Leadville

Stephen covers the birth of a gold and silver boom town from the first prospects with a gold pan in a freezing mountain stream to the discovery of silver in "worthless black sands" to the greatest modern mines in the world. He documents the joys and sorrows of the miners and their families, the riches made and lives lost. He covers the details of mining - from individual gold panning and sluicing to two-man candlestick lit tunnels to modern corporate production mines. He describes hand-drilling of rock with doublejack and steel and continues to today's compressed air drills. He documents the use of black powder, dynamite and modern explosives - and the risks and deaths caused by their misuse. He tells of burros, mules and electric haulage trains. He does this all from the viewpoint of someone who has been there and done that. He has prospected in freezing Alaskan streams and done hardrock mining beneath deserts and alpine meadows. Stephen knows mining inside and out - literally. This book is more than a history of one Colorado boom town, it is a history of Western hardrock mining and the men and women who loved, lived and died mining.