page_title: Gold mining in Colorado
section_title: Gold mining today
hierarchical_section_title: Gold mining in Colorado / Gold mining today
caption_attribution_description: English: Cripple Creek &amp; Victor open-pit gold mine, north of Victor, Colorado, USA
context_page_description: Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.
  Explorer Zebulon Pike heard a report of gold in South Park, present-day Park County, Colorado, in 1807.
  Gold discoveries in Colorado began around Denver; prospectors traced the placer gold to its source in the mountains west of Denver, then followed the Colorado Mineral Belt in a southwest direction across the state to its terminus in the San Juan Mountains. The Cripple Creek district, far from the mineral belt, was one of the last gold districts to be discovered and is still in production.
context_section_description: Colorado gold production was 270,000 ounces in 1892, 660,000 ounces in 1895, peaked in 1900 at 1,400,000 ounces, and reached over one million ounces in 1916 for the last time.  Gold production in 1922 was 300,000 ounces, and 200,000 ounces in 1928.  The Gold Reserve Act helped increase production to 370,000 ounces in 1936.  Production was 380,000 ounces, before the War Production Board limitation order L-208 stopped gold mining in 1942.  Production restarted after World War II with 168,000 ounces in 1947.  Gold production was 66,000 ounces in 1960 and 22,000 ounces in 1967.  Production reached 37,000 ounces in 1972 and 72,000 ounces in 1978.
  Only one Colorado mine continues to produce gold, the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine at Victor near Colorado Springs, an open-pit heap leach operation owned by Newmont Corporation, which produced 322,000 troy ounces of gold in 2019 and reported 3.45 million troy ounces of Proven and Probable Reserves as at December 31, 2019.
caption: Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine in 2006
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