First Gold Strike in Colorado - Arvada, CO in Colorado Historical Markers N 39° 47.822 W 105° 03.432 13S E 495102 N 4405231 Quick Description: This site is as historically accurate as records and open land will allow to denote this as the site of the First gold find in Colorado by Europeans (the Cherokee Indians already knew!). Location: Connecticut, United States Date Posted: 12/24/2012 4:15:00 PM Waymark Code: WMFZNX Published By: Miles ToGo Long Description: In part, the sign reads: Louis Ralston made the First documented gold find in Colorado [actually, Kansas territory] here on June 22, 1850. The actual story is more interesting. The Cherokee Indians had found the gold years before. Louis Ralston had married a Cherokee women, ELizabeth Kell in Georgia. A gold had been found near Ralstons land in Georgia where the town was named Auraria - a Cherokee word meaning gold mine. Because Ralston was of Scottish (European) heritage, he had legal rights the Indians did not (American Indians were not U.S. citizens until 1924). Ralston was with a party going to California for the gold strike that occurred in late 1840s-early 1850s. He had learned of the gold that had been found in this area from his Cherokee relatives. The party found gold, but then moved on to California. They returned a few years later and followed Clear Creek into the mountains since they had figured the gold had washed down from the foothills. The Colorado [Territory] gold rush was prevalent in the late 1850s. The areas of Idaho Springs, Black Hawk and Central City in Clear Creek County as well as the South Park area in Park County provided gold seekers work and hardship. Very few struck it rich. Related Waymarks include (visit link) , (visit link) , (visit link) , (visit link) , (visit link) , (visit link) and (visit link) . Arvadas story began with Colorados first gold discovery. On June 22, 1850, a wagon train bound for California crossed the Platte River just north of the confluence with Clear Creek, following Clear Creek west for six miles. The members of the wagon train rested for a day, and Lewis Ralston dipped his gold pan in an unnamed mountain stream. He found almost $5 in gold in his first pan. John Lowery Brown, who kept a diary of the partys journey from Georgia to California, wrote on that day: Lay bye. Gold found. In a notation above the entry, he wrote, We called this Ralstons Creek because a man of that name found gold here. Ralston continued on to California, but returned to Ralstons Creek with the Green Russell party eight years later. Members of this party founded Auraria (later Denver City) in 1858 and touched off the gold rush to the Rockies. Over the next century and a half, the significance of the discovery was lost. Eventually the entire area became blighted. And the State recognized the first gold find as being at the confluence of Little Dry Creek and the South Platte River in 1858 by William Greenberry Russell. But research by Lois Lindstrom, a local historian, proved that in fact Arvada was the site of the first gold discovery. She began her research in 1971 and sought Colorado State designation for Arvada in 1992. That attempt was unsuccessful because Lindstrom could not pin down the exact location of the gold discovery. Later on, she found a 1937 aerial photograph showing a grove of cottonwood trees at the confluence of Ralston and Clear Creeks which had since been removed for construction of a mobile home park. A member of Ralstons party had written about just such a grove. On December 1, 1995, the Colorado Historical Society officially recognized that Colorados first discovery occurred in present-day Arvada. Today, land has been set aside for the development of Gold Strike Park at the confluence of Ralston and Clear Creeks celebrating Colorados first gold discovery. A spectacular pedestrian bridge connecting the Ralston and Clear Creek trail systems was completed in October of 2001 and is a signature architectural gateway on Arvadas eastern edge. The 400-foot long curved bridge is supported by suspended cables and anchored by a three-foot diameter mast 100 feet tall. (from (visit link) ) In 1848, a group of Cherokee on their way to California over the Cherokee Trail discovered gold in a stream bed in the South Platte basin. The Cherokee did not stop to work the stream beds, but they reported the information to other members of their tribe upon returning to Oklahoma. The information remained unused for the following decade, however, until it reached William Green Russell, a Georgian who had worked the California gold fields in the 1850s. Russell was married to a Cherokee woman, and through his connections to the tribe, he heard about the reported gold in the Pikes Peak region of the western Kansas Territory. In 1858, upon returning from California, Russel organized a party to the area, setting off with his two brothers and six companions in February 1858. They rendezvoused with Cherokee tribe members along the Arkansas River in present-day Oklahoma and continued westward along the Santa Fe Trail. Others joined the party along the way until the number reached 104. Upon reaching Bents Fort, they turned to the northwest, reaching the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platton May 23. The site of their initial explorations is in present-day Confluence Park in Denver. They began prospecting in the river beds, exploring Cherry Creek and nearby Ralston Creek, but without success. After twenty days, a number of them decided to return home, leaving the Russell brothers and ten other men behind. In the first week of July 1858, they finally discovered good diggings at the mouth of Little Dry Creek on the South Platte, panning out several hundred dollars of gold dust from a small pocket, the first significant gold discovery in the region. The site of the discovery is in the present-day Denver suburb of Englewood, just northwest of the junction of U.S. Highway 285 and Interstate 70.* When word got back east, the Colorado Gold Rush was on; Pikes Peak or Bust! was the slogan. By 1859, large numbers of prospective miners and settlers had come up the Kansas River valley to the Denver area. At first, there was only the slight showing in Cherry Creek and the South Platte River, but soon paying quantities of gold were discovered at Idaho Springs and Central City. By 1860, Central City had a population of 60,000 people and Denver and Golden were substantial towns serving the mines. (from (visit link) ) (visit link) for additional information about gold and its migration through Colorados streams. Group or Groups Responsible for Placement: Arvada Historic Society and History Colorado County or City: Arvada Date Dedicated: 2010 Check here for Web link(s) for additional information: [Web Link] Visit Instructions: In your log, please say if you learned something new or if you were able to take any extra time to explore the area once you stopped at the historic marker waymark. If possible, please post a photo of you at the marker OR your GPS at the marker location OR some other creative way to prove you visited. If you know of any additional links not already mentioned about this bit of Colorado history, go ahead and include that in your log!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 06:35:03 +0000
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