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Anaconda, Colorado

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Gold miner Bernard Harvey and Mary Gregory were married in County Armagh in the parish of Creggan, Northern Ireland on 22 Oct 1894. Just 12 days later, they were on a boat heading back to their home in Aspen, CO. The 1900 census has them residing in the then gold mining town of Anaconda, CO. About 1902, Mr. Harvey tried to organize a miner’s union, but was put on a train bound to Kansas. His wife remained in Anaconda, running a boarding house, until he settled and called for her and the family in Rhyolite, NV.

While many assume that workers in the nineteenth-century American West enjoyed easily available land and a fluid social structure, the region’s history of radical unionism at the turn of the century suggests otherwise. In 1902, corporate mining interests in Colorado decided to crush the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). By the following year, civil war erupted in Cripple Creek, Colorado, as state and local officials and local businessmen joined with the large corporations against the miners. Before it was over, thirty men had been killed in numerous gun battles. Documents gathered as part of a 1905 federal investigation included a “yellow dog” (anti-union) contract that prospective mining employees were required to sign. The documents also included a letter from mine owners asking landlords not to lease property to union sympathizers; a resolution by the Denver Citizen’s Alliance attacking the WFM; orders directing Colorado National Guard troops to deport 73 striking miners and their leaders to Kansas; and finally a plea by a Colorado union official to the Red Cross for the organization’s aid.

A cowboy and part time prospector named Bob Womack discovered gold in Cripple Creek, CO in 1890. The three square mile district became home for more than 50,000 people by 1900. To put things in perspective, the gold mined in this area was greater than any other gold mining operation ever conducted in the United States combined. Other towns in the area included Goldfield, Elkton, Altman, Independence, Anaconda, Gillette, Cameron, Beaver Park, Arequa and Lawrence. Goldfield and Gillette are the only two which remain. Anaconda’s peak population was about 1,000. Founded in 1894, the town was sprawled along a half mile of Squaw Gulch, about halfway between Cripple Creek and Victor. It was originally located in El Paso County, but on 23 March 1899, Teller County was formed from land from El Paso and Fremont Counties.

Anaconda, Colorado
From the 1897 Rand McNally RR Atlas

Before 1890 most of Teller County was uninhabited. It was an area that people traveled through to get somewhere else via the old Ute Pass Trail which was an important route because it offered passage through the front range of the Rockies for Indians, buffalo, explorers, prospectors, and cowboys and their cattle.

Originally started as a miner’s town, Anaconda grew out of convenience and necessity.  With so many big mines concentrated around Squaw Gulch, it was only natural that the people working them would want to live nearby.  Among the big gold mines in or near Anaconda were the Mary McKinney, the Anaconda, the Doctor Jack Pot, the Chicken Hawk, the Dolly Varden and the Morning Glory.  With those industrial enterprises supporting the town, unemployment was not a problem.

Unlike some of the other towns of Cripple Creek, Anaconda developed its own business district.  According to the book “Ghost Towns” by Leland Feitz, Anaconda sported its own hotels, saloons, drug and grocery stores, doctors, lawyers, printers, music teachers, dressmakers, an optician, and even an artist.  As was the custom, the town had a nice school house and several churches.  The town even had its own jail.

The merchants of Anaconda howled and complained when customers paid for goods and groceries with “worthless” Mary McKinney stock.  But those who took the stock could not have been entirely displeased with the company’s steady history of dividends or the $11 million in gold it produced.

The mine itself had the last laugh, however.  A tenderfoot doing lease work in the Mary McKinney Mine touched off a powder box with an experimental electric shooter.  A hole was blown in the roof of the shaft house and the town was showered with rocks.  Town wags said the hole was caused by a pump blown up from the bottom of the shaft.  Conventional wisdom held that a pump blown out with that much force would not return to Earth “for at least two days.”

El Paso County, Colorado
From the 1897 Rand McNally RR Atlas

For the most part, Anaconda was a peace loving town.  It did not have near the population of Cripple Creek or Victor, and fewer recreational facilities existed there.  Consequently, most of the hard drinkers and hell raisers went to the bigger cities to celebrate the end of the work week.  In one of life’s little ironies, the Arno Mine, located within the town limits of Anaconda, was a stronghold for some of the District’s outlaws.

It would be less than truthful to describe Anaconda as a quiet town though.  Imagine living in a town where your neighbor’s house is about an arm length from yours and you can hear his every move.  Add the noise from the constant hustle and bustle of people in the nearby saloons and shops at all hours of the day and night.  To this, add the non-stop clattering of horse hooves and mine machinery.  Then factor in the loud whistles from 16 nearby mines announcing three shift changes per day.  Top this off with the sound of 67 trains circling completely around your town everyday.  Remember that you also live in a gulch that has a powerful echo.  One could forgive the fine people of Anaconda for being a little cranky now and again.

Anaconda hit its peak just as the Golden Era of the Cripple Creek District ended.  With gold production in decline and the deep levels of the mines flooding, Anaconda was poised to begin a decline of its own.  During the winter of 1904, a fire started that pretty much annihilated the town.  Unlike the massive relief efforts that rebuilt Victor and Cripple Creek after their fires, Anaconda was left to die a slow death.  After the fire, most residents simply moved away.  Anaconda’s population fell from 1,000 to 250 and continued a steady decline.  The mines were still in operation, but the town would never be the same.

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