King
Southeast of Como was the town of King, located near the Lower Como Mines. The mines were initially called the Boyd Mines, after George Boyd, who began their excavation in 1876-1877. They were later changed to the King Mines, or Lower Como Mines. King was built in the spring of 1879, shortly before the establishment of Como, and was itself named Como before that designation was transferred north to the new town.[1] Many of the inhabitants of King moved to the new Como with the coming of the railroad and King became a town predominantly made up of miners and their families.[2] The two towns were connected by a short offshoot of the main railroad line.[3] Within the town itself there was "a saloon, several stables and a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop, and powder and scale houses for the mine.”[4] Miners of American or British descent lived in the southern part of the town, while those of various other European backgrounds (mainly Italian) lived in the northern part.[5] Although the presence of Chinese immigrants was almost non-existent in the town of King, they made up almost a third of the mining population at its height of production. In most cases Chinese miners lived in Hamilton, north of the new Como, and commuted to the King Mines.[6]
The King Mines saw the greatest activity between 1875-1893.[7] From various accounts there were between six to eight mines, although most agree on seven.[8] Mine No. 1 was especially rich in coal[9] but Mine No. 5 was ultimately the most productive.[10] The mines were slope mines, descending into the ground at forty-five degree angles.[11] They all contained highly explosive gases that ended the lives of not a few miners. Mine No. 1 had two large fire outbreaks, one in 1886 and one in 1889. Multiple attempts were made to put out the fires, but it proved too dangerous, and they were allowed to burn themselves out over the course of a few months. Reopening Mine No. 1 was no small task, and the company lost $50,000 in doing so after the 1886 fire. After the fire of 1889, Mine No. 1 was allowed to close[12] and was abandoned in 1890, but not before claiming a number of lives.[13]
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[1] Allison Chandler, “The Story of Como & King Park, Colorado,” Denver Westerners Roundup, February 1963, 4.
[2] John Aldrich, Ghosts of Park County: A Guide to the Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Park County, Colorado, (Lakewood, CO: Centennial Graphics, 1989), 27-28; Laura Van Dusen, Early days in South Park: Parked in the Past, (Como, CO: Vandusenville Publications, 2016), 101.
[3] Mary Dyer, Echoes of Como, Colorado, 1879-1988 (1988), 120.
[4] Virginia McConnell Simmons, Bayou Salado: the Story of South Park (Colorado Springs, CO: Century One Press, 1982), 165.
[5] Chandler, 7; Aldrich, 28; Simmons, 165.
[6] Gary Minke, “The Coal Mines of South Park,” Colorado Central Magazine, October 1, 2005, https://www.coloradocentralmagazine.com/the-coal-mines-of-south-park/; Aldrich, Ghosts of Park County, 28.
[7] Chester W. Washburne, “The South Park Coal Field, Colorado,” in Contributions to Economic Geology 1908: Part II Mineral Fields, geologist in charge Marius R. Campbell (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910), 307.
[8] Chandler, 6.
[9] Chandler, 5.
[10] Dyer, 99.
[11] Chandler, 5.
[12] John McNeil, Fourth Biennial Report of the State Inspector of Coal Mines of the State of Colorado for the Years of 1889-1890, (Denver, CO: Collier & Cleaveland Lith. Co., 1890), 60-61, https://spl.cde.state.co.us/artemis/nrserials/nr930010internet/nr930010188990internet.pdf.
[13] Chandler, 6; Gerald E. Rudolph, “The Chinese in Colorado, 1869-1911” (dissertation, 1964), 73-74.