Colorado mining: A photographic history

"This is a first-rate volume that indicates once again that serious scholarship and interesting content are not incompatible." - Colorado Magazine

In the 1850s, the first of hundreds of prospectors went to Colorado to make their fortunes. They took tents and shovels, enthusiasm and cameras. Thus, mining and photography developed simultaneously in Colorado. In this history of the state's most important industry, Duane Smith combines text and photographs to tell the story of Colorado mining from the gold rush of 1859 to the energy crunch of the 1970s.Over the years mining has changed drastically. The individualism that characterized the pioneer period has given way to twentieth-century corporatism: mining giants like Horace Tabor, Meyer Guggenheim, and Winfield Scott Stratton have been replaced by conglomerates like the American Smelting and Refining Company and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.This book gives the reader glimpses of the drudgery, hope, and disappointment of miners. The miner, at work and at play, the freighter, railroader, merchant, investor, and scores of others all stood before cameras and thus ensured their own bit of immortality as well as a rich historical record. Smith captures in his text and pictures an era past, but one that produced Colorado today. Colorado scholars and buffs will surely enjoy this book.