Colorado Territory

This rare, early mining photograph by Henry Faul dates from 1862, just before the end of the pioneering era of the Colorado Territory mining boom that had begun with the discovery of gold in 1859. It features a group of men (and at least two children) at work beside a long meandering wooden sluice constructed to extract metal flakes or nuggets from eroding ore by flushing water over river silt and small rocks. These Colorado miners were known as "59ers" after their California predecessors who were called "49ers." The Colorado Territory was established on February 28, 1861 after the influx of some 100,000 white settlers with gold fever, and remained an incorporated territory until Colorado was admitted into the union as a state in 1876. Within three years of the date of the photograph, most all the placer metal (free gold) had been harvested and commercial mining was required to dig into the ground to extract the ore containing the source of the metal, both gold and silver.