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Events/Rush · 1858

Pikes Peak (Colorado) gold rush

Rush, summer 1858 to 1859, United States.

What happened

The Russell brothers and their party found a little gold on Ralston Creek in the summer of 1858 and several towns including Auraria, Denver and Golden followed. Bigger finds came in January 1859 at Chicago Creek and Gold Hill, and John Gregory found lode gold near Black Hawk. As many as 100,000 people may have set out for the goldfields in 1859, but only about 40,000 reached Denver. About 10,000 were left in Colorado by early August 1859.1,2

Why it matters

Most of the early finds were far from Pikes Peak, yet the rush took its name and led to the founding of Colorado Territory.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Paddy Hannan born

    Paddy Hannan born (date from Wikidata).3

  2. Victorian gold rush begins

    Victorian gold rush begins.4

  3. Steamer Winfield Scott leaves San Francisco with US$1 million in gold

    The Pacific Mail steamer sank off Anacapa Island the next night.5

  4. Welcome Nugget found at Ballarat

    It shows how rich the Victorian deep leads were.6,7

  5. San Francisco ships US$724 million of treasure in 16 years

    Eastern ports took US$462 million, England US$168 million and China US$68 million.8,9

  6. Alluvial gold found at Pilgrim's Rest

    It began the gold rush in the eastern Transvaal.10,11

  7. Ernest Oppenheimer born

    Ernest Oppenheimer born (date from Wikidata).12

  8. Gold found on the Witwatersrand

    It created the largest gold field known and Johannesburg.13,14

Open the full timeline

Where next

Mines

Led toLeadvillePlacer gold in the early 1860s led to the Fryer Hill silver-lead strike of 1877.15

Events

Led toCripple Creek gold rushThirty-two years later Colorado had another gold rush, at Cripple Creek.1

Sources

  1. Colorado Gold Rush Colorado Encyclopedia
  2. Denver (item Q16554), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Wikidata item Q2057649 (Paddy Hannan)
  4. Wikidata item Q2096366 (Victorian gold rush begins)
  5. Shipwrecks: The Winfield Scott US National Park Service, Channel Islands
  6. Australian Mineral Facts: Gold Geoscience Australia
  7. Ballarat (item Q17856), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  8. Peabody A., Early voyages to California (treasure shipped from San Francisco 1854-1869) Library of Congress (Essex Institute Historical Collections)
  9. Wikidata item Q62 (San Francisco)
  10. Mpumalanga South African History Online
  11. Pilgrim's Rest (item Q2992348), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. Wikidata item Q819374 (Ernest Oppenheimer)
  13. Discovery of the Gold in 1884 South African History Online
  14. Johannesburg (item Q34647), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  15. Colorado metals history Colorado Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Underground mining equipment by Kaupo Kikkas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).