Description
MINES AND MINING MEN OF COLORADO: Historical, Descriptive and Pictorial. An Account of the Principal Producing Mines of Gold and Silver; the Bonanza Kings and Successful Prospectors; the Picturesque Camps and Thriving Cities of the Rocky Mountain Region.
Denver: John G. Canfield, Publisher, 1893. Printed by Carson, Hurst & Harper, Art Printers, Engravers & Embossers, Denver.
First edition. Oblong quarto, 14 × 10½ inches. 118 pages, plus index. Numerous halftone illustrations from photographs of mines, mills, camps and towns, with portraits of mine owners and operators. Printed on enamel-coated paper. Original burgundy pebble-grained leather-substitute covers, front cover lettered in gilt, with blind-stamped corner ornaments. Original endpapers.
Published in 1893, the year of the World’s Columbian Exposition and the silver crash. This pictorial survey of Colorado’s gold and silver mining industry appeared at the height of the bonanza era, just before silver collapsed. It covers Leadville, Aspen, Creede, Breckenridge, Cripple Creek, Telluride, Silverton, Ouray, Kokomo and many other districts. Its coverage of Cripple Creek is especially early, because the district was barely two years old when the book was published; the view of Cripple Creek (Fremont) by photographer W. J. Gillen is dated in the plate March 27, 1893. The portraits and biographical sketches document many lesser-known mining figures who don’t appear in the standard county histories.
Rare. A recent auction catalogue reported that it could trace no copy sold at auction, before its own sale, since 1906 (dealer and private sales not included).
Condition: Good+ to Very Good. Complete, with no ex-library markings. The text is clean and bright. Professionally conserved: hinges reinforced with Japanese tissue; spine reinforced with a library-cloth backing, with the original spine laid down over it; and neutral-pH, acid-free fill paper used in several page areas. Covers show wear, with scratches, rubbing, and board edges worn through to the board.
A substantial example of an important and seldom-seen Colorado mining book.
