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Accordion style presentation, with 18 panels. 17 b/w captioned images including images of Deer Creek, Dome Rock, Platte Canyon, Kenosha Pass, Horse Shoe Mountain, Summit Lake, Mt. Harvard, Twin Lakes, Mount of the Holy Cross, as well as numerous street views of Leadville, one of which is a 4-panel panoramic view. Landscape format, 3-1/2" x 5" "Mining in the Leadville area began in 1859 when prospectors discovered gold at the mouth of California Gulch. In 1876, black sand, once considered bothersome to placer gold miners, was discovered to contain lead carbonates, leading to a rush of miners to the area and the founding of the town in 1877. By 1880, Leadville was one of the world's largest and richest silver camps, with a population of more than 15,000. Income from more than thirty mines and ten large smelting works produced gold, silver, and lead amounting to $15,000,000 annually. The Leadville strike of 1880 was the first major labor conflict in the central Colorado silver boomtown, shutting down most of the areaâ s mining district from May 26, 1880. According to one historian of the era, 'The outpouring of the precious metal from Leadville transformed the struggling Centennial State into a veritable autocrat in the colony of states. As if by magic the rough frontier town of Denver became a metropolis; stately buildings arose on the site of shanties; crystal streams flowed through the arid plains and the desert blossomed and became fruitful. Poverty gave way to the annoyance of wealth and the fame of silver state spread throughout the world.'" [Wiki] No doubt this souvenir viewbook produced in 1880 to satisfy the public's curiousity about this new Western 'boomtown'. Modest wear. PO pencil annotation to verso of last image, "this Book is old burn it when I am gone given me by my unlcle Bernard Mc he was in a silver mine at leadville you will not card for it - so burn C. E. C." A yellow sticky opposite notes one Bernard McCaffrey, "miner, bds 817 E. 6th St", found in the 1880 Leadville directory. R. R. News Agent stamp on rear cover paste-down. A VG copy. Original embossed red cloth covers, with gilt stamped title lettering to front cover. Seller Inventory # 51313
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