{"chapterKey":"united-states-western/leadville-colorado","title":"Leadville, Colorado ","regionSlug":"united-states-western","status":"published","photos":[{"sha":"upload-1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923","caption":"With the discovery of silver in Leadville, Colorado, Frank Leslie's *Illustrated Weekly* began paying attention to the place. Witness this cover from April 12th, 1879. The drawing is by Edward Jump, a prolific French illustrator who, despite his artistic bravura, blew his brains out a few years later. The wagon seems to be carrying a circular furnace of the type used to smelt Leadville's ore, of which most was waste but perhaps 20 percent was lead.  A much smaller but still very profitable amount was silver.","width":633,"height":743,"aspect":0.8519515477792732,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786290836070-0","caption":"Only slightly less exaggerated, here's another cartoonish drawing from Jump, again from Leslie's *Illustrated Newspaper. *It's still 1879, but it's a month later--May 24th.","width":731,"height":975,"aspect":0.7497435897435898,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786290836070-0?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786290836070-0?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786290836070-0?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786290836070-0?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786290836070-0?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T15:06:57.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236445445-screenshot-2026-08-06-182603","caption":"Same magazine, same issue, but Jump has calmed down to give us a more realistic image, complete with dead animals along the road and a dog struggling to keep up. The men are in South Park, with the Mosquito Range (or Park Range) in front of them. They have to get over Mosquito Pass before dropping down on the other side to Leadville. True fact: lots of horses did die on this trail, whose summit is slightly over 13,000 feet above sea level.","width":920,"height":409,"aspect":2.249388753056235,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236445445-screenshot-2026-08-06-182603?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236445445-screenshot-2026-08-06-182603?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236445445-screenshot-2026-08-06-182603?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236445445-screenshot-2026-08-06-182603?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236445445-screenshot-2026-08-06-182603?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786463554751-img-50151","caption":"Want a map? The larger coin, from South Africa, flanks Denver, and the Brazilian penny is on Leadville. (Hooray. I finally have a use for that spare change.) The airline distance between them is just under 80 miles; the road distance today, via Interstate 70 and State Route 91, is about 100 miles. The map is from Ferdinand Hayden's classic *Geographical and Geological Atlas of Colorado* (1881), but it was reprinted in the *The Atlas of Leadville *published by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1883.  You probably can't see the details clearly, so I'll point out that Leadville is near the head of the Arkansas River, whose valley, near the left edge, continues south beyond the map's edge and soon turns east to pass through the scenic Royal Gorge before coming out onto the Great Plains near Pueblo. The mountains just to the east of Leadville are the Mosquito Range, although the map offers that alternative name, Park Range, which presumably comes from South Park, the basin to the east. The mass of mountains east of South Park is labelled Front Range, a name in common use even before Hayden formalized it with this map. Breckinridge, now the most popular ski resort in the United States, appears as a small town just east of the letter \"S\" in Mosquito.","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786463554751-img-50151?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786463554751-img-50151?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786463554751-img-50151?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786463554751-img-50151?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786463554751-img-50151?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-11T15:47:44.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786466021412-img-48901","caption":"The same Leadville atlas includes this topographical map of the Mosquito Range. If you have sharp eyes, you may see a road passing over Mosquito Pass and continuing down the western slope to Leadville. This the road followed by those wagons and the men with their dog. The Mosquito Pass Wagon Road Company opened it in 1879. It was a toll road but its life was short, because in 1880 the Denver and Rio Grande railroad came up through the Royal Gorge and arrived in Leadville. The old toll road is still there, just waiting for a location scout looking to film a Jeep ad.","width":4284,"height":5712,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466021412-img-48901?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466021412-img-48901?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466021412-img-48901?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466021412-img-48901?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466021412-img-48901?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-31T21:37:24.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237441285-img-48811","caption":"Here, for fans, is the cover of that now-rare Leadville atlas. The author, Samuel Emmons (1841-1911) spent a decade working for the extraordinary Clarence King and contributing substantially to King's *Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. *King went on to be the first head of the U.S. Geological Survey, and one of his first acts was to hire Emmons again and assign him the preparation of this atlas. I spotted a copy for sale the other day for about $600.","width":4284,"height":5712,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237441285-img-48811?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237441285-img-48811?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237441285-img-48811?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237441285-img-48811?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237441285-img-48811?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-31T21:23:33.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786466046055-img-48871","caption":"Leadville's mines were clustered on the small hills just east of town, especially the topographically insignificant Fryer Hill. These topographic maps, by the way, were surveyed by Allan David (A. D.) Wilson (1844-1920), another alum of Clarence King's Survey of the Fortieth Parallel. King brought Wilson, too, into the USGS, naming him as the organization's chief topographer. Emmons, relying on Wilson's work for the base map of his own geological mapping, praised Wilson's maps highly. Wilson lived a long life but succumbed during the great influenza epidemic.","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466046055-img-48871?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466046055-img-48871?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466046055-img-48871?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466046055-img-48871?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786466046055-img-48871?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-31T21:34:18.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786316226999-img-49181","caption":"Here's a view of that rich hill. The mines weren't heroic: the shafts were usually about a hundred feet deep or a bit more, with drifts branching laterally to follow the ore.\n\n(William Fiske Stone, ed., *History of Colorado*, 1918, vol. 1, p. 155.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786316226999-img-49181?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786316226999-img-49181?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786316226999-img-49181?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786316226999-img-49181?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786316226999-img-49181?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-03T15:25:21.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237287002-img-48951","caption":"Like this. The ore was in the blue limestone, much of which had been chemically replaced by a lead sulfate containing silver. The other layers are limestone or porphyry, and the whole stack is capped with an obscuring mask of glacial debris, shown here in tan. Since the bedrock is masked, Emmons and his small crew could make the map only by going down mine shafts and recording what they found, foot by foot. Emmons wrote that only one mine owner refused them access. Finding the ore in the first place, of course, was completely hit and miss, because nobody had any idea what was under the glacial debris.","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237287002-img-48951?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237287002-img-48951?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237287002-img-48951?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237287002-img-48951?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237287002-img-48951?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-01T18:46:52.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237278647-img-48971","caption":"Another cross-section, this time including the Matchless Mine, which was prolific for a few years. The name refers not to its yield but to the prospectors' preferred brand of chewing tobacco.","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237278647-img-48971?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237278647-img-48971?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237278647-img-48971?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237278647-img-48971?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237278647-img-48971?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-01T18:48:22.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786313025097-samuel-franklin-emmons","caption":"Here's Emmons in his tender youth, well before his arrival in Leadville. He was, bluntly, a rich kid and a Harvard grad sent to Europe during the American Civil War, supposedly to care for his ailing mother. He subsequently studied seriously at the famous Freiberg school of mines, near Dresden, but upbringing is sticky.  How did he dress while working in Leadville?  In white buckskin, tailored in London.","width":290,"height":379,"aspect":0.7651715039577837,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313025097-samuel-franklin-emmons?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313025097-samuel-franklin-emmons?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313025097-samuel-franklin-emmons?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313025097-samuel-franklin-emmons?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313025097-samuel-franklin-emmons?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786313292031-emmons-2","caption":"At least one woman who knew him thought his chin weak, which may be why Emmons grew a beard and kept it. But don't get me wrong: though he was a man of refined tastes, he was also physically tough and of course hard working and smart.   He became a mentor to younger colleagues.  He admired their \"excellent powers of observation\" but complained that \"their English is wretched.\"\n\n(Arnold Hague, \"Biographical Memoir of Samuel Franklin Emmons, 1841- 1911,\" *National Academy  of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, * 1912, p. 329.","width":348,"height":420,"aspect":0.8285714285714286,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313292031-emmons-2?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313292031-emmons-2?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313292031-emmons-2?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313292031-emmons-2?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313292031-emmons-2?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786741587269-img-50431","caption":"The mineralized zone continued south of Fryer Hill to a broad valley called California Gulch, here seen between Iron Hill and Rock or Dome Hill. The cluster of buildings is Oro City, a town that sprang up in1860 with a short-lived placer-gold rush.\n\n(U.S.G.S. Prof. Papre 148, 1927, pl 6.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786741587269-img-50431?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786741587269-img-50431?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786741587269-img-50431?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786741587269-img-50431?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786741587269-img-50431?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-14T21:03:51.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237537701-img-48481","caption":"Here's one of the mines on the slope of Iron Hill. The A.Y. was the first of many properties acquired by a young Meyer Guggenheim, progenitor of the Guggenheims.","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237537701-img-48481?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237537701-img-48481?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237537701-img-48481?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237537701-img-48481?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237537701-img-48481?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:52:01.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237597805-img-48381","caption":"View up California Gulch, with the town of Oro.\n\n(USGS Prof. Paper 148, 1927, plate 5.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237597805-img-48381?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237597805-img-48381?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237597805-img-48381?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237597805-img-48381?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237597805-img-48381?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:45:35.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237563826-img-48451","caption":"A bit closer to Oro.","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237563826-img-48451?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237563826-img-48451?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237563826-img-48451?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237563826-img-48451?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237563826-img-48451?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:47:04.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563895394-img-50191","caption":"Upper California Gulch, 1900.  It's a real mess, but you can't make an omelet, etc.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 18.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563895394-img-50191?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563895394-img-50191?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563895394-img-50191?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563895394-img-50191?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563895394-img-50191?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:05:24.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237230338-img-49191","caption":"The biggest fortune built entirely in Leadville belonged to Horace (\"Haw\") and his no-nonsense wife, Augusta. Tabor wasn't much of a miner, but then neither was Meyer Guggenheim. Instead, Tabor was a storekeeper who grubstaked miners, including two men who in 1878 discovered the prolific Little Pittsburg Mine on Fryer Hill. Tabor sold his share for a million dollars, began investing in other mines, then tried politics. He made it to the U.S. Senate before losing his fortune and dying destitute. He looks presentable here, so long as you don't mind the exploding moustache, but he didn't much impress his Senate colleagues. Here's Senator John Ingalls of Kansas pulling out all the stops in a letter to his wife: \"A fouler beast was never depicted. Such a vulgar ruffianly boor you never beheld: uncouth, awkward, shambling, dirty hands and big feet turned inward: a huge solitaire diamond on a sooty, bony, blacksmith finger: piratical features, unkempt, frowsy and unclean: blotched with disease he looks the brute he is.\"\n\nI'm not sure what the redoubtable Augusta saw in him, but one contemporary described a very different Horace Tabor. \"He is genial, affable, accessible, unaffected, flaunting no *parvenu* airs in the faces of old comrades, generous to a fault, and aims to deal justly by all men.\" Take your pick.\n\n(Photos from Howard N. and Lucille L. Sloane, *A Pictorial History of American Mining*, 1968, p. 169; the quotations come from William Connelley, *Ingalls of Kansas,* 1928, p. 31, and Captain R. G. Dill, who wrote the chapter on Lake County in *History of Colorado,* published by O.L. Baskin, 1881, p. 384).","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237230338-img-49191?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237230338-img-49191?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237230338-img-49191?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237230338-img-49191?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237230338-img-49191?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-03T22:26:16.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786313364032-baby-doe-tabor","caption":"Tabor left Augusta for this young thing. Augusta kept her share of the estate and managed it prudently until her death, but Haw squandered his wealth with the help of the new wife, Elizabeth McCourt, alias Baby Doe. She survived Haw by 35 years, dying broke in a cabin next to the Matchless Mine, which Tabor, near death, urged her never to sell.","width":250,"height":359,"aspect":0.6963788300835655,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313364032-baby-doe-tabor?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313364032-baby-doe-tabor?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313364032-baby-doe-tabor?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313364032-baby-doe-tabor?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786313364032-baby-doe-tabor?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786237239717-img-49201","caption":"Here's that mine in 1929, six years before her death.\n\n(Howard N. and Lucille L. Sloane, *A Pictorial History of American Mining*, 1970, p. 171).","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237239717-img-49201?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237239717-img-49201?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237239717-img-49201?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237239717-img-49201?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237239717-img-49201?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-03T22:26:47.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786314122720-baby-doe","caption":"And here's Baby Doe, standing in front of the cabin where, in 1935, she was found frozen to death.","width":654,"height":511,"aspect":1.279843444227006,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314122720-baby-doe?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314122720-baby-doe?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314122720-baby-doe?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314122720-baby-doe?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314122720-baby-doe?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786237507809-img-48611","caption":"Enough about the lives of the rich and famous. Leadville's first railroad, as I mentioned earlier, arrived in 1880, two years after the start of the silver rush. Again, it was the Denver and Rio Grande, which came up the Arkansas River from Pueblo and continued north over Tennessee Pass into the drainage of the Colorado River. (Rudyard Kipling came this way in 1899 and in *From Sea to Sea* left an entertaining account of his trip. I wish he had ventured the few miles from Leadville Junction to Leadville, but he didn't.) By 1891, when this map was published, two more railroads had come to town, including the Colorado Midland, whose Hagerman Tunnel (with its heroic eastern approach) is at the map's left margin.\n\n(USGS, Leadville quadrangle, 1:125,000, surveyed in 1891.)","width":4284,"height":5712,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237507809-img-48611?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237507809-img-48611?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237507809-img-48611?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237507809-img-48611?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237507809-img-48611?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-30T21:09:05.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237112690-img-49451","caption":"The tunnel was over 2,000 feet long and was only 500 feet shy of the Sawatch summit, which here is about 12,000 feet above sea level. I'd have been nervous to ride this, the first train to pass through the tunnel.\n\n(Dan Abbott, *Colorado Midland Railway,* 1989, frontispiece.)","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237112690-img-49451?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237112690-img-49451?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237112690-img-49451?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237112690-img-49451?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237112690-img-49451?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-05T15:46:08.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236807226-img-49521","caption":"But I'd have been nervous on this trestle, too. It's approaching the tunnel's eastern portal. I find it more impressive than Jump's drawings of a decade earlier, simply because the trestle really looked like this. Does make me a little sad to think about the forest that was sacrificed, but, as I've already said, you can't make omelets, etc.\n\n(Dan Abbot, *Colorado Midland Railway,* 1989, p. 66.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236807226-img-49521?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236807226-img-49521?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236807226-img-49521?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236807226-img-49521?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236807226-img-49521?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-05T16:03:22.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236903103-img-49321","caption":"Another magazine (*Harper's Weekly*, 1889), another artist (Henry Farny), and another helping of artistic license: \"Down the Grade From the Divide in Colorado--Section Hands Going to Camp for Provisions.\"  Tell me another one.\n\nLucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, *Rio Grande, Mainline of the Rockies,* 1962. p. 88.)","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236903103-img-49321?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236903103-img-49321?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236903103-img-49321?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236903103-img-49321?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236903103-img-49321?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-04T16:28:15.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237056306-img-49561","caption":"No more nonsense: here's the long-gone Leadville station of the also long-gone Colorado Midland. It stood on Spruce Street just north of Third. You don't know where that is? We're about to fix that.\n\n(Dan Abbot, *Colorado Midland Railway*, 1989, pp. 258-9).","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237056306-img-49561?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237056306-img-49561?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237056306-img-49561?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237056306-img-49561?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237056306-img-49561?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-05T16:29:18.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786388448635-img-50091","caption":"Here's an uncredited drawing whose caption implies that this was the town as of 1879. I'm skeptical about the date, though I like the wintry atmosphere.\n\n(Andrew Fiske Stone, ed., *History of Colorado*, 1918, vol. 1, p. 155.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786388448635-img-50091?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786388448635-img-50091?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786388448635-img-50091?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786388448635-img-50091?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786388448635-img-50091?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-10T18:58:17.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563953071-img-50201","caption":"A close up.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 18.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563953071-img-50201?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563953071-img-50201?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563953071-img-50201?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563953071-img-50201?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563953071-img-50201?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:05:41.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786667944137-best-baldwin","caption":"Why am I skeptical?  Let's start with this 1879 map of the town and its mining claims. Can't see much? No problem. We'll zoom in.\n\n(It's called the Baldwin Map after its publisher, but the draftsman was Frank L. Sizer.\n\n[https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/leadvillecolorado-baldwin-1879↗↗](https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/leadvillecolorado-baldwin-1879))","width":1259,"height":903,"aspect":1.3942414174972315,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667944137-best-baldwin?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667944137-best-baldwin?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667944137-best-baldwin?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667944137-best-baldwin?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667944137-best-baldwin?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786667953469-best-baldwin-1","caption":"Here's the town part of that map. Again, this is 1879, and it sure doesn't look like that cozy village. Notice the Harrison Reduction Works at the lower right. That would be the town's first major smelter, which was established by Edwin Harrison in 1878. It's just north of the unlabelled California Creek, which comes out of California Gulch to the east and along which you can see another smelter and a sawmill. Looking up from Harrison's smelter, which was actually called the St. Louis Smelting Company, you see Harrison Avenue. No mystery about that name. It's the town's main street, though until 1879 people would have said that Chestnut was the main drag. (Chestnut crosses Harrison at the bottom of the grid.)\n\nThe whole townsite is labelled as the Stevens and Leiter Placer, which is interesting in two ways. First because the earliest miners in this part of Colorado were looking for alluvial or surface gold and, as such, were legally permitted, to stake 160-acre placer claims. This particular claim proved more profitable as town lots, and so Stevens and Leiter set up a real-estate office and had the placec surveyed and sold off, lot by lot. The other interesting point (but this will get arcane) is that Leiter was Levi Leiter, best known as the partner of Marshall Field in Chicago. In 1895, six years after this map appeared, Levi's daughter Mary married George Curzon, who four years later became viceroy of India. I wonder how many people in Leadville in 1900 knew or cared about the vicereine, who was famous for her beauty. I also wonder if the lovely Mary had heard of Leadville. (I told you it would be arcane.)","width":683,"height":724,"aspect":0.9433701657458563,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667953469-best-baldwin-1?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667953469-best-baldwin-1?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667953469-best-baldwin-1?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667953469-best-baldwin-1?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667953469-best-baldwin-1?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786667962975-best-baldwin-2","caption":"And here's a bit of the eastern half of that map. Once people figured out that the real wealth was in underground silver, not surficial gold, they had to shift from placer claims to lode claims, which were smaller and in theory staked along the outcrop of a mineral vein. Well, the silver here isn't in veins, but the law's the law, so we have the ground plastered with the narrow rectangles of lode claims. I'm showing only Fryer Hill, but if you look closely, you can see the mines Tabor made famous, including the Little Pittsburgh (usually spelled without the h), and the Matchless, where Baby Doe lived and died. Next to it is the Robert E. Lee, which was Leadville's most productive mine..","width":1043,"height":590,"aspect":1.7677966101694915,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667962975-best-baldwin-2?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667962975-best-baldwin-2?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667962975-best-baldwin-2?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667962975-best-baldwin-2?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786667962975-best-baldwin-2?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786724640122-screenshot-2026-08-14-104340","caption":"Here's a map from 1901, once again showing claims, but showing also that in practice groups of claims operated as a single mine. The map also suggests that many mines weren't operating at all.\n\n(Charles F. Saunders map of Leadville Mining District, 1901. [https://raremaps.com/gallery/detail/108002/the-leadville-mining-district-compiled-from-official-records-and-other-reliable-sources-by-chas-f-saunders-january-1901↗↗](https://raremaps.com/gallery/detail/108002/the-leadville-mining-district-compiled-from-official-records-and-other-reliable-sources-by-chas-f-saunders-january-1901))","width":737,"height":911,"aspect":0.8090010976948409,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786724640122-screenshot-2026-08-14-104340?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786724640122-screenshot-2026-08-14-104340?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786724640122-screenshot-2026-08-14-104340?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786724640122-screenshot-2026-08-14-104340?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786724640122-screenshot-2026-08-14-104340?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786723629668-img-50371","caption":"A detail showing (at the arrow) the Little Pittsburg that set off the rush but which by 1901 was apparently no longer in production.","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786723629668-img-50371?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786723629668-img-50371?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786723629668-img-50371?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786723629668-img-50371?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786723629668-img-50371?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-14T15:49:16.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237675510-img-48241","caption":"Enough geology, you say? Fine, we'll go back to town. This is a U.S. Geological Survey map surveyed in 1879 and published in 1883 with the Emmons atlas. You can see the Denver and Rio Grande railroad station at the top, along with a very well-developed street grid. Question: does the grid show actual streets or, instead, the plans of Stevens and Leiter?  The answer isn't obvious to me.\n\n(To suit the needs of geologists, this map was drawn with east at the top. I find this confusing, so I've \"corrected\" it here and put north up top.)","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237675510-img-48241?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237675510-img-48241?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237675510-img-48241?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237675510-img-48241?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237675510-img-48241?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-27T21:34:12.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786385709678-leadville-from-google","caption":"Here's Harrison Avenue, with Harrison's St. Louis Smelting Company down around those ponds.","width":798,"height":780,"aspect":1.023076923076923,"orientation":"square","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385709678-leadville-from-google?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385709678-leadville-from-google?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385709678-leadville-from-google?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385709678-leadville-from-google?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385709678-leadville-from-google?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786547674871-sanborn-leadville-1886","caption":"The date is 1886, and the map shows the incremental growth of the grid, with plenty of blank space where I think the USGS map says there were streets.\n\nCareful: the map was drawn with East up top, and I haven't \"corrected\" it. The Denver and Rio Grande station is where it belongs, near the intersection of 15th and Poplar. Three buildings are identified on Harrison Avenue: the Tabor Grand Hotel, the Court House, and the Tabor Opera House.\n\n[(https://www.sanbornfiremaps.com/map/leadville-colorado-1886)↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗](https://www.sanbornfiremaps.com/map/leadville-colorado-1886)","width":1613,"height":1913,"aspect":0.8431782540512285,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547674871-sanborn-leadville-1886?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547674871-sanborn-leadville-1886?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547674871-sanborn-leadville-1886?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547674871-sanborn-leadville-1886?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547674871-sanborn-leadville-1886?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786547305840-sanborn-leadville-highres","caption":"Three years later, in 1889, the Tabor Hotel has become the oddly named Kitchen Hotel  (from its new owners, the Kitchen brothers). The grid hasn't grown much, but three railroads are shown, including the Denver and Rio Grande and the Colorado Midland.\n\n[(https://www.sanbornfiremaps.com/map/leadville-colorado-1889)↗↗↗](https://www.sanbornfiremaps.com/map/leadville-colorado-1889)","width":1613,"height":1913,"aspect":0.8431782540512285,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547305840-sanborn-leadville-highres?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547305840-sanborn-leadville-highres?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547305840-sanborn-leadville-highres?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547305840-sanborn-leadville-highres?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786547305840-sanborn-leadville-highres?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786551266423-1937-sanborn-index","caption":"One last gasp: 1937.","width":1144,"height":773,"aspect":1.4799482535575679,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786551266423-1937-sanborn-index?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786551266423-1937-sanborn-index?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786551266423-1937-sanborn-index?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786551266423-1937-sanborn-index?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786551266423-1937-sanborn-index?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786237376093-img-48921","caption":"Back to the 1880 map, now with its original orientation. It shows Harrison Avenue running toward the smelter operated by Harrison's St. Louis Smelting and Refining Company. Nearby you can find the Grant Smelter, built a bit later and the town's largest. By 1893 Meyer Guggenheim owned all the lead smelters in the Rocky Mountains and operated them under the name ASARCO, for American Smelting and Refining. From such rude beginnings were the Guggenheim philanthropies funded.","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237376093-img-48921?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237376093-img-48921?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237376093-img-48921?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237376093-img-48921?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237376093-img-48921?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-31T21:44:09.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786385784782-leadville-by-google-2","caption":"Just so you don't get lost: the D&RG depot was in the yellowish area near the top here. U.S. Highway 24 runs past the site, then, after two quick right-angle turns, continues south on Harrison Avenue, which curves to avoid the St. Louis smelter site.  Part of the grid is shaded grade.  Welcome to West Park, the new home in the 1960s of houses that had been part of the company town of Climax, 12 miles to the north.  The mine there was expanding, and the houses had to get out of the way.  They landed here.","width":918,"height":780,"aspect":1.176923076923077,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385784782-leadville-by-google-2?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385784782-leadville-by-google-2?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385784782-leadville-by-google-2?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385784782-leadville-by-google-2?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786385784782-leadville-by-google-2?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786311433313-img-50031","caption":"Leadville has little appeal for vacationers today, and it had even less when its smelters were smoking. Why aren't they smoking here? I don't know.\n\n(For more than most people want to know about smelting in Leadville, see Andrew Mueller's 2019 doctoral dissertation from Michigan Tech: *Fortune and Failure - Gold and Silver Smelting in the Colorado Rockies 1861 to*","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311433313-img-50031?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311433313-img-50031?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311433313-img-50031?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311433313-img-50031?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311433313-img-50031?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T21:32:30.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786311519718-harrison-smelter","caption":"A bit of gory detail from a Sanborn fire-insurance map covering the Harrison smelter.([https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4314lm.g010311895/?sp=31&st=image↗).↗)↗↗↗](https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4314lm.g010311895/?sp=31&st=image)","width":1144,"height":773,"aspect":1.4799482535575679,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311519718-harrison-smelter?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311519718-harrison-smelter?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311519718-harrison-smelter?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311519718-harrison-smelter?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786311519718-harrison-smelter?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786563878439-img-50221","caption":"The Grant Smelter, cheerily dispensing carcinogens.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 50.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563878439-img-50221?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563878439-img-50221?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563878439-img-50221?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563878439-img-50221?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563878439-img-50221?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:08:36.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786387470682-leadville-by-google-3","caption":"The site hasn't recovered.","width":724,"height":471,"aspect":1.5371549893842889,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786387470682-leadville-by-google-3?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786387470682-leadville-by-google-3?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786387470682-leadville-by-google-3?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786387470682-leadville-by-google-3?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786387470682-leadville-by-google-3?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786902832918-screenshot-2026-08-16-125336","caption":"In fact the entire town was designated an EPA superfund site in 1983.  There's been a lot of cleanup since then, but the county still offers free blood-lead testing..\n\n([https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.scs&id=0801478&doc=Y&colid=33851&region=08&type=SC)](https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.scs&id=0801478&doc=Y&colid=33851&region=08&type=SC)","width":1430,"height":917,"aspect":1.559432933478735,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786902832918-screenshot-2026-08-16-125336?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786902832918-screenshot-2026-08-16-125336?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786902832918-screenshot-2026-08-16-125336?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786902832918-screenshot-2026-08-16-125336?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786902832918-screenshot-2026-08-16-125336?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786563849991-img-50251","caption":"Still, we like our omelet, so some will say it's hypocritical to complain. Here's the corner of Chestnut and Harrison with, in 1879, the First National Bank still a bunch of rocks.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 50.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563849991-img-50251?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563849991-img-50251?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563849991-img-50251?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563849991-img-50251?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563849991-img-50251?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:10:11.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786291331803-0","caption":"Here's Edward Jump's drawing of Harrison Avenue from *Leslie's Weekly* for April 12, 1879. The most striking detail? Before the first train came to town, and when everything had to be shipped by wagon, Leadville had a bookstore. It belonged to John Leininger, a German mmigrant who had tried mining but thought better of it.","width":1300,"height":975,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786291331803-0?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786291331803-0?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786291331803-0?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786291331803-0?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786291331803-0?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T16:01:11.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236472251-screenshot-2026-08-06-183047","caption":"The 1880 census suggests that over 90 percent of the population of Colorado. excluding Native Americans, could read and write. How well isn't clear, but I bet Leininger's bookstore stocked Dickens. The Leadville Post Office did a great business, too, reportedly handling 5,000 letters daily. No texting for these poor souls.","width":665,"height":409,"aspect":1.625916870415648,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236472251-screenshot-2026-08-06-183047?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236472251-screenshot-2026-08-06-183047?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236472251-screenshot-2026-08-06-183047?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236472251-screenshot-2026-08-06-183047?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236472251-screenshot-2026-08-06-183047?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786236608346-img-49421","caption":"Harrison Avenue could be fabulously muddy when the temperature rose above freezing.\n\n(*Leslie's* June 14, 1879).","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236608346-img-49421?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236608346-img-49421?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236608346-img-49421?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236608346-img-49421?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236608346-img-49421?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-04T22:11:07.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786314799583-img-50051","caption":"Boardwalks helped.\n\n(Sandra Dallas, *Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps*, 1985, p. 119.)","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314799583-img-50051?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314799583-img-50051?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314799583-img-50051?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314799583-img-50051?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314799583-img-50051?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T22:26:12.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236492521-img-49571","caption":"This is an artist's commemorative rendition, 20 years after the fact, of the arrival in Denver in 1859 of O. J. Goldrick, founder of Denver's first school. Still, I bet Leadville had scenes like this.\n\n(*Leslie's,* May 17, 1879)","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236492521-img-49571?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236492521-img-49571?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236492521-img-49571?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236492521-img-49571?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236492521-img-49571?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-05T16:44:53.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563867918-img-50231","caption":"That gentleman might have stayed at the Grand Hotel, which opened in 1879 on Chestnut.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 50.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563867918-img-50231?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563867918-img-50231?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563867918-img-50231?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563867918-img-50231?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563867918-img-50231?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:09:12.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563859022-img-50241","caption":"Here, from about the same time, is the west side of Harrison Avenue, just up from State Street.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 50.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563859022-img-50241?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563859022-img-50241?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563859022-img-50241?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563859022-img-50241?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563859022-img-50241?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:09:30.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236484637-img-49581","caption":"People without cash could buy a spot on a saloon floor for two bits a night. That's about ten bucks in today's money. Not bad for sound sleeperers, but I don't know about those bare feet.\n\n(*Leslie's, *June 7, 1879).","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236484637-img-49581?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236484637-img-49581?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236484637-img-49581?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236484637-img-49581?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236484637-img-49581?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-05T16:47:25.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236596811-img-49401","caption":"West Second Street, originally called State Street, was the entertainment district, with 23 saloons on the first block west of Harrison.\n\n(*Leslie's,* May 17, 1879.)","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236596811-img-49401?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236596811-img-49401?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236596811-img-49401?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236596811-img-49401?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236596811-img-49401?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-04T22:00:50.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563843623-img-50261","caption":"Here's that sinful block. Too bad we don't have any late-night photos.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 130)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563843623-img-50261?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563843623-img-50261?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563843623-img-50261?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563843623-img-50261?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563843623-img-50261?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:10:32.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236600823-img-49411","caption":"Sunday morning penance.\n\n(*Leslie's,* May 17, 1879).","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236600823-img-49411?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236600823-img-49411?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236600823-img-49411?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236600823-img-49411?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236600823-img-49411?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-04T22:01:23.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786408776280-img-50121","caption":"The same lineup in 1941. Marion Post Wolcott took the picture while she was working for the Farm Security Administration.\n\n(George F. Willison, *Here They Dug the Gold,* 1946, p. xxv.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408776280-img-50121?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408776280-img-50121?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408776280-img-50121?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408776280-img-50121?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408776280-img-50121?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-10T19:52:04.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786408745621-img-50141","caption":"Speaking of Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990), here's her view of Harrison Avenue, also from 1941.\n\n(Reproduced from the Library of Congress collection by George F. Willison in *Here They Dug the Gold,* 1941, p. xxix.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408745621-img-50141?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408745621-img-50141?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408745621-img-50141?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408745621-img-50141?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786408745621-img-50141?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-10T19:53:13.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786312542723-leadville-1950s","caption":"A view of Harrison Avenue from the early 1950s.\n\n(Colorado Encyclopedia, [https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/](https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/) ,\"Leadville\".)","width":1024,"height":568,"aspect":1.8028169014084507,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786312542723-leadville-1950s?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786312542723-leadville-1950s?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786312542723-leadville-1950s?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786312542723-leadville-1950s?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786312542723-leadville-1950s?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786483781238-leadville-1879-tiff","caption":"I'll circle back to more photos, but here are a few maps, beginning with a bird's-eye view from 1879, with California Creek at the bottom and, pointing toward it, Harrison Avenue. How many smelters? I count half a dozen.","width":1920,"height":1144,"aspect":1.6783216783216783,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483781238-leadville-1879-tiff?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483781238-leadville-1879-tiff?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483781238-leadville-1879-tiff?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483781238-leadville-1879-tiff?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483781238-leadville-1879-tiff?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786237628848-img-48351","caption":"The town looks messier in this photograph from 1880, looking south from the higher ground that somebody decided to call Capitol Heights. The prominent building is the Second Ward School.\n\n(USGS Prof. Paper 148, plate 4)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237628848-img-48351?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237628848-img-48351?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237628848-img-48351?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237628848-img-48351?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237628848-img-48351?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:44:44.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786565061552-img-50281","caption":"Here it is.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 258.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786565061552-img-50281?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786565061552-img-50281?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786565061552-img-50281?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786565061552-img-50281?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786565061552-img-50281?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:12:50.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786483801350-leadville-1882-birdseye-tiff","caption":"Three years later, 1882. California Creek is still on the right and Harrison Avenue marches off to the left, where a couple of trains approach a graceful curve. The town itself sticks to its Jeffersonian grid, even though the town is on a slope and the grid is oriented to the compass points, so that there isn't a level street anywhere in town. Before the town lots were built up, people improvised diagonal footpaths, which allowed them to stay more or less on the level.","width":1144,"height":731,"aspect":1.5649794801641588,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483801350-leadville-1882-birdseye-tiff?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483801350-leadville-1882-birdseye-tiff?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483801350-leadville-1882-birdseye-tiff?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483801350-leadville-1882-birdseye-tiff?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786483801350-leadville-1882-birdseye-tiff?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786236983332-img-49831","caption":"The tallest building is the Annunciation Catholic Church on Poplar Street, one block east of Harrison.","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236983332-img-49831?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236983332-img-49831?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236983332-img-49831?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236983332-img-49831?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236983332-img-49831?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-08T16:54:40.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786236997686-img-49871","caption":"Main (now Third Street) at Harrison.","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236997686-img-49871?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236997686-img-49871?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236997686-img-49871?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236997686-img-49871?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786236997686-img-49871?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-08T16:56:44.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237026499-img-49461","caption":"The Sawatch Mountains rise beyond the valley of the Arkansas River, while Leadville has more smelters than steeples. The steeple just right of the fold belongs to that same Annunciation Catholic Church, completed in 1881 on Poplar, a block east of Harrison. The photo is from about 1890.\n\n(Dan Abbot, *Colorado Midland Railway*, 1989, p. 16-17.)","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237026499-img-49461?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237026499-img-49461?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237026499-img-49461?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237026499-img-49461?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237026499-img-49461?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-05T15:51:34.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563813688-img-50291","caption":"The Grand Hotel was hit a year after its completion with a fancy competitor, the Clarendon. Ulysses Grant, who visited in 1880, presumably stayed here. So did Oscar Wilde. Like the Grand, the Clarendon was made of wood. Both are gone, the Clarendon demolished in the 1930s.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 258.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563813688-img-50291?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563813688-img-50291?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563813688-img-50291?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563813688-img-50291?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563813688-img-50291?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:13:34.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563807791-img-50301","caption":"Haw Tabor built an opera house next door to the Clarendon, and you can see the elevated bridge that connected the two. The house sat 880 guests, and on its stage Oscar Wilde appeared. So did John Philip Sousa (with band), Buffalo Bill, Sarah Bernhardt, and, for music-hall lovers, Harry Lauder. The place became the Elks Opera House in 1902 and was taken private in 1955. The city bought it in 2016.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 258.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563807791-img-50301?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563807791-img-50301?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563807791-img-50301?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563807791-img-50301?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563807791-img-50301?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:14:08.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786314784514-img-50071","caption":"A few years later, in 1885, Tabor opened his own Grand Hotel, at Harrison at 7th. It was designed by George King, a British architect addicted to mansard roofs. The hotel was sold to the Kitchen brothers in 1878, but in the 1890s it became the Vendome Hotel. It operated as a hotel under that name into the 1970s, then fell vacant in the 1980s until restored in the 1990s as apartments. It's survived, at least in part, because it was made of brick, not wood.\n\n(Sandra Dallas, *Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps*, 1985, p. 120.)","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314784514-img-50071?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314784514-img-50071?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314784514-img-50071?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314784514-img-50071?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786314784514-img-50071?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T22:27:10.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237653486-img-48301","caption":"Here's a panoramic view of Leadville in 1912, courtesy of USGS Professional Paper 148, plate 1. You can't see anything? Fine. We'll take a few closeups.","width":5712,"height":4284,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237653486-img-48301?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237653486-img-48301?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237653486-img-48301?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237653486-img-48301?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237653486-img-48301?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:44:04.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237724852-img-48251","caption":"We're starting at the left edge.  See  that bright building at the right edge?","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237724852-img-48251?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237724852-img-48251?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237724852-img-48251?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237724852-img-48251?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237724852-img-48251?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:42:04.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786295479954-0","caption":"Here it is on the left.  Sand that pile of sand at the right?","width":1375,"height":1031,"aspect":1.3336566440349176,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295479954-0?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295479954-0?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295479954-0?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295479954-0?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295479954-0?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T17:04:12.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786295367588-0","caption":"Here it is on the left. The spire belongs to the Annunciation Catholic Church.","width":1375,"height":1031,"aspect":1.3336566440349176,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295367588-0?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295367588-0?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295367588-0?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295367588-0?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295367588-0?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T17:04:43.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786295425259-0","caption":"The spire is on the left now.","width":1375,"height":1031,"aspect":1.3336566440349176,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295425259-0?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295425259-0?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295425259-0?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295425259-0?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786295425259-0?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T17:04:49.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786237658919-img-48291","caption":"Headrig smack in a residential neighborhood.","width":4032,"height":3024,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237658919-img-48291?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237658919-img-48291?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237658919-img-48291?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237658919-img-48291?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786237658919-img-48291?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-07-29T16:42:58.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786294856005-0","caption":"Here, with a good view of typical houses, is the right side of the panorama.","width":1300,"height":975,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786294856005-0?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786294856005-0?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786294856005-0?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786294856005-0?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786294856005-0?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-09T16:55:35.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786563818704-img-50271","caption":"Upscale properties (that phrase just makes me tingle!) were clustered around the absurdly misnamed Capitol Hill, which, again, was the topographically high end of town around West 8th and 9th between Spruce and Leiter. Here's the home of John McCombe, who made a fortune for himself and others but died broke. Seven years later, in 1909, his mansion in Denver was auctioned to help clear his debts. For details, see *The Rocky Mountain News *for November 7th of that year.\n\n(Dan L. and Jean Harvey Griswold, *The Carbonate Camp Called Leadville*, 1950, following p. 258.)","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563818704-img-50271?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563818704-img-50271?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563818704-img-50271?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563818704-img-50271?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786563818704-img-50271?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-12T17:12:21.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786739022759-healy-house","caption":"Here's Healy House, now a museum but built by August Meyer, a mining engineer who, seemingly like all the others, studied at Freiberg.  Arriving in Leadville, he was the first person to send a load of ore for assay. It went by wagon to St. Louis, which cost more than the silver was worth but proved that there was more than enough silver to make money in Leadville if you could smelt the ore locally, which of course is what Edwin Harrison began to do. Meyer himself moved to Kansas City in 1881, after which his Leadville house became the Healy boarding house until the 1930s.","width":3072,"height":2304,"aspect":1.3333333333333333,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786739022759-healy-house?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786739022759-healy-house?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786739022759-healy-house?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786739022759-healy-house?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786739022759-healy-house?blob=true","captureDate":"2009-07-14T17:48:18.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786809272591-august-meyer","caption":"Here's August.  (I wish Ed McMahon could say it for me.)","width":569,"height":691,"aspect":0.8234442836468886,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786809272591-august-meyer?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786809272591-august-meyer?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786809272591-august-meyer?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786809272591-august-meyer?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786809272591-august-meyer?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786808950222-marburg-kansas-city","caption":"If you were thinking that August Meyer's Leadville house was a little primitive, here's the place he built for himself in Kansas City. It's now the home of the Kansas City Art Institute.\n\n[(https://omahaexploration.com/2025/05/26/vanderslice-hall-the-former-marburg-residence-of-august-and-emma-meyer/)↗↗↗](https://omahaexploration.com/2025/05/26/vanderslice-hall-the-former-marburg-residence-of-august-and-emma-meyer/)","width":900,"height":547,"aspect":1.6453382084095065,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786808950222-marburg-kansas-city?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786808950222-marburg-kansas-city?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786808950222-marburg-kansas-city?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786808950222-marburg-kansas-city?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786808950222-marburg-kansas-city?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786411084898-arthur-foote","caption":"Meet mine manager Arthur Van Wint Foote, best known today for his wife Mary Hallock Foote, an author and artist. He was another Freiberg alum. Later in life, and retired with Mary in California's Grass Valley, where he had managed the North Star mine, he was interviewed by T.E. Rickard, an engineer himself. Foote was wonderfully blunt, as with this Q & A about the time he spent as a young man working n Deadwood for George Hearst, father of William Randolph. \"Q: Was Hearst a good miner? A: His principal business was lawsuits... He himself was dirty, slovenly, and extremely vulgar.\" Rickard adds a note: \"The interview shows that he is direct and outspoken, eschewing periphrasis.... He could look any man in the face, and, if necessary, tell him to go to hell, but he did not say it too often, and he never said it without cause.\"\n\n(T.E. Rickard, *Interviews with Mining Engineers*, 1927, pp. 171-189.)","width":839,"height":857,"aspect":0.9789964994165694,"orientation":"square","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411084898-arthur-foote?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411084898-arthur-foote?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411084898-arthur-foote?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411084898-arthur-foote?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411084898-arthur-foote?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786411091646-mary-hallock-foote","caption":"Foote's wife, Mary Hallock, has found a second life through the inadvertent courtesy of Wallace Stegner, some of whose best passages in his Pulitzer-winning novel *Angle of Repose* (1971) were swiped from her reminiscences. She writes of her arrival in Leadville on the road over Mosquito Pass: \"There was no road--there were wheel-ploughed tracks upon tracks and sloughs of mud, dead horses and cattle by hundreds... ..\" Arthur bought one of the lots of the Stevens and Leiter placer claim and built a one-room log cabin along a ditch. They had no neighbors that first year, though the site now is the very proper 216 West Eighth. Mary writes: \"The man [husband Arthur] broiled steak and made coffee ... before breakfast: he was a much better cook than his wife and he had the hardy unspoiled habits of a good camp mate. He leapt out half-dressed in the cold austere mornings and filled his pails with snow water from the ditch...We dined at the Clarendon with the mob... We smiled at each other and consumed our food.\" Helen Hunt Jackson, who would go on to write the once-famous novel *Ramona*, visited with her husband and told Mary Hallock to leave Leadville because \"grass would not grow there and cats could not live.... We smiled: we were not cats--nor grass, as yet!... Leadville agreed with us, we said.\"\n\n(Mary Hallock Foote, **A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West**, edited by Rodman W. Paul, 1972. Chapter 14 deals with her two years (minus a winter) in Leadwood.)","width":192,"height":262,"aspect":0.732824427480916,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411091646-mary-hallock-foote?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411091646-mary-hallock-foote?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411091646-mary-hallock-foote?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411091646-mary-hallock-foote?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786411091646-mary-hallock-foote?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786823573982-img-50481","caption":"They lined the walls of the cabin--one room split into two by a curtain--with paper, including colorful geological maps. Arthur had an office in town, while \"I went on with my little job--those engravers' blocks to cover with drawings.\"\n\n\"We reached the height of our preposterous social brilliance that summer in Leadville when Clarence King arrived from Washington.\" He offered Arthur a job in the field but was turned down because the couple did not want to be separated.\n\n(The drawing, by Hallock, is reproduced in *A Victorian Gentlewoman,* p. 176.)","width":3024,"height":4032,"aspect":0.75,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823573982-img-50481?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823573982-img-50481?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823573982-img-50481?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823573982-img-50481?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823573982-img-50481?blob=true","captureDate":"2026-08-15T19:41:20.000Z"},{"sha":"upload-1786823690840-mary-hallock","caption":"\"For company he [husband Arthur] brought to the cabin such men as he saw fit... and in that odd little room, in a place which, the year before, had been nowhere, we had guests who would have been distinguished anywhere....\n\n\"'What do you do with all those people,' my mother asked, in one of her letters, 'when you have only five chairs!' Five were more than enough... the others were just from campfire seats themselves and had no quarrel with the floor.\"\n\n[https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mary-Hallock-Foote-This-photograph-is-reproduced-with-permission-of-The-Idaho-Statefig4267942132↗↗↗↗](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mary-Hallock-Foote-This-photograph-is-reproduced-with-permission-of-The-Idaho-State<em>fig4</em>267942132)","width":325,"height":444,"aspect":0.7319819819819819,"orientation":"portrait","layoutHint":"narrow","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823690840-mary-hallock?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823690840-mary-hallock?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823690840-mary-hallock?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823690840-mary-hallock?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823690840-mary-hallock?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786823772165-mary-hallock-foote-580-385-c1","caption":"Geologist Emmons came by, with \"his tall, conspicuous figure in these beautiful white buckskins... He was always good tempered, always imperturbable; he prowled about all summer doing important things silently... He was as fond of people as he was of rocks, which is saying much for an eminent geologist.... When he rode he was one with his horse and went cogitating along, rolling cigarettes and lighting them with the flint and steel in a little silver box that he always carried. His whole attitude towards Leadville and the life there was so different from the feverish states of mind around us... yet it pleased him to know that his big book was used as a guide by... the practical miners consulting it.\"\n\n(Photo from [https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/mary-hallock-foote↗↗)↗](https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/mary-hallock-foote)","width":580,"height":385,"aspect":1.5064935064935066,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823772165-mary-hallock-foote-580-385-c1?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823772165-mary-hallock-foote-580-385-c1?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823772165-mary-hallock-foote-580-385-c1?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823772165-mary-hallock-foote-580-385-c1?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823772165-mary-hallock-foote-580-385-c1?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786823971460-north-star","caption":"Here are the Footes late in life at the house in Grass Valley where they lived while and after Foote managed the town's North Star Mine.  The house was designed by Julia Morgan, the first female licensed architect in California, and it was built in 1904, the year she got that license.","width":500,"height":385,"aspect":1.2987012987012987,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823971460-north-star?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823971460-north-star?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823971460-north-star?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823971460-north-star?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786823971460-north-star?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786826814088-north-star-house","caption":"It's now a community center.  Please!  No drooling.","width":1439,"height":506,"aspect":2.843873517786561,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786826814088-north-star-house?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786826814088-north-star-house?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786826814088-north-star-house?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786826814088-north-star-house?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786826814088-north-star-house?blob=true"},{"sha":"upload-1786830202593-north-star-house-2","caption":"Here's the front side. Eleven thousand square feet for two people. It's an awful lot of space, but I think I could manage, and I know for a fact that my wife could.","width":1920,"height":1268,"aspect":1.5141955835962144,"orientation":"landscape","layoutHint":"wide","srcThumb":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786830202593-north-star-house-2?blob=true","srcSmall":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786830202593-north-star-house-2?blob=true","srcMedium":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786830202593-north-star-house-2?blob=true","srcLarge":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786830202593-north-star-house-2?blob=true","srcOriginal":"/users/bwallach/great-mirror-uploads/1786830202593-north-star-house-2?blob=true"}],"createdAt":"2026-08-09T00:45:32.202Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-16T18:36:45.748Z","heroSha":"upload-1786236451381-screenshot-2026-08-06-183923","lead":"This chapter is just a collection of materials to be used in the real, forthcoming chapter.","publishedDate":"2026-08-16T18:36:45.748Z","_meta":{"sameAs":["/u/bwallach/auto/a03d1eb2-cb22-4715-ac0d-9f8e143761b2"]}}