Today, we leave Nevada in the rear-view mirror as we head east to Colorado. It’ll be a day trip; there are only a few noteworthy turquoise mines in Colorado today, localized largely in the southern half of the state. Not much turquoise is produced here, in terms of volume; what does make it to the market, however, is beautiful stone.
Caveats apply again today:
The two photos in today’s posts that include actual stones may or may not of Colorado turquoise. The photo of the bracelet above includes a stone that bears all the classic hallmarks of Colorado turquoise, particularly Manassa, with a brilliant emerald green color and flowing matrices in both gold and brown. It could also be Royston turquoise, much of which is similar in color and matrix. The cabochon was an old one, and unlabeled. The photo beneath the “King’s Manassa” heading, below, is of a pair of earrings that we do believe to be of Manassa turquoise. However, they are by an unknown artist, a pair he acquired through pawn or trade years ago, and so their provenance cannot be definitively established. Both photos are included here simply to provide an idea of the physical appearance of the types of turquoise covered today.
Most of Colorado’s turquoise mining operations were small to begin with, and many are now defunct. I’m only going to focus on the major players, which, as a practical matter, means mostly mines that are still in operation, even if on a very small scale, today. We begin in the southern part of Teller County.
CRIPPLE CREEK
Cripple Creek was originally a gold mining camp, established in 1890 at the base of Pikes Peak. It sits a little more than 40 miles southwest of what is now the city of Colorado Springs, and both the town of Cripple Creek and the mine environs are part of the Cripple Creek Historic District, a national landmark since 1961. The mine sits at an elevation just shy of 9,500 feet, meaning that winter weather has an impact on mining operations and schedules. The town of the same name, which is the Teller County seat, is small: As of the 2010 census, its population was reported at slightly under 1,200 residents.
The area population was not always so small.
In the late 19th Century, the area was subject to a hoax perpetrated by early settlers-cum-con-artists. Seeking to boost property values by capitalizing on the gold rush fever sweeping the western territories, some residents decided to try “salting”: In other words, they took bits of placer gold and scattered among ordinary rock, then spread news of gold strikes to spark the eminently predictable rush to the local area.
It backfired in two ways.
First, among the gold hunters who showed up seeking their fortunes in the area were experienced prospectors and mine workers, who new salting when they saw it. They soon outed the whole scheme, and the sudden influx of people vanished as rapidly as they came.
Second, it’s a lesson on what happens when you try to take shortcuts: Unbeknownst to the local scammers trying to dupe investors and settlers alike into thinking they would be sitting atop a fortune in gold, they really were sitting atop a fortune in gold. And it would remain buried for a good six years yet, because after the salting hoax (known as the Mt. Pisgah Hoax for a Biblically-named peak not far away), real prospectors avoided the area like the plague.
By 1890, however, someone had “discovered” the gold buried beneath the surface at Cripple Creek, and a new rush began. It’s been called Colorado’s “last great gold rush,” but for this area, at least, it was a doozy, ultimately resulting in some $500 million worth of gold ore extracted from the soil of Cripple Creek.
Bob Womack was the man who is credit with the [re]discovery of the initial deposit in 1890 that set off the big rush (although it didn’t do him much good in the end; he reportedly died destitute). W.S. Stratton, however, was the one who struck the proverbial mother lode, the famed Independence Lode. A population of 500 shot up to some 10,000 by 1893. And with the population spike came a spike in strife of all sorts: two fires three years later, occurring four days apart, which between them destroyed most of the town; and beginning in 1894, massive labor unrest as the miners unionized and struck against the harsh tactics of the gold mining corporations. The strife between the Western Federation of Miners and the companies, with the state siding with the miners in 1894, but shifting allegiances to the companies less than a decade later, is seen as the spark the ignited the so-called “Colorado Labor Wars,” which left destruction and death in their wake.
The gold mining companies continued regular operations up through 2005, by which point some 888 metric tons of gold had been extracted from the area. The Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company holds the current leases, and still conducts mining operations around the clock, year in and year out.
Today, the ancillary turquoise mining operations are run by a company calling itself the Bad Boys of Cripple Creek Mining Company. According to their Web site, they guarantee that all of their turquoise is sold completely free of dyes, stabilizers, or other treatments in all instances. The stone itself is reportedly hard, with matrix inclusions that include microcryptocrystalline quartz and traces of gold from the nearby veins.
Cripple Creek is a good, solid turquoise, one much like Kingman in Arizona or Royston in Nevada: not a fabulously expensive stone (and, indeed, mostly not a spectacularly unusual one in terms of color and matrix), but one that comes in the traditional blue and green shades that the main market for Indian jewelry has come to expect. It appears that the mining company sells cabochons (in addition to rough and polished stone) for something just slightly over $1 per carat, making it a good value for Indian jewelry artisans and customers alike.
LEADVILLE/TURQUOISE CHIEF
The Leadville Mine is part of the Sugarloaf Mining District, and is actually a group of mines that have held a variety of names over the years, the best known of which was the Turquoise Chief. It’s a mine that is now defunct, and what it produced in years past is now rarely seen on the market.
The Leadville District is a geographic exception when it comes to Colorado turquoise: It’s located in Lake County, slightly west and ever so slightly north of the state’s center. It’s another area that was dedicated primarily to the mining of precious metals, of course. Until the last century or so, only the Natives routinely and purposefully mined for the Skystone; colonial settlers and prospectors were much more interested in the so-called precious metals the earth held, and the pretty blue stone was merely incidental.
The town of Leadville is the Lake County seat, and sits at an elevation of more than 10,000 feet. It was preceded in the area by an the founding of Oro City (a Spanglish rendering of “Gold City”) in 1860, a year after prospectors found placer gold nearby during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. By 1861, Oro City’s population exceeded 5,000, and included on Horace Tabor and his wife, Augusta. The Oro City encampment, like the area gold rush, soon went bust, but Tabor and his wife remained, and in 1874, when miners learned that the black sand that impeded cost-effective gold mining in the area was actually a form of lead carrying high concentrations of silver, he was ready. In 1877, he and partner August Meyer struck silver in a big way, and they founded a new town near the encampment, which they named Slabtown. The name doesn’t have much flash, and doesn’t really indicate the area’s mineral significance. Apparently they didn’t think so, either, because they soon changed its name to Leadville.
Leadville rapidly became a genuine boomtown, growing to a population of more than 14,000 within three short years. During this period, it was one of Colorado’s largest municipalities, second only to Denver in population. It became known as one of the country’s wealthiest silver camps, and Tabor himself was known as the Leadville Silver King. Within a few years of its founding, the town boasted a theatre, and opera house, competing weekly political newspapers, and a full professional class. In 1882, Oscar Wilde made an appearance at the Leadville Opera House (and helped open a new lode at the Matchless Silver Mine, called “The Oscar”). Doc Holliday also moved to Leadville not long after his infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral.
Celebrities weren’t enough to save Leadville, however, once Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893. Those mining companies that remained turned their efforts to lead and zinc, and by World War II, to molybdenum. When the moly market crashed in the early 1980s, so again did Leadville’s fortunes. The moly mines resumed operation four years ago, but much of the economic base today is tourism.
As noted above, turquoise from the Leadville district is now hard to come by on the open market. What turquoise is made available often falls into one of two categories: 1) old cabochons already set into vintage Indian jewelry; and 2) turquoise rough, polished stone, or cabochons usually labeled “Leadville turquoise,” but of uncertain provenance with regard to which specific mine they come from. It’s also correspondingly hard to get a fix on a going market value. Old Turquoise Chief cabochons are likely to be relatively valuable, as much for their historical connotations as for the inherent quality of the stones themselves. Others, particularly those whose source mine can’t be identified, are likely to be worth less.
In terms of aesthetics, turquoise from the Leadville district seems to run a decently-sized spectrum for blues an greens. It’s not uncommon to see robin’s-egg and sky blue stones identified as Leadville, but it’s perhaps more common to see teals and emerald greens. With some of the older stone, the greenish hues are no doubt due in part to age and wear, but many of the contemporary cabochons sold on the Internet under the name “Leadville turquoise” tend toward the green end of the spectrum, as well. And like other Colorado turquoise, the matrices tend to be neither black nor tightly webbed, but rather flowing lines of golden-bronze and warm brown tones, ranging in pattern from delicate lines to larger streams of color.
KING’S MANASSA
King’s Manassa (sometimes called simply “Manassa”; “King’s” refers to the surname of the mine owner) is one of my favorite forms of turquoise. It’s another that’s known for its brilliant greens, often with a bold matrix in shades of gold and brown.
The mine is located outside the town of the same name. Manassa, Colorado, is not far from here, actually; it sits in the eastern reaches of Conejos County, in the San Luis Valley on the state’s southern border with New Mexico. It truly is a valley: The town itself, which sits at an elevation of nearly 7 ,700 feet, is reportedly entirely flat, bounded at a distance to the east by the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range and by the San Juan Mountains to the west. Its population is small, just over 1,000 residents as of the 2000 census.
The town’s name was bestowed by early Mormon settlers who arrived in 1879, descendants of whom even today constitute most of its Anglo population; most of the rest of it is Hispanic, many from old families whose ancestors arrived with the first wave of colonial invaders at the end of the 16th Century. The name is a phonetic spelling of Manasseh, one of the sons of Joseph of the Old Testament (and therefore, one of the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, a concept central to Mormon doctrine).
The turquoise deposits that the Manassa mine now comprises were, of course, worked by the indigenous peoples of the area for centuries. Those deposits were first noticed by a white prospector, I.P. King, in 1890, who was actually hunting for gold. He staked the first formal claim, and the mine has been handed down through the family from generation to generation. When King stumbled over the deposits, so the story goes, he saw blue-green stains on the visible surface rock, and thought it was copper. He apparently didn’t get it tested until a decade or so later, but around 1900, the colorful deposits had been clearly established to be turquoise. Within another eight years, ten separate claims were reportedly being worked specifically for the Skystone.
The Manassa Mine is still worked on a small scale by the members of the King family. On the market, you may see turquoise from this mine labeled variously as “King’s turquoise,” “Manassa turquoise,” or the compound “King’s Manassa turquoise.”
Manassa turquoise is not inherently of great value, but its relative scarcity, compared to many of the operating Arizona and Nevada mines, boosts its price a bit. The gem-grade stone that it produces is very good; hard and solid, it lends itself to cutting and cabbing for use in jewelry. It’s also a beautiful stone. You can find Manassa turquoise is more classic blue shades, from light robin’s-egg to a medium sky blue, but it’s best known for the greens it produces.
And they are green. Some are lighter, seafoam-like shades, but most of what Manassa is known for is dark, intense shades that range from emerald to forest green. The matrices are equally bold and intense, with wide traceries of golden, bronzed, and metallic brown shades shot through the stone. Most Manassa turquoise on the market today runs no more than a few dollars per carat in cabochon form, which, considering its beauty and stability, makes it a good value.
VILLA GROVE
Villa Grove was once of the country’s most valuable forms of turquoise. It was not on a par with Lander, of course — nothing is — but it was certainly comparable to some of the rest of the best stone produced, such as New Mexico’s Cerrillos turquoise (which we will cover in an upcoming edition). It was also a small mine, and long thought to be tapped out, but the word now is that the mine has been bought by new owners and re-opened.
The Villa Grove Mine is actually not far from us here, just a few hours’ drive north up into Colorado’s San Luis Valley. It’s a beautiful area, and one that looks and feels very much like ours here. The valley rests between the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range to the East and the San Juan mountains to the west; the mine itself is situated in the valley’s northern reaches.
The town of the same name is found some three counties north of the Colorado/New Mexico border, in Saguache County. It was “established” by the railroad back in 1870, under the name Garibaldi, to serve as the southern terminus of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad’s Poncha Pass line, a role it fulfilled for the next two decades. In the same year the town was founded, a post office was established there, and two years later, the town’s name was changed to Villa Grove (presumably to avoid what the political and business establishment likely considered an unfortunate association with the town’s reputed namesake, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian general and leaders of the “red shirt” revolutionaries). For reasons apparently lost to history, the town’s name was changed to the one-word “Villagrove” in 1894, and then reverted to the two-word appellation six years later.
As is often the case with regard to turquoise mines, “Villa Grove” refers as much to a mining district as it does to an individual mine. There were several in the area, including the Bonanza, the Hall, the Turquoise Blue Lode, and the Turquoise Lode, as well as the actual Villa Grove mine itself. The entire area was generally known for producing fine turquoise, but mining operations have been largely dormant for many years. The penultimate owner of the actual Villa Grove Mine was a man named George Musick, who reportedly ceased operations somewhere around 1990, give a take a few years. In 2000, he sold the mine to Randy Christensen, who has since re-opened it on a small scale and has announced plans to launch heavy-equipment excavation.
Villa Grove turquoise is a bit different from much of the other turquoise found in Colorado, at least in terms of the stone produced in bygone days. It was not uncommon to see Villa Grove in intense blues as well as greens, and unlike most of the rest of the turquoise in the state, it often contained a spiderweb matrix. In most photos I’ve seen, the matrix is, however, more likely to be in shades of golden bronze or coppery red, although the latter sometimes looks black in photos (and even in certain lights). It also produced a beautiful bright green turquoise with a warm golden matrix.
Again, it’s hard to get a fix on a per-carat cabochon value of Villa Grove turquoise; not enough contemporary stone is on the market to be a reliable indicator. Most of the old stone is already set into jewelry,particularly vintage Indian jewelry, and it’s therefore difficult to separate the value of the stones themselves by weight from the value of the settings and the identity of the artisans. And because mining operations are not currently producing large amounts of turquoise that are being cut and cabbed for sale on the open market, it’s difficult to gauge what the price of the new product is likely to be. The current mine owner is also a jeweler, but a non-Native one; he is using the stone in his own work, which he sells through a Golden, Colorado gallery. On the gallery’s Web site, the piece with cabochons labeled “Villa grove” show lovely clear blue stones, ranging from light robin’s-egg to dark sky blue with reddish-bronze webbed matrices. The individual jewelry pieces are very modestly priced (although non-Native “Indian-style” jewelry necessarily is far less valuable than actual Indian jewelry, which makes it difficult to determine how much of each piece’s price is attributable to the stone and how much to the rest o the work). Nonetheless, if the stones shown in the jewelry there are any indication, the “new Villa Grove” appears on track to be as beautiful as the “old Villa Grove” turquoise.
Next week: We come home to New Mexico.
~ Aji
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