Summit: A Gold Rush History of Summit County, Colorado - Softcover

Gilliland, Mary Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0960362401 ISBN 13: 9780960362400

Publisher: Alpenrose Pr, 1980

Synopsis

Trade Paperback.

About this title

From the Publisher

Three hundred thirty six detail-packed, richly-illustrated pages make this book a great buy. Unlike most books which start strong then fizzle after a couple of years, SUMMIT started strong and has continued to enjoy solid support from Colorado history readers year after year. SUMMIT stands as the first and only complete history of Summit County, Colorado's past. The book is written for local residents and the area's many winter and summer visitors. SUMMIT is not a scholarly tome, but a readable, entertaining and informative history.

SUMMIT features: . . . Nineteen detail-packed chapters . . . Nearly 100 pictures, most antique 1800s photographs . . . Rich design, spiced with century old drawings The book explores the early days of Summit's first explorers, camps with nomad Ute Indians here, follows the beaver men who came seeking pelts and found glittering metal. August 10, 1859 marked the Blue Valley's first official gold strike. Breckenridge sprang up to house a horde of prospectors and other towns followed. SUMMIT takes you up and over the old high passes, along the 1880's narrow-gauge rail routes and on jeep tours of the area's historic mines. The book highlights the county's colorful characters, reports on its crusading newspapers, and, finally, witnesses the birth pangs of Summit skiing. Timed to celebrate the town centennials of Breckenridge, Frisco, Montezuma and Dillon, SUMMIT offers a lively look backward at each, plus histories of dozens more old-time Summit communities.

From the Author

Being the first to write a comprehensive history of this once-bustling gold rush area, I discovered many puzzles to solve. When did the town of Frisco get its start? Nobody really knew. Who was the mysterious Captain Leonard said to have named the town, then vanished? Why did silver mining here make such a strong resurgence a few years after the Silver Panic of 1893 devastated silver towns all over the West? Who was the elusive Captain Buford who started the lucrative Victoria Mine, only to walk away from his expensive effort? Why did 1865 Montezuma and its neighbors, Peru and Chihuahua, have Spanish names? These and other intriguing questions made my research into a challenging detective job, and gave me great elation when the answers emerged.

I wrote SUMMIT with amusement over the high aspirations and the highjinks of the early day mining entrepreneurs. They believed they could do almost anything-railroad tunnels through the massive Continental Divide mountains, redirection of torrential rivers, excavation of 90-foot-deep mine pits into boulder-packed glacial gravel. All this was accomplished without the aid of modern equipment, just men, horses and crude steam power. The misadventure and the larger-than-life characters that punctuated the SUMMIT story make for humorous anecdotes and stories galore. Mary Ellen Gilliland

Edition details

• Publisher: Alpenrose Pr
• Publication date: 1980
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0960362401
• ISBN 13: 9780960362400
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 336