Gold Hill Mesa Chimney, Colorado Springs
Posted by: 
ronjean
N 38° 50.013 W 104° 51.294
13S E 512593 N 4298315
The only visible reminder that a gold ore processing plant used to be here, where new homes are now being built.
Waymark Code: WM9KA5
Location: Colorado, United States
Date Posted: 08/28/2010
Views: 7
Excerpts from "The Pikes Peak Bulletin": Gold Hill Mesa stood out as the king of the ore milling operations in the first half of the last century.
During its heyday, trains from the Cripple Creek gold fields brought 8,000 tons of ore into the area daily, said Old Colorado City businessman and historian Dave Hughes.
Hughes explained the gold and silver discovered in the Cripple Creek district was locked in other ore and had a high concentration of sulfur. The ore had to be crushed, the sulfur cooked out and the gold and silver extracted. That took a lot of heat and at that time there was a lot of coal in the Colorado Springs area.
“It was cheaper to haul the ore down the mountain than to haul the coal up the mountain,” Hughes said.
Over a period of time there were nearly a half dozen ore mills in the Old Colorado City area but the Gold Cycle mill was the first to perfect the cyanide-leaching process and the most successful.
As many as 250 men worked at the mill at a time. The mill was operational from 1908 to 1948. In 1949 the mill was dismantled and moved to Cripple Creek.
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Is your description history or fantasy: History
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Public or Private Propery: Private
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