The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-07-24
The Pixies Peak Gold Excitement.


The Pixies Peak Gold Excitement.
MEANWHILE, the story of the new
discoveries of gold in Pixies Peak (for
all the mountain region was known by
that name, though the Peak itself was
seventy-five miles from the diggings)
FASTENED eastward, gathering marvels
/ as it ran, and was attested by sundry
goose-quills full of dust. just following
the financial distresses of 81, thousands
of men were ready for any thing, and
the spring OF 1859 witnessed the begin
ming of such an, emigration across the
plains as had only been equaled by the
widest hours of the rush to California a
decade before. Council Bluffs, Atchi-
son, Kansas City and all the other out
posts of civilization became filed with
excited crowds hastily preparing for
the two-months' journey across the
plains, and an almost continuous pro-
cession of wagons of every description
filed out from their streets to undergo
the hardships and perils of that eager
race to be first at the gold-felds. He
who could not pay for the swift stage
became driver or escort of freight
wagon, or followed along with his
ambulance; while thousands rode on
horseback, or walked, trundling their
luggage in a hand cart or wheelbarrow,
or slung upon their backs. Those were
the storied days when the motto spikes
Peak or Bust" was inscribed on many
wagon-sheet by jubilant owners, and
those also the days when the same
wagons, hopelessly begged in some
treacherous fording ofthe Arkansas, or
broken down among the rocks of stony
bit of butteroad, were grimly labeled,
Busted, by Thunder!''
The vanguard of this exodus reached
the Platte in April, and it is estimated
that nearly a hundred thousand persons
followed during the summer. We are
told that they were in the main from the
better classes of men at home, but that
nineteen-twentieths were entirely ignor-
ant of gold-mining. Thousands were
disappointed, of course, and thin re-
turning stream met but failed to dis
courage the new corners, who pressed
across the weary, bone-marked plains,
sure that their lot would be an excep-
ton to all the misfortunes described.
As soon as the SHOWS were sufficiently
melted, the Russells and others pushed
into the mountains, reasoning that if
these outer streams contained a sedi-
ment of drifted gold, the source of the
riches must yet remain in the rocks
whence the waters came. One party, I'M
der the leadership OF j. III. Gregory,
started up Clear Creek, to point Just
above where Black Hawk now is, and
began prospecting in the gulch. He
climbed the HILL" says a written ac-
count of the incident, "where he be-
lieved the wash or gold-dirt would nat
urally come from, scraped away the
grass and leaves and filled his gold pan
with dirt, and took it down to the gulch.
Upon panning (washing) it down, there
was about four dollars worth of gold
in it! He dropped his pan and imme-
diately summoned all the gods of the
universe to witness his astonishing tri-
umph. That night he could not sleep. -
Whether any immortals obeyed the
summons the record fails to inform us,
but it is certain that it was very few
days only before the rugged trails, slip
perry with ice and gagged with snow,
became thronged with eager, though
disheartened emigrants, fired with new
hope. Almost simultaneously, discov-
cries of rich bars and veins were made
at Idaho Springs, Boulder, Golden, and
elsewhere, and, the mountains, from
Estes Park to the Sangre de Cristo, be-
gan to be overrun with prospectors,
while gold and silver lodges and placers
were discovered so rapidly that no one
could keep track of them, and thousands
of claims were taken up on both sides
and among the very SUBMITS of the
Snowy Range, under laws and regula-
tions framed by the miners themselves.
Valleys hitherto undisturbed, except by
the light tread of the moccasin and tho
hardly timid game it followed; cliffs
that had echoed to no other sound than
the noise of the elements or the voices
of bird and beast, now resounded with
human energy and were despoiled by
the ruthless shovel and ak. The sage
brush yielded place to wagon tracks,
and the splendid spruces were felled to
lie docile in the walls of log cities that
sprang into shape with the startled
swiftness and decision of magic.-ErneSt
IngerSOll, IN Scrt6ner'S Magazine.