15 minute read
More precious than gold by Brian Levine
art-nouveau table between us. Atop the was in the posse in 1948 – the Denver i table lay a silver tray garnished with marzipan-filled semla, kanelbull smothered in cinnamon syrup, flora-scented coffee, and a dish of cut salmon. Nearer her rested several old suede-covered albums bulging with photographs and newspaper clippings. Posse of Westerners. My duty was to ride, “My husband never gave up on not to chase down outlaws but to uncover Bowerman, even after J.C. Bowerman had.” facts. To rediscover history for my fellow She sighed, clasped her hands together. story-keepers of the West. One witness “Albert was a newspaper man when we met. to that history was Mrs. Albert P. (Edah) He owned and edited the Kansas City Daily Nelson. I‘d heard that she was concerned Tribune—” about another winter on her own in The interview had begun. I rushed for Gunnison County, so I set out to see her pencil and paper inside my briefcase. before the first snowfall. “I was from Salvesborg, Sweden. The ride was long and rough, and after Albert and I met in Kansas City in 1896 reaching Pitkin, I found Edah Nelson and married in ’98. There was no talk of outside her home. She was gathering wood, gold mining then. I thought Kansas City and when she stood straight, she was was our home. Then, in 1903, Albert met a noticeably tall, trim and healthy-looking man named George Brant, from St. Louis. for 67. Her grayish-blonde hair was tautly Brant’s talk of a recent Colorado gold strike woven behind her head. She wore an ankle- intrigued Albert. This was Bowerman’s, length, floral-patterned dress, pulled in near Hot Springs Creek, on Copper at the waist, with leather engineer’s boots Mountain, not far from where we now sit.” visible just beneath the hem. She paused, gestured to coffee and “Let me help,” I said, shutting the door food. “Please.” on my ’47 Willys Overland. After several bits of salmon, I opened Mrs. Nelson looked confused, blue-gray an album. “Is that—“ eyes staring at me through her round-lensed “Yes, Albert.” glasses. I approached, cautiously, leather Edah turned a few pages to a briefcase in hand. “Dick Rizzari,” I said, newspaper article cut from the Gunnison perhaps unnecessarily loud. “We agreed to News Champion, dated July 17, 1903. Its meet today. About the Town of Bowerman… headline: “GOLD FIND UNPARALLELED!” your husband’s work in the Box Canyon “That was hyperbole,” she said. “Only, Mining District.” Was I at the wrong house? we didn’t learn that until much later.” “Ah, yes,” she said, and with a growing Whether or not J. C. Bowerman had boldness, “Yes, yes. You’re the chemist been up to chicanery or was a victim of from Golden.” Her words flowed through his own exuberance remains a question. a Swedish accent. “Here.” Stove-sized logs But Bowerman had, indeed, found gold in rolled into my lifted arms. Just like that, vug-pocked quartz wedged between granite
Edah and I became friends. and porphyry. The initial assays ran an In her small Victorian house, thick incredible $70,175 per ton, when gold was curtains and dark furniture dimmed the valued at $20 per troy ounce. And the wire- slightly musty air. A floral-patterned carpet and nugget-gold was readily extracted from covered the parlor floor. We placed the logs the native rock. in a tin basin near a large cast-iron, nickel- The Town of Bowerman was rapidly plated stove. “Sit,” she said, directing me nailed together in fall 1903. Fortune- The American to a burgundy velvet, claw-footed chair. seekers staked hundreds of mining House hotel She balled up sheets of paper and placed claims throughout the hills and gulches and downtown them in the stove’s belly. After lighting the between the Town of Pitkin and Wuanita Bowerman in its fire, Edah sat opposite me, a mahogany Hot Springs. By 1904, nearly 500 people heyday, 1904.
Advertisement
the
PAPER TRAILS series
Albert P. Nelson, president and stalwart supporter of the Brant Independent Mining Company, 1908.
Stock certificate for the Camp Bird Mining, Leasing and Power Company, 1914. Gunnison Gold Belt Map from 1896.
inhabited Bowerman Town and the surrounding territory. The Bowerman Hotel, American House, Bank of Bowerman, Log Cabin Saloon, Phillips Bakery, Elston Assay Office, Cummings Restaurant, Bowerman Herald, and Bowerman City Land Company lined Gold Avenue, the town’s main street. Gunnison County’s Box Canyon Mining District was officially formed.
“The Camp Bird Mine, on Copper Mountain, was first to freight ore,” Edah told me. “That shipment was seized in Pueblo over an ownership dispute. The Richmond Tunnel Company claimed it’d been taken from their property. George Brant resolved the conflict by purchasing both mines in September 1904. The Brant Independent Mining Company was incorporated. And two years later, Albert sold the Daily Tribune to join the Brant Company. Ironically, the Bowerman excitement was already fading.”
Head slightly lowered, eyes on the scrapbooks, she pulled in her lips while adjusting her old-fashioned glasses.
“Something wrong, Mrs. Nelson?” I asked, suddenly feeling awkward.
An eternity later she said, “But Albert was already deeply invested. In 1907, as president of the Brant Company, Albert initiated a defining promotional campaign.”
The campaign, she explained, extravagantly advertised the Camp Bird Mine, Bowerman Mill and Box Canyon Mining District, even as the gold camp receded back into the dust from whence it came. The campaign began in The Mining Investor magazine with a rather audacious two-page display promising company dividends, property improvements, treasury stock and gold production. Photos showed George Brant, the Brant Independent Mill, Camp Bird Mine and Albert.
“This Company has accomplished in a few months what it has taken other companies years to do,” the ad claimed.
“It was all too blustery,” Edah said, tearing up more paper, rolling and twisting it artfully, and then placing it just so inside the stove.
“But Albert truly believed the Company had potential. I’m not so sure about Brant.”
George Brant was a charismatic, rotund, gregarious character full of ideas and superlative statements. He carried about gold specimens in his vest pockets and gave them to the curious. He spoke of grand plans, laughed uproariously and carried himself like a man about to make another fortune. Albert P. Nelson was the opposite. He was determined to make his plans and promises real. “To be fair,” Edah said, “the Company looked promising.” Brant raised significant St. Louis capital to purchase hundreds of acres all over Copper Mountain, between Bowerman and Pitkin. “And some gold was found on the Independent, Camp Bird, I.X.L., Queen Bee, Midnight, Gold Ridge and Roosevelt properties. But most was in pockets. Nothing continuous or dependable, except in the Camp Bird. There, gold was to be mined, but low-grade below the 300-foot level.”
While Bowerman’s population dropped below 300, Albert Nelson wrote in The Mining Investor: “A Prosperous Promising Project for Progressive People. Here is a Solid Substantial Corporation, owning some of the Largest and Richest Gold Mining Properties in the West, Developed on a Broad, Generous Plan… “ (Volume XLIX, No. 10, January 27, 1908).
The three-page promotional listed numerous mining claims owned by the Company: Camp Bird Group (130 acres); Roosevelt Group (70 acres); Gold Ridge Group (70 acres); Paonia Group (30 acres); Manhattan Group (110 acres); Coney Island Group (148 acres), etc., all contiguous on Copper Mountain, extending from the Roosevelt Tunnel on the northeast side to the Camp Bird on the southwest. Brant and Nelson wanted to drive a tunnel from Quartz Creek under Copper Mountain, cutting 42 gold veins along the way, near three miles to the Camp Bird Mine, draining water and creating an ore-transportation tunnel to the proposed mill near the mouth of the Roosevelt Tunnel. Albert Nelson believed in this concept so heartily that when Brant began faltering on his promises to the Company’s stockholders, Nelson personally managed the Company’s operations.
The Roosevelt Tunnel, with rectangular dimensions of 10 by 12 feet, was cut for the purpose of installing a dual-track electric transportation line. The power for
Jana Barrett
Broker Associate
NO ONE IN GUNNISON COUNTY NO ONE IN GUNNISON COUNTY HAS TO FACE CANCER ALONE HAS TO FACE CANCER ALONE
Living Journeys supports cancer patients and their Living Journeys supports cancer patients and their families with financial grants, emotional therapy, families with financial grants, emotional therapy, transportation assistance, weekly meals, and more. transportation assistance, weekly meals, and more.
Join us for some fun next summer!
3rd Annual Golf Scramble in May 23rd Annual Summit Hike & 11th Annual Half Marathon in July
the
PAPER TRAILS series
J.C. Bowerman in his namesake town in 1903.
In 1908, the Camp Bird Mine proclaimed its “record run,” producing 274 ounces of gold in 70 hours.
the Company’s mining operations was to come from a proposed hydroelectric plant on Quartz Creek. The gold mined from the Camp Bird and reduced by a ten-stamp mill near Bowerman funded part of the improvements. Logging and shareholders funded the rest. A 1,000-foot-long flume, six feet wide and four feet deep, was completed to direct water to the proposed 400-horsepower hydroelectric plant. A hot springs, less than a mile above the power plant site, fed into a creek and prevented it from winter freezing. Rail tracks for a Colorado & Southern spur were already in place just a few hundred feet from the Roosevelt’s Quartz Creek portal.
“By 1910, 274 gold ounces had been produced,” Edah said. She turned album pages, finally tapping a long, thin index finger on images of gold bullion and bagged ore. “Most every year the Camp Bird produced as the shaft was sunk to the 400-foot level.” She seemed proud of that; not so much the gold production, but the fact that her husband had kept his word. “There wasn’t great profit, but Albert kept the Company debt free and Pitkin men remained employed.”
In 1914, T.R.L. Daughtry was contracted to build the hydroelectric plant on Quartz Creek, near the mouth of the Roosevelt Tunnel. Crews built a large dam, and water fed through a 6,000-foot, iron-banded, wood-staved pipe, producing 110 head of pressure. A cement building enclosed two General Electric turbines operating at 900 revolutions per minute, 150 K.V.A., 60-cycle, three-phase, generating 200 horsepower each and 2300 volts. Electricity was supplied to all the Brant Company’s operations, as well as to the towns of Pitkin and Crested Butte.
In 1915, Albert Nelson began a new promotional campaign: a prospectus for all of Gunnison County. It was titled, GUNNISON COUNTY, COLORADO: The Majestic Empire of the Western Slope.
“People all-round respected Albert,” Edah told me, again feeding the stove with paper and wood. “They liked his determination, his work for the community, the way he treated his employees and lived up to his word. People trusted him.” Hands slightly trembling, Edah handed me what looked like a new copy of Nelson’s prospectus. “That was published in 1916.”
“I’ve not seen this before,” I said, perusing the illustrated, 94-page publication.
“That same year we learned George Brant hadn’t been paying Mr. Daughtry’s bills for work on the hydroelectric plant. Lawsuits were filed against the Company. Daughtry was owed $3,236.88. The Brant Company fell into foreclosure.”
Her voice softened. “It was a sad time for us. Albert felt personally responsible. Yet, he stayed focused on what he’d promised.”
In 1918, the Company was reorganized as The Roosevelt Mines & Electric Company, and a new owner, George Hetherington, took over. He brought new investors: L.H. Becker of Kansas City; R.B. Anderson, St. Louis; M. Woolley, New York; and, George Zapf, Jacksonville, Florida. They retained Albert Nelson as general manager; and soon, most of the original employees were back at work. In 1920, the Roosevelt Tunnel was 2,100 feet in length; the shaft in the Camp Bird below the 400-foot level; and, once again, gold was produced. In January 1922, the Roosevelt Tunnel bore into an underground reservoir and water levels in all the Company’s mines dropped significantly, allowing for more gold extraction.
On August 7, 1922, the Roosevelt Company held an annual stockholders’ meeting in Pitkin. “I must admit,” Edah said, “I enjoyed those events. Seeing our investors confident in Albert. Seeing everyone proud to be part of the Company.”
Twenty-some people gathered from around the country to meet with the Nelsons – Albert, Edah and their daughter, Pauline. A fine dinner in Pitkin marked the first night. On day two, the guests rode an electric tram 2,500 feet into the Roosevelt Tunnel. Afterwards, J. F. Maneth guided the inquisitive group through the hydroelectric plant on Quartz Creek, then on to dinner at the Roosevelt boardinghouse. On August 9, everyone rode horses with Nelson to the Camp Bird Mine. There, a snowball fight ensued before participants were lowered down the mineshaft to the 400-foot level. After the tour, the guests received valuable gold specimens. Mrs. P. Lewis provided afternoon meals at the Camp Bird boardinghouse, followed by dinner at Pitkin’s Mason Hotel. There, the guests expressed gratifying enthusiasm for the proposed electric amalgamation mill to be erected near the Roosevelt Tunnel; and Albert Nelson was honored for his progressive and productive management. Just before the investors’ departure on the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway, each received copies of Nelson’s 1916 Gunnison County prospectus.
“Next year – 1923 – the new electric reduction mill was fully operational,” Edah told me. “And Albert’s management continued to keep the Company profitable and debt free.” The Roosevelt Company then owned 1,055 acres of mineral and timber lands; two mill sites; 128 acres of placer claims; a hydroelectric plant; and a new amalgamation mill. The Roosevelt Tunnel had reached a length of 2,560 feet. And the Company had produced more than $80,000 in gold.
In 1928, the Roosevelt Tunnel was 4,700 feet in length, and the hydroelectric plant upgraded to generate even more power. From 1936 through 1945, the Roosevelt Company’s hydroelectric plant produced enough electricity to supply energy for the recently formed Gunnison County Rural Electric Association. Mining was discontinued in 1941 after the U.S. Government deemed national war efforts more vital than private precious metal
A Unique Venue MUSEUMcrested butte
21 KOKANEE LANE PROSPECT AT MT. CRESTED BUTTE Ski in/Ski out .68 Acre $2,000,000
25 WHETSTONE ROAD MT. CRESTED BUTTE On the Bus Loop to Skiing .49 Acre $450,000 HIDDEN MINE RANCH LOT 18 Bordering National Forest 35 Acres $675,000
HIDDEN MINE RANCH LOT 11 & OUTLOT A River Access $1,100,000
GARY HURESKY
LIV Sotheby’s International Realty 970.209.2421 GHuresky@livsothebysrealty.com CrestedButteHomes.com
35 acre parcel
Boundry lines are approximate.
THE NICCOLI RIVER’S EDGE PARCELS
• Ideal for fishing or horse enthusiasts • Up to 43 acres of immaculate grazing land 8.3 acre parcel • Two parcels sold individually or together • 1,600+ linear feet of river frontage • 5 cfs +/- of water rights • Bordered by Land Trust Land to the south and East River to the north.
Eric Roemer
Broker Associate
Land | Residential | Commercial 970.209.1596 - cell | cbconickel@gmail.com
Deeply rooted in Crested Butte for more than 50 Years.
When the weather outside is frightful
From snow throwers to ice melters, we’ve got you covered when it snows.
Crested Butte Ace Hardware
607 6th Street Crested Butte, CO 81224 (970) 349-5305
When the weather outside is frightful
From snow throwers to ice melters, we’ve got you covered when it snows.
When the weather outside is frightful Crested Butte Ace Hardware 607 6th Street Crested Butte, CO 81224 From snow throwers to ice melters, we’ve got you covered when it snows. (970) 349-5305 mining. With no mining, the Roosevelt Company focused on its timber and electricity production.
“Albert passed away here, in this house,” Edah said. “February 12, 1945.”
I held a respectful silence for a few moments, then asked, “Did he truly believe there were great gold deposits still to be found under Copper Mountain?”
“Without Albert, the Roosevelt Company would have failed with Bowerman.” It was then I noticed Edah had been fueling the stove’s flames with pages from copies of her husband’s 1916 Gunnison County book. “So you must understand, for him, it stopped being about gold long ago….”
Before saying farewell to Edah, I asked if I could have several more copies of the Gunnison County prospectus, generally to prevent her from destroying them all. Once back in the Willy’s Overland, I started up the engine, and with my Westerners’ article already writing itself, rode on.
I heard a few years later that Edah had moved to Gunnison to live with her daughter, Pauline Laqua. In May 1956, Edah (Larson) Nelson died in a Pueblo hospital at age 75. She was buried in Pueblo’s Masons and Odd Fellows Cemetery. The husband to whom she was so loyal, Albert P. Nelson, 1869-1945, was buried in the Gunnison County Cemetery. b
Why A PAPER TRAILS series?
Most days we make use of trails: for driving, walking, skiing and biking. Likewise, in journeying into the past, we often travel via paper trails: books, maps, photographs and documents. They bring vitality and clarity to our blurred history. My rediscovery of the forgotten town of Bowerman and the Box Canyon Mining District began with a 1914 stock certificate, for The Camp Bird Mining, Leasing and Power Company. From there, the trail led me into an unfamiliar part of Gunnison County and revealed such intriguing stories. That stock certificate made me realize that most every historic document could be a portal to a fascinating paper trail.
