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Black Hawk, Colorado: History & Historic Facts
Black Hawk, "The City of Mills," is one of
Colorado’s oldest cities, one of a number of towns that grew up in
"Gregory’s Gulch," the narrow ravine where Georgia prospector John H.
Gregory first discovered lode gold in the western part of Kansas
territory in 1859. Within months, thousands of would-be miners poured
into the gulch, hoping for more big strikes like Gregory’s. A few found
bonanzas, many found paying claims, but the great majority either moved
elsewhere to try their luck or, proclaiming the whole "Pike’s Peak Gold
Rush" a hoax, went back to their settled lives in the States.
 Mountain
City was the first name given to the ragged string of camp-like
settlements, but as the boom subsided and the hard work of extracting
the gold began, the remaining population began to coalesce into more
organized townsites. Lying up the gulch to the west was Nevada – also
known as Nevadaville or bald Mountain. Below it was Central City, and
further down, where the gulch flowed into the North branch of Clear
Creek, was established Black Hawk Point. Most accounts insist the name
came from an early "stamp" mill brought in from Rock Island, IL and
named for the famous Indian chief.
With its abundant supply of water, something in short supply elsewhere
in the gulch, to drive water wheels and flow through sluices, Black
Hawk quickly became the milling center for the gold ore mined
throughout what became known as Gilpin County. First by ore wagon, and
later by train, tons of precious rock were sent to Black hawk for
various processes designed to extract the maximum amount of gold from
the quartz ores.
At first, primitive crushers of Spanish heritage called arastras were
used, much as peasant women used stone to grind grain. But soon these
gave way to the stamp mills that were to dominate Black hawk’s industry
for a generation. These buildings ran the gold ore through a number of
different levels, on each of which cam-driven hammers pounded the ore
into finer and finer particles, before at last it was chemically
separated by the use of mercury amalgam.
Black Hawk was incorporated by an act of the territorial legislature on
march 11, 1864. The future seemed assured, but trouble lay on the
horizon. As the rich surface veins began to play out, deeper hard-rock
mines began to yield complex sulfide ores called sulphurets – rocks
that prevented the simple stamp mills from recovering but a fraction of
the gold locked inside.
Smelting at high temperatures seemed to provide a solution to the
recalcitrant sulphurets, but Black Hawk’s first smelter, built in 1865
by James E. Lyon and George Pullman (of sleeping car fame) proved
unsuccessful. Three years later the Boston & Colorado smelter,
operated by a former Brown University chemistry professor named
Nathaniel P. Hill, opened and the industry was revitalized. Years
later, after Hill had relocated his plant to Denver, a grateful state
elected him to the U.S. Senate (following earlier Gilpin County
Senators Henry M. Teller and Jerome Chaffee).
Within a few years, the Colorado Central Railroad line had reached
Black Hawk, making it possible for coal to be shipped to the smelters
and mills and supplies to be delivered up to the growing mining towns.
The town’s skyline also boasted a new school and Presbyterian Church.
Fine brick business blocks spread along the gulch.
But the economic boom was an environmental disaster. Noise levels were
intolerable, with the roar from crashing stamp mills and screaming
steam locomotives echoing from the canyon walls. The creek’s waters
were polluted by human, animal and industrial wastes. The trees had
long since been cut down for miles around for timbering mills and
powering mine engines, leaving the narrow gulch subject to frequent
flooding that eventually raised the level of Gregory St. by a full
story in some places. And the coal dust and the toxic fumes produced by
the sulfur refining were both dangerous and unsightly. Periodically, a
new "strike" would empty the towns Cripple Creek gold a dozen years
later.
Through it all, the towns along the gulch continued to grow and
prosper. From the outset, many of the miners and millworkers were
immigrants, primarily from England and Ireland. Cornish miners
experienced in hard-rock mining arrived in the 1870s, battling with
their British brethren until all were united by the threat of Tyrolean
miners willing to work for lower wages near the turn of the century.
Beneath them all, socially, was a small band of Chinese miners
organized by Chin Lin Sou. These "Celestials" specialized in placer
mining the dumps and tailings piles left behind from previous hard-rock
operations and pulled the last few dollars of gold from the previously
worthless slag.
After peaking with a population of over 1,500 in 1880, Black Hawk began
to decline in numbers in the early 20th century. A tramway – a tiny
two-foot gauge railway even smaller than the narrow-gauge Colorado
Central (later Colorado & Southern) line that went from Denver to
Black Hawk (and, in 1878, was extended to Central City) - was
constructed in 1886 to make it easier and cheaper for the mines in the
surrounding hills to get their ore to the mills along Clear Creek. But
by World War I business had declined to the point where it too, proved
unprofitable and the tracks were dismantled. By that time, the town had
just one mill left in operation, and by 1920 the population had fallen
to only 250.
A revival of placer mining greeted the rise in the price of gold to $35
an ounce in the 1930s, and the re-opening of the Central City Opera
House in 1932 sparked a similar increase in tourism. The business
district gradually reflected this change, with gift shops and
restaurants replacing hardware stores and milliners.
Though Black Hawk was spared the devastating fires that destroyed many
early mining camps (Central City in 1873 and 1874), the very longevity
of its structures also contributed to their continuing decay. Floods
continued to be a problem, as the town lacked funds to attempt any sort
of water or sewer improvements. With automobiles replacing trains as
the primary means of tourist travel, rail transportation was
discontinued in 1941. But the new mobility proved a mixed blessing, and
more and more local residents began commuting to jobs outside the
county, while tourists began to bypass the quaint old mining towns for
more distant destinations.
 Even
the formation of the Central City – Black Hawk National Historic
Landmark District could do nothing to stem the tide of decay. Faced
with declining population, deteriorating infrastructure and
disintegrating architecture, city leaders banded together with their
peers in Central City and Cripple Creek to offer an initiative on the
1990 Colorado ballot that would allow limited stakes gambling in the
commercial districts of the towns, with much of the proceeds earmarked
for historic preservation efforts statewide.
The measure passed overwhelmingly, and speculators began renovating
historic structures for use as casinos. Beginning with opening day on
October 1, 1991, gaming proved spectacularly successful in attracting
new investment to the gulch in amounts unheard of since the gold boom
more than a century before.
Moreover, the same easy access and level land that made Black Hawk
suitable for the mills and smelters of the gold rush days now made it
attractive for larger casino, hotel and parking projects. The
unexpected pace and scale of the development led inevitably to some
disillusionment, with existing institutions trying hard to cope with
the flood of changes.
Entering yet another century, Black Hawk faces the prospect of trying
to sustain – and live through – yet another boom period. The
opportunities and challenges are there for those who will respect its
rich heritage while at the same time welcome its unlimited future with
the spirit of adventure that brought forth those ambitious miners and
merchants of the 1800s. |
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