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Early Silver Plume Photograph

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 600.00 USD
Early Silver Plume Photograph
SOLD
450.00USDto t************n+ buyer's premium (101.25)
This item SOLD at 2015 Apr 18 @ 11:35UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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W. H. Jackson photograph showing the town of Silver Plume. There is strong contrast on this photo and all of the building are clearly defined. If one wanted to, he could find many of these buildings still standing. Tailings and cuts in he mountains for roads are clearly seen. Silver Plume is a very small, old, rural mining town dating from the Colorado gold and silver rush of the last four decades of the 19th century. In 1859 gold was discovered at the confluence of Clear Creek and the Platte River near what is now Denver. The sought-after veins of ore were part of the east-northeast Colorado ore belt running roughly from Boulder, Colorado southwest to the vicinity of Silverton and Telluride. It is believed that originally some two miles of overburden covered the ore veins. Erosion caused by wind and water wore away the overburden down to the upper level of the ore--just in time for the mid-19th century prospectors to “strike it rich,” sell their claims to mining companies, and trigger the creation of towns like Silver Plume. Although gold was the original metal sought in the Silver Plume area, by about 1864 some bright soul recognized that the grayish rock everyone had been kicking around and cursing was in fact silver ore, and the boom era for Silver Plume began. (Prag Collection)

City: Silver Plume
State: Colorado,
Date: c1890

FHWAC#: 26766