CENTRAL CITY - The first gold vein was discovered in the Rocky Mountains east of what would become Central City on May 6, 1859, 166 years ago.

John H. Gregory was an experienced miner who had learned how to prospect for gold in Georgia in 1827. He had lost all his money in the stock market crash of 1857, so in 1858 he left his wife and kids in Georgia to seek his fortune in the gold fields of British Colombia.

On his way to Canada, Gregory ran out of money in Lawrence, Kansas, and was forced to take a job driving a mule train to Fort Laramie in Wyoming. While there, during the summer of 1858

he learned of the gold discoveries in the foothills of the Snowy Range near what would become Denver .

“The spring is backward, and the snow is long on leaving the mountains.” - J. M. Fox, May 8, 1959, Denver City, Kansas Territory  

Gregory decided to set out during the early winter months of 1859 to pan every stream gully emanating from the Rocky Mountain range front southwards towards Denver from Fort Laramie. For the next four months he had little luck until he reached what was then called the Vasquez Fork of the South Platte River (now Clear Creek). 

By himself, he followed the gold showings in the river gravel up the branches of the river, deep into the uncharted wilderness of the Snowy Range mountains, close to what he felt was the source of the gold in the creek.

But before he could prospect the area further, a spring snowstorm forced him to seek shelter on the lee side of a big boulder next to two small spruce trees. He hollowed out a spot under the trees with his gold pan and hunkered down to wait out the spring snow under his bear skin coat. 

Two days later, Gregory emerged from his burrow to waist deep snow. The thick deep spring snow had obscured all the local landmarks, making it impossible for him to know exactly where he was, let alone find the source of the gold in the stream.

He was cold and had eaten the last of his deer meat while waiting out the storm, so he was forced to leave his discovery and fight his way through the snow, rocks, and fallen timber back to town for supplies.

He was too tired and weak to even shoot a rabbit for food along the way. After a few days he finally reached a row of cabins at the base of the mountains, called Arapahoe (near the present site of Golden).

Lacking any money, he drifted into the local saloon hoping to find someone who would buy him a drink. The improvised bar at the saloon in Arapahoe consisted of a wooden plank laid across a couple of crates and two tin cups to share shots of homemade Taos Lighting.

Taos Lightning was a distilled corn beverage or “corn-whiskey” from New Mexico that “struck hard, fast and often” and it was said that it tasted so bad that anyone who drank more than one cup of the stuff never lived long enough to become addicted.

In the saloon, he met a clean-cut man, David K. Wall, who had a large walrus mustache. Wall gave him a dollar so he could buy some food.

Wall was a farmer who had staked out a homestead east of town. After eating, Gregory walked down the street to a two-doored cabin that served as a hotel. He had spent the dollar he was given to buy a meal, so he convinced the owner of the hotel to let him sleep on the floor under his bearskin robe for free.

After a few days of recuperation, Gregory set out to find Wall’s farm and try to convince him to provide him with some supplies in exchange for a portion of what he had discovered—typically  referred to as a “grubstake” agreement.

Wall was more interested in buying a cow for his farm, but he trusted Gregory enough to agree to grubstake his endeavor only if he brought along his greenhorn friends from Indiana, who “don’t know gold from beans—except they would probably try to fry both of them in a pan.” The greenhorns included Wilkinson (Wilks), and Archibald (Arch) Defrees, John and Charles Zeigler, William Fouts (from Missouri) and three others. 

The night before they started out, the Ziegler brothers (who had the most money) took everyone out to the saloon in Arapahoe for drinks. One drink led to another and before they knew it, Charles Ziegler had revealed their scheme to “Dr.” D. Joseph Casto, W. H. Bates and five others from Iowa, who were equipped with a mule and two-wheeled wagon.

Dr. Casto (a former Baptist divinity student) and his group could not get their supplies assembled by the next morning, so Gregory drew them a crude map and they all agreed to meet at the site later the next day. They shook hands and toasted the agreement by sharing two tin cups of Taos Lightning. 

Around noon the next day, May 6, 1859, Gregory and his rag-tag party of greenhorns arrived at the bottom of the wooded gully where he had weathered the snowstorm a week earlier.

Gregory and Wilks Defrees scrambled through patches of snow, aspen leaves, and pine needles about 200 feet up the south side of the gulch looking for the blossom rock, or source of the gold in the river below.

The ground was still frozen, but they managed to scrape up enough dirt from a rock outcropping Gregory said looked “jest like the burnt quartz of the Georgia mines I worked in.”

The two men returned to the creek and proceeded to pan the dirt with the others. They were able to pan about four dollars in gold (about 0.2 ounces) from that first pan of decomposed quartz vein material. This little group had discovered the first lode gold (the Cornish term for vein gold) found in the territory. They named it the Gregory Lode.  

There were no mining claim laws in this wilderness, so Gregory and the group felt that it would be fairest if every man could claim a piece of the vein, as was typical in the California gold fields.

They determined that each mining claim would be fifty feet wide and extend one hundred feet along the ledge, or outcrop, of the vein. Each man would get one mining claim along the ledge and Gregory, the discoverer, would receive an additional claim.  

The ground was still frozen, so for the next three days the men constructed sluice boxes and began to improve their crude sleeping quarters. That evening, who should come struggling up the timber filled gully, but Dr. Casto, Colonel Bates, a mule, a cart, and the five other greenhorns from Iowa they had met at the saloon in Arapahoe.

By the first of June, over four hundred men poured into the gulch, and during the summer of 1859 over 30,000 people streamed into the Gregory discovery site, known as Mountain City. Central City and Black Hawk were soon established west and east of Mountain City.    

References

Fossett, F., 1876, Colorado, Its Gold and Silver Mines, Farms and Stock Ranges and Health and Pleasure Resorts: 1st ed., Crawford, N.Y.

Hollister, O.J., 1867, The Mines of Colorado, Samuel Bowles and Co., Springfield Mass., 45 p.

Thayer, W.M., 1888, Marvels of the New West, Henry Hill publishing Co, Norwich Conn., 715 p.