Silver Stuff!
11-27-17
By Alex
How do you think the silver Boom ended/started? What’s the silver Boom, you ask? Well, this event in history is when the heat of the California gold rush simmered down, and the Colorado silver Boom was HEATING UP! The silver Boom was exactly what it sounded like: an explosion (Figuratively) of silver right smack-dab in the middle of Colorado, Leadville and Aspen. The two main locations with silver in them. So get ready to learn about the Colorado silver Boom.
Welcome to Leadville!
Silver Probably Included (Get Here Fast)!
First of all, the main area of the silver Boom was in Leadville Colorado. Before Leadville was founded, in 1879, Colorado was brand-new. People took advantage of the free land, and after going more into soon-to-be-Leadville, thepeople found some black sand. Now, black sand was strange to people, so they decided to find out why it was black. They figured out that the black sand contained 40% Lead and silver (over $82 MILLION to be exact)! These people had struck it rich, just by picking up some sand and wondering why it was black! After this, Leadville was named Leadville for the lead in the black sand (Easiest way to name a town? Find the best resource, am I right?). By 1880, over 30,000 people lived in Leadville, which helped westward expansion a lot, and during this time, Horace A.W Tabor was called “The silver king” because of the amount of money he made from his mines. He was very rich, and even became a U.S. senator for a while! (I don't know how much money he had, but it was a LOT).
Talk About Bad Luck
However, thanks to over-supply of silver, the U.S. Government put an end to this get-rich-quick scheme with the Sherman silver Purchase Act in 1890, which tells people that you can dig up all the silver you want, but we aren’t buying it anymore. This made people mad, because they were just recovering from the end of the Gold rush. Now, they had nothing else to get rich off of, and businesses went down, because who would buy their stuff if they had no money! Besides, it’s not like Petroleum will ever be valuable am I right? (Spoiler alert: it does, actually.)
Aspen’s Very Own, Smuggler Mine!
Found on the slopes of Smuggler mountain, this mine was where the silver in Aspen was found. The mine is the OLDEST, still operating mine in the Aspen mining district today. The largest mined-up silver nugget was 1,840 POUNDS, and was 93% pure silver, the purest amount of silver in the world, and it was found inside Smuggler’s mine. The mine contained ⅕ of the world’s silver output, and though the Sherman silver Purchase act closed most silver mines, Smuggler mine was one out of a few mines that re-opened after the act. Also, the mine goes down over 1,000 feet under the city of Aspen, but the lowest chasms are currently flooded. The amount of land around it that is considered part of the property is 9.7 acres. In 2012, the mine was up for sale, which was a smart move, considering there is about 890,000 pounds of silver that is still up for grabs!
Comparing the Silver Boom and the Gold Rush
Different Same Different
silver Boom Both Gold rush
The Silver Boom took place in colorado, not california.
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They both involved precious metals that brought people to the states.
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The Gold Rush is more well-known than the silver boom
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The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was the end of the silver boom.
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Both were very profitable/important for America.
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The amount of gold in California was decreased by a substantial amount.
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All In All,
As you can clearly see, not only was the silver Boom important to Westward expansion, but it helped populate and lay the foundation for the new state of Colorado. Without the silver boom, we wouldn’t be here today in this great state.
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