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Events/Rush · 1878

Leadville silver boom

Rush, 1878 to 1879, United States.

What happened

Leadville had a few hundred residents at the start of 1878, when it was incorporated. By the end of 1879 it had about 30,000 people, nearly the size of Denver. The Little Pittsburg Mine, found by George Hook and August Rische, was the most notable discovery.1,2

Why it matters

Leadville shows how fast a silver camp could outgrow a state capital.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Tres Puntas silver is discovered in Chile

    The find kept Atacama silver output up as Chanarcillo began to tire.3

  2. Caldera-Copiapo railway opens its first section

    Chile first railway, built with Atacama capital, ran 41 km from Caldera port to Monte Amargo.4,5

  3. 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.6,7

  4. General Mining Law of 1872

    The law remains the basis for claims to locatable minerals on US federal land.8,9

  5. Leadville silver boom

    Leadville shows how fast a silver camp could outgrow a state capital.1,2

  6. Broken Hill Proprietary Company formed

    BHP grew from this mine into one of the largest mining companies in the world.10,11

  7. South Broken Hill silver mine airblast

    The regulator uses it as a case study of ground failure at Broken Hill.11,12

  8. Broken Hill Central Mine falls of earth

    The regulator ties the deaths to creep caused by shrinkage of mullock fill.11,13

Open the full timeline

Where next

People

Worked hereMargaret 'Molly' BrownShe moved to Leadville at 18. By 1879 it had about 30,000 people.1

Mines

Led toClimax MineNear Leadville, Climax came online in 1917 and later supplied 80 per cent of world molybdenum.14Located inLeadvilleSee the mine at the heart of this story: Leadville.1

Events

Inspired byComstock Lode strikesLeadville had a few hundred people in early 1878 and about 30,000 by the end of 1879.1ExamplesSilver price collapse after the Hunt silver squeezeFrom Leadville's boom of 1878 to the squeeze of 1980: silver has swung hard before.15

Places

Located inLeadvilleSee the place where this happened: Leadville.1

Sources

  1. Leadville Colorado Encyclopedia
  2. Leadville (item Q286702), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Los ciclos mineros del cobre y la plata (1820-1880) Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile
  4. Ferrocarril Caldera-Copiapo Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile
  5. Wikidata item Q3708 (Caldera, Chile)
  6. Peabody A., Early voyages to California (treasure shipped from San Francisco 1854-1869) Library of Congress (Essex Institute Historical Collections)
  7. Wikidata item Q62 (San Francisco)
  8. Mining Claims and Sites on Federal Lands (PDF) US Bureau of Land Management
  9. Washington, D.C. (item Q61), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  10. History of Broken Hill Broken Hill City Council
  11. Broken Hill (item Q270734), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. 1895 South Broken Hill Silver Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  13. 1902 Broken Hill Central Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  14. Climax company timeline Climax Molybdenum (Freeport-McMoRan)
  15. History of the CFTC in the 1980s US Commodity Futures Trading Commission

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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Pictures: South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Falu gruva, Lundberg, Bengt A / Europeana (CC0 1.0); 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); The laboratories of Marie and Pierre Curie, Paris: room where experiments on uranium ore took place. Photograph, ca. 1900., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).