Placer Mines
Before any prospectors in Park County began excavating the mountains, they used placer mining to extract gold from the local waterways. On a basic level, placer mining is a type of surface mining that involves sifting through sediment and mineral deposits to extract and isolate valuable ore: essentially it's "panning for gold!" There are different types of placer mining depending on the environment and types of minerals sought.[1]
You will see placer mines on beaches and in running water typically.[2] Running water placers are also called alluvium placers, referring to the mud within a running stream. Placer mines are used to recover some valuable minerals such as gold, diamonds, gemstones, and platinum.[3]
Placer mines began to appear all over Park County after 1861. Placer gold was found in Tarryall, Fairplay, Alma, Breckenridge, and Leadville.[4] A notable amount came from the beds of the Platte River.[5] Many placer claims existed to the south and west of Alma.[6] The mining town of Montgomery in Hoosier Pass had another small placer gold operation in 1911.[7]
Two notable placer mines in the Alma mining district are Snowstorm, home of the famous Snowstorm dredge, and Cincinnati.[8] In 1882, the Alma Placer Mining Company owned roughly 640 acres of placer mines![9] The only hindrance is that this type of mining can only be conducted during the short summer months.[10]
[1] Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries, ed., “Placer,” in The American Heritage Student Science Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2014).
[2] George B. Clark, William Andrew Hustrulid, and John Lawrence Mero, “Mining,” April 25, 2017, https://www.britannica.com/technology/mining.
[3] George B. Clark, William Andrew Hustrulid, and John Lawrence Mero, 2017; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Placer Deposit,” in Britannica Concise Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: Britannica Digital Learning, 2017).
[4] Horace B. Patton, Arthur J. Hoskin, and Gurdon M. Butler, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Alma District, Park County, Colorado (Denver, COLORADO: The Smith-Brooks printing, 1912), 146-7.
[5] Patton, Hoskin, and Butler, Geology, 148.
[6] Patton, Hoskin, and Butler, Geology, 185.
[7] Patton, Hoskin, and Butler, Geology, 225.
[8] Patton, Hoskin, and Butler, Geology, 185-190.
[9] Patton, Hoskin, and Butler, Geology, 149.
[10] Patton, Hoskin, and Butler, Geology, 185.