim to their silver mine. Baby Doe lived in squalid conditions in the tool shed of the mine for thirty years and was found dead in 1936.[11][12]

General Store & Post Office, Granite, Colorado ca. 1885.

Until 1879 the village of Granite was located in Lake County, once one of the two largest of the Colorado Territory’s original 17 counties. As the site of some of the richest placer gold strikes in Lake County, Granite held the position of county seat, but in 1878 they lost out to booming silver-rich Leadville, 17 miles to the north. However, Granite did manage to remain the county seat, but not of Lake County. They redrew the county lines creating Chaffee County, with Granite as the county seat. But a year later an election was held resulting in a win for Buena Vista, 17 miles to the south of Granite, with 1,128 votes out of a total population of 1,200 (when women couldn’t vote).[13] Granite declared the election fraudulent and refused to give up its position, so late one night a group of men from Buena Vista took matters into their own hands.[14]

Buena Vistans voted to make their town the county seat, but Granite refused to give up the records. So a group of men led by Ernest Wilbur "borrowed" a locomotive and flat car and went up to Granite late on the night of November 12, 1880. The men built a siding to the Granite Courthouse and kicked in the door. Sheriff John Mear and his wife investigated the noise and were forced at gunpoint to watch the removal of all the county records by the Buena Vista men. Furniture was unbolted from the floor, including the railing. Even the heat stove, with embers remaining in it from the day's use, was loaded onto the flatcar. —Buena Vista Heritage Museum[15]

CO Mineral Belt

The upper Arkansas River valley, including the area around Granite, is hemmed in between high, sheer rock outcroppings of buff/pink-colored Precambrian granite.[16] Granite lies at the center of the Colorado Mineral Belt (CMB), a 50 mile-wide strip that runs north and south for 300 miles. Mineralization of the CMB came primarily by way of intrusions of Tertiary Period magmas. The primary ores of the CMB were generally deposited as mixed metal sulfide mineral veins containing pyrite, galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, and gold, silver, and copper. During the last glacial period native gold was freed from the host rock and deposited along the ancient roaring Arkansas River bed - much larger than it is today due to the melting glacial runoff.[17]

Gold pan

A sluice box used in placer mining

Unlike the early days of the California Gold Rush, very few large nuggets were ever found in the Colorado diggings. A gold pan was adequate for finding "pay dirt", but to produce more than a small amount of gold, sluice boxes were built to separate the gold dust from the gravel. They were built on site from the material that was at hand and placed in the river current. The old sluice boxes were lined with raised obstructions that were placed in a vertical position to the flow of the current and when the gold-laden gravel was shoveled into the upper end of the sluice, the flow of water carried the material down the length of the box. The gravel was carried down the entire length of the sluice and then discharged, but the heavier flakes of gold settled and became trapped. Signs of placer mining up and down along the Arkansas river near Granite and the surrounding areas are in evidence by the many heaps of glacially rounded granite boulders, rocks that were once buried in the glacial gravel deposits.[18]

Among the earliest gold discoveries in the Colorado gold rush were placer deposits discovered in 1859 at the headwaters of the Arkansas River near Granite. By late 1860 most of the streams had been prospected, and numerous gold placers were reported along the Arkansas River to Buena Vista and beyond. The deposits along the Arkansas River and Cache Creek near Granite probably were the most productive, producing about 49,000 troy ounces of gold.[19][20]

Garbutt Mine hard rock miners

In many Colorado mining districts the easily discovered and worked placers were the first big strikes of a typical gold rush. But the free gold supply in stream beds quickly became depleted, and the initial phase was followed by prospecting for veins of lode gold that were the original source of the placer gold.[18] The hills above Granite are pockmarked with numerous old mining tunnels from hard rock mining, evidence of the typical second stage of a gold rush cycle. Their neighbors in Leadville went on to discover silver, resulting in a silver rush, but Granite never got that far. In just a few years their ore began to play out, and the town's population, once as high as 7000, began to decline.

Abandoned mining equipment

While Granite is a ghost of what it once was, what with both a railroad and a major highway running through it has survived the years. However, many old ghost towns remain in the hills surrounding Granite. As the prospectors searched for gold, every Arkansas River tributary was a potential gold mining site and a chance to strike it rich. About two miles south of Granite, Clear Creek empties into the Arkansas River. Although prospecting took place in this area as early as 1867 when the gravel bar reaching out into the Arkansas was found to be rich in placer gold, the real activity didn't take off until 1879 when the canyon exploded with mines everywhere. A report from that time relates: "The Free Republic [mine] was the first location made in this district, having been discovered in July, 1879. A tunnel has been run 85 feet, showing 3 feet of mineral in the breast, galena and copper, assays ranging from 10 to 131 ounces. For a distance of 49 feet the tunnel has been running through a horse [a block of rock interrupting a vein and containing no minerals], but the pay vein was struck and proved to be nearly 20 feet wide." This early report goes on to list the colorfully named mines of that time: The Mint, Prince Albert, Thunderbolt, Sixteen String Jack, Sunrise, Bluebird, Siamese Chief, Minnehaha, Silver Crop, Cinderella, Birdie Boy. and Terrible.[41][42] A later report related that the four major mines were the Tasmania,[43] the Fortune, the Banker[44] and the Swiss Boy,[45] so it would appear that most mines just did not "pan out".[42] The towns of Beaver City,[46] Vicksburg, Rockdale/Silverdale, Winfield, Hamilton, and others, once hives of activity, have either totally disappeared or remain primarily as ghost towns with only a few remaining buildings.[47][48]

Winfield mining camp

Winfield was the largest settlement. In 1890 the estimated population is listed as fifteen hundred, but it can be assumed that hundreds more lived in the surrounding area. Winfield included three saloons, three stores, a post office, two hotels, a boarding house, mill, smelter, ore concentrator, church, and a school. The last ore was hauled out by stage in 1918. Several restored buildings remain, including the school.

Vicksburg Main Street

Early Vicksburg cabin

Vicksburg was founded in 1867 after prospectors from Leadville camping out in the Clear Creek Canyon lost their burros. The burros had wandered down the creek and when the miners found their pack animals, they discovered gold in the creek bed as well. In its heyday, Vicksburg had a post office, school, blacksmith, two hotels, two billiard halls, several saloons, a general store, an assay office, and a livery stable. Early miners packed in Balm of Gilead (balsam poplar) trees on the backs of burros and planted them to line the street. The early settlers likely used the sticky sap of the trees to make a medicinal salve used for both animals and humans alike.[49] The trees still stand today and are watered by ditches leading from Vicksburg Creek into the town. The ditches were dug on either side of the street to provide a water system; wooden boxes were built in the ditches to keep food cold and provide water to fight fires. A daily stage ran from Vicksburg to Granite; the fare was $1.50.[50]

Located near Vicksburg but dating to the 1930s is the Crescent Moly Mine #100 and Mining Camp. However, the Crescent Moly was not a gold mine but was associated with the molybdenum boom and the nearby Climax mine phenomenon. Vicksburg, Winfield and the Crescent Moly Mine are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[51]

A mile further down the valley Pine Creek empties into the Arkansas and evidence remains of prospecting and mining in this area as well. The Colorado Historical Society lists the Littlejohn mine camp on the north bank of Pine Creek:

North bank of Pine Creek, vicinity of Granite

National Register 12/27/1978, 5CF.138

Located in the Pine Creek mining district, structures in the complex include a cabin, a burro shed/bunk house, a forge, and several related outbuildings. All date from the 1880s and are constructed of hand hewn logs with A and V joints. Low pitch gabled roofs were made of logs, mud, dirt, and grass. Such intact examples of early log mining camps are rare as many were quickly abandoned or replaced with wood frame or masonry structures. Harry Littlejohn, who acquired the property in 1920 and lived and worked there until his death in 1952, is credited with maintaining the integrity of the complex.[52][53]

The Granite Cemetery, also known as the Cache Creek Cemetery, is located about one and one-half miles west of Granite. The earliest known burial is said to be that of an unknown 19-year-old male who died of pneumonia in 1860; the first marked burial is dated 1878. The cemetery is still in use.[54][55]

One of the earliest graves is that of Pat Casey, a gandy dancer (section crew worder) who was murdered in 1888 when his throat was slit by Niccolo Feminello, also a railroad worker. Feminello was convicted of the murder and became infamous as being the only "legal hanging" to take place in Chaffee County. Feminello was buried in the Mt Olivet cemetery in Buena Vista after his execution behind the Buena Vista court house.

Several graves contain the remains of the last of the old-time miners that still lived in the hills surrounding Granite. Charles Franklin, born in 1868 in Sweden and immigrated to the U.S. in 1888; died in 1950. Known locally as "Old Man Franklin", he lived in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor located on the Arkansas River near Clear Creek, just south of Granite. Like the other "last of their breed" that were soon to follow him in death, he was unmarried and lived alone. The following year Frank Churchill, another never-married miner, was found dead in Clear Creek near his cabin; it was some time before his body was discovered.[56]

Dave Jardine, another old miner, lived in a log cabin situated on Pine Creek, south of Granite, till his death in 1953. Jardine always carried a "doodlebug", a pendulum similar to that used for dousing, to tell the future or just for advice. Dave, or "Stinky Dave" as he was called, loved dogs and had five or six strays which he kept in his cabin at night. He had deep chronic venous ulcers on both ankles that may have been the cause of his bad odor, and may well have been the cause of his death. According to county records, when authorities discovered him he had been eaten by his dogs after he had died alone in his cabin.[57]

Pine Hall, located at 43145 County Road 397. A community hall, the property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Note the Granite General Store located behind and to the left of the hall)

The Commercial Hotel, 43255 County Road 397, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Two kayakers running the Pine Creek Rapids section of the Arkansas River

Little remains of Granite's past. In the 1950s a Colorado couple ran a gold panning tourist attraction they named "Gold Camp", just south of town at the point that Pine Creek runs into the Arkansas. By 1955, the Granite school enrollment had dwindled to only thirteen and the school was closed. The railroad ended service in the 1980s. Chaffee County lists the school and the Denver & Rio Grande railroad building and several other still-standing buildings including a blacksmith-livery, a hotel, and a stage stop as sites of historical interest.[35]

Today this area draws whitewater rafting enthusiasts. The rapids were created by a massive glacial flood which spread boulders down the river for over fifty miles. The whitewater area starts in the "Granite Gorge" with class IV rapids and the river rapidly drops to the steepest point at "Pine Creek Rapids", class V.[58]

Situated within the San Isabel National Forest[59] and surrounded by three wilderness areas, Granite is also a popular hiking area. The Mount Massive Wilderness area lies a few miles north, the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness is to the east within the Mosquito Range,[60] and the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness is to the west within the Sawatch Range.[61]

The Cache Creek area remains of interest to modern-day prospectors looking for the placer gold that was left behind when mining operations ended in 1911. Cache Creek is managed by the Bureau of Land Management for wildlife habitat, wetlands, open space, and small-scale placer mining.[19]

For years only one business remained open, the Granite General Store, however it closed in 2007. The building was originally an 1880s bunk house for railroad workers. Currently there are only eight year-round residents in Granite. Most people, even "locals", pass through Granite unaware of its historical past.

Granite, Colorado one-room school (with outhouse in the back), 1954

In 1954, 7th grade Granite student Juliann Horvath, a year young for her class because she had started school a year early, won the Chaffee County combined 7th and 8th grade spelling bee. Juliann was one of only three Granite 7th grade students, and the total school enrollment that year was less than twenty.

Doc Holliday, gambler, gunfighter, and dentist of the American Old West and most remembered for his involvement in the 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, left Arizona by rail and then took the Leadville stage from Buena Vista, north through Granite, and on to Leadville in 1882.

• Chaffee County, Colorado
• History of Lake County, Colorado

• Cultural, Historical and Archeological Resources
• Granite mining history at Western Mining History
• Granite photographs
• Chaffee County Times (local newspaper)
• Winfield and Vicksburg
• Ghost towns near Granite
• Rock Talk Geology
• Early history of the area

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