Gold Hill is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by

Boulder County Boulder County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado of the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 330,758. The most populous municipality in the county and the county seat is Boulder. Boulder County comprises t ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The CDP is a part of the Boulder, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population of the Gold Hill CDP was 230 at the

United States Census 2010 The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servi ...

. The

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

( Zip Code 80302) serves the area. Gold Hill is located to the northwest of

, perched on a mountainside above Left Hand Canyon at an elevation of 8,300 feet. Originally a mining camp, it was the site of the first major discovery of gold during the 1859

Colorado Gold Rush The Pike's Peak Gold Rush (later known as the Colorado Gold Rush) was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 185 ...

and remained an important mining camp throughout the late 19th century, with a population approaching 1500 at its height, before falling into decline. It has been revived somewhat in recent years as a quiet isolated haven, with no paved streets, but easily accessed by dirt roads. The town contains numerous historic wooden structures, some restored in recent years, as well as decaying ruins from its mining heyday. It has a small museum and two-room schoolhouse, the Gold Hill School, which since 1873 has been the oldest continuously operating public school in Colorado. Other businesses include a General Store and a restored inn listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. The town is laid out on a small grid of dirt streets. Gold Hill is accessible from nearby Left Hand Canyon Road via Lick Skillet Road. Easier approaches to Gold Hill include Sunshine Canyon Road from 4th and Mapleton in

, Gold Run Road from Salina (on Four Mile Canyon Road), and Gold Hill Road from the

Peak to Peak Highway The Peak to Peak Scenic Byway is a National Forest Scenic Byway and Colorado Scenic and Historic Byway located in Gilpin, Boulder, Larimer counties, Colorado, USA. The Peak to Peak Highway was originally built in 1918 and provides views of the ...

( State Highway 72) south of Ward. All of these roads are susceptible to heavy snows during the winter, which at times render Gold Hill inaccessible to vehicles not equipped with chains or four wheel drive. Gold Hill is sometimes labeled a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

, which is an inaccurate designation. Gold Hill is part of unincorporated Boulder County, and while it does not have a

municipal government A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

, it does have an active

town meeting Town meeting is a form of local government in which most or all of the members of a community are eligible to legislate policy and budgets for local government. It is a town- or city-level meeting in which decisions are made, in contrast with ...

with elected officials.

History

The community is located above Gold Run, the first lode discovery of gold in Colorado (at that time the area was part of the

Nebraska Territory The Territory of Nebraska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until March 1, 1867, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Nebraska. The Nebrask ...

) on January 15, 1859. The discovery occurred nearly simultaneous with prospecting in

Gregory Gulch Gregory may refer to: People and fictional characters * Gregory (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Gregory (surname), a surname Places Australia *Gregory, Queensland, a town in the Shire of ...

and Clear Creek, but these latter discoveries were not exploited until later that Spring. On March 7, 1859, the Gold Run discovery became the first mining district in region (named either the Mountain District No. 1, Mining District No. 1 of the Nebraska Territory, or the Nebraska Gold Hill Mining District, according to various historical sources). Word quickly spread among miners in the region, prompting a flood of new arrivals and the establishment of Gold Hill as the first permanent mining camp in present-day Colorado. By autumn, a

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operati ...

was erected at the base of the hill, the first such piece of equipment in the region, one that had been transported by ox cart westward over the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...

. The first productive vein was the Scott, followed quickly the Horsfal, Alamakee, and Cold Spring. Nearby placers were also worked for the gold in stream beds. DSCN2849 goldhillwoodstructures e 600

By 1861, the year of the organization of the

Colorado Territory The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado. The territory was organized in the ...

, the surface deposits of gold in the vicinity of the town were largely played out, resulting in a temporary exodus of prospectors and a population decrease. The town was somewhat revived later that year by the construction of the Hill

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a c ...

at nearby

Black Hawk Black Hawk and Blackhawk may refer to: Animals * Black Hawk (horse), a Morgan horse that lived from 1833 to 1856 * Common black hawk, ''Buteogallus anthracinus'' * Cuban black hawk, ''Buteogallus gundlachii'' * Great black hawk, ''Buteogallus urub ...

, allowing the treatment of lower-grade ores. The discovery of

tellurium Tellurium is a chemical element with the symbol Te and atomic number 52. It is a brittle, mildly toxic, rare, silver-white metalloid. Tellurium is chemically related to selenium and sulfur, all three of which are chalcogens. It is occasionall ...

in the area in 1872 prompted a second boom, bringing the population to nearly 1000 once again. At its height, the town had a newspaper and number of hotels, including the Mines Hotel, built in 1872 and recently restored as summer tourist destination. The Mines was immortalized in verse by

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

Eugene Field Eugene Field Sr. (September 2, 1850 – November 4, 1895) was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. He was known as the "poet of childhood". Early life and education Field was born in St. Louis, Missouri ...

, who stayed at the hotel while working as a newspaper man in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. The town population dwindled in the early 20th century as the mining tapered off. The town has experienced two major fires in its history, but it nevertheless retains many of its historic wooden structures. Despite a dwindling permanent population, Gold Hill continued to remain attractive to tourists. Around 1926 Florence Molloy and Mabel MacLeay, previously the owners of the Molloy-MacLeay taxicab company in

Boulder, CO Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Colora ...

, opened the Double M Dude Ranch (or M&M ranch, then Trojan Ranch, and now the Colorado Mountain Ranch) in Gold Hill, CO. The

Syracuse Herald The ''Syracuse Herald-Journal'' (1925–2001) was an evening newspaper in Syracuse, New York, United States, with roots going back to 1839 when it was named the ''Western State Journal''. The final issue — volume 124, number 37,500 — was publis ...

, described the Double M as offering, “all the attractions of the open spaces of the West sufficiently tempered with luxuries to meet the requirement of Easterners.” The Double MM operated until

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

when it was sold in 1941 and subsequently became the Trojan Ranch and then later the Colorado Mountain Ranch (currently in operation). In 1921, The Holiday House Association of Chicago, started by Jean Sherwood, purchased the hotel at Gold Hill, now the Gold Hill Inn, to create a summer camp destination for self-supporting single women from Chicago. These vacationing women were referred to as "Bluebirds." The Bluebird Lodge addition to the hotel was completed around 1926. In September 2010, the Four Mile Canyon wildfire destroyed approximately 170 homes in and around Gold Hill.http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-fourmile-fire-community-meeting-txt,0,7516523.story

Geography

The Gold Hill CDP has an area of , all land.

Demographics

The

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...

initially defined the for the

References

External links

Gold Hill, ColoradoGold Hill @ WesternMiningHistory.comGold Hill @ ColoradoEncyclopedia.orgOriginal Gold Hill Townsite @ ColoradoPreservation.orgGold Hill, Colorado Mining Claims And MinesWalking Tour of Gold HillBoulder County website
{{authority control Census-designated places in Boulder County, Colorado Census-designated places in Colorado 1859 establishments in Nebraska Territory Colorado Mining Boom Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Boulder County, Colorado

History

Geography

Demographics

See also

References

Further reading

External links