1	How Best to View This Use Microsoft Browser, not Firefox or similar. This is Power Point Web, compatible with MS Click on the tiny ‘Slide Show’ icon in the lower right Page through the Slides by pressing your space bar. You can page back with Backspace key Escape by hitting, well, Escape! Be patient, many graphics are large files – they take a while to load depending on your Internet speed.
2	THE GREAT GOLDEN CYCLE MILL OF COLORADO CITY And the little known saga about what happened to it and its remaining Gold the last 30 years By David Hughes Old Colorado City Historian
3	Roots in the 1891 Cripple Creek Gold Discovery by Bob Womack Hard Rock mining, requiring gold milling Need for handling large ore tonnages, and coal Costly to build large mills in the District The Midland Railroad passed nearby (Divide) so best idea was to haul the ore 60 miles down Ute Pass to Colorado City Feasible to extend a railroad – the Midland Terminal RR - to Divide from the District So five gold mills sprung up in Colorado City
4	The Five Original Gold Mills The Telluride Mill The Colorado-Philadelphia The Standard Mill The Portland The Golden Cycle
5	Mill Locations in 1909 All built South and West of mid Colorado City Colorado-Philadelphia à Standard Mill à Telluride/Golden Cycle à Portland Mill à
6	The Colorado-Philadelphia Mill Started in 1896 Used the Clorination Process By Penrose, Tutt, McNeil who also owned good mines in Cripple Creek-Victor District Had trouble getting enough ore until the Short Line RR was completed in 1901 Then tonnages jumped and they had to build another and better mill. – The Standard. The C-P only lasted till 1904
7	Standard Mill Started 1901, enlarged in 1905 to 300 employees Handled 750 tons a day together with Colo-Phila Clorination Process only Closed 1912, laid off 175 men “Low tonnage” (But profits funded McNeil’s bold copper venture)
8	Portland Mill Started 1900. By Jimmy Burns President Processed the ‘Portland Mine’ Ore only Little smoke – used Electricity for power Tried to add cyanide after 1906 Closed as ore tonnage declined and GC competed
9	Telluride Mill 1901 Started Intended to compete with other mills by processing lowest grade ores, using ‘New’ Bromide Process Handled 100 tons a day Struggled when bromide process failed by 1903 Went bankrupt, purchased 1905 by Golden Cycle Corporation
10	The Early Golden Cycle Mill Started with 1905 purchase of bankrupt Telluride Mill $500,000 in improvements made by 1907 Cyanide/Zinc process from the beginning. Big fire destroyed much of mill in 1907 Rebuilt and expanded by December. Over $1 million By 1908 900 tons handled daily, via the Midland RR
11	Why Golden Cycle Won Out 800 Tons, to finally 1,500 Tons of Ore per day handled CG also owned full gauge Midland Railroad, brought the ore down Ute Pass, not narrow gauge via the Short Line Coal locally available (Pike View) for roasting the ore Modern milling machinery installed by 1907 Latest Cyanide/Zinc Processing used – 93% efficient Could handle lower grade ores profitably
12	The Beginning of the End World War II - 1941 War Production Board (WPB) ordered total halt to non strategic gold milling by 1942 1000 Cripple Creek Gold Miners left for better Defense jobs Orders lifted in 1945, but only 300 miners left and then lingering Post-war shortage of proper equipment Midland RR costs went up, then Labor problems. Colo City Mill Workers Struck for higher pay in 1948. Golden Cycle decides to shut down in Colorado City, move mill to Cripple Creek and dismantle Midland RR in 1949 Highway bypass (US24) built on original RR bed by 1960 speeds decline of the original Colorado City – Westside.
13	Over the 40 Years Operation of the Gold Cycle Mill in Colorado City 14,000,000 tons of gold ore processed Extracted 8,000,000 ounces gold 578,000 oz gold remained – the 7% not extracted Dollar value of extracted gold at government fixed price of $20 oz 1908 to 1933, and $35 oz 1934 to 1948 was $205,000,000 Even the gold ‘clean up’ of the Mill, including the Chimney, netted $484,954!
14	What was Left Behind in 1949 14,000,000 tons of ore Tailings in a pile. A Big Ugly 175 foot eroded high dam of Coarse tailings and flat ‘lake’ of powdery Fines. Eyesore Concrete Foundations and Smoke Stack Fine dust blowing across Westside, angry wives Tailings which assayed at .04 ounces gold ,worth only $0.80 per ton of until price of gold was freed up Uneconomic to extract with technology of the 1930s, with the price of gold price fixed at $35 an ounce BUT value of gold REMAINING, today July 25, 2006 spot price of $618.75 per oz - $357,637,500!
15
16	25 Years after the Mill Closed: The REST of the Story Price of Gold unleashed 1976 – rises past $100 oz The Carbon-in-Pulp Process is developed and refined using previously unobtainable hard charcoal such as from the South Pacific - coconut shells! Companies like Marcono-Flow develop machines to move sandy piles hydraulically as a slurry Other companies had developed sod-farming as answer to covering large disturbed tailings piles Ample non-potable water from City available Bock Red Rock Property possible place to move tailings Colorado Springs grows – Mill land valuable Entrepeneurs enter the scene
17	The Improbable Scheme William Wiley, owns some of the gold hill acreage Dave Hughes (Col Ret) consults with Pakistani Gold Engineers in Las Vegas at big Mining Convention They prove to him that money can be made at .04 oz per ton, with 10 million tons of tailings with carbon-in-pulp leaching so long as gold is more than $100 an oz. Dick Hadley of Seattle, engineer and real estate man, with money, shows interest. Retains local John Colbrun Arden Larson proves the gold can be extracted Dave Hughes gets City Council to permit ‘mining’ inside Colo Springs as an act of RECLAMATION Wiley envisions a development AFTER the tailings are processed, moved, which prepares the land for development Steve Shuck owns some of the key acreage - agrees to scheme. Gold Hill Recycle Project is born
18	Gold Hill Recyle Project 1. Build non-intrusive Gold Extraction Plant - no coal, no trucks 2. Process tailings at 5000 tons per day reclaim 100 ounces gold a day for 6 years using carbon-in-pulp process. 3. Redistribute (lower and flatten out) tailings pile via Marcono-Flow hydraulic systems ‘mining’ tailings 4. Put nutrients in top foot of barren tailings, cover with sod farm grasses 5. Build shopping center and homes on tailings, integrated with design theme of old Mill Foundations and Chimney. 6. Make and turn ‘gold’ sand into tourist items, sell in ‘Gold Ore House’, give tours of plant and pile, and let tourists stamp out their own gold coins from certified ‘Cripple Creek Gold – all inside Colorado Springs. 7. Profit from all the foregoing – Gold, Tourism, Land Development
19	What Was the Economic Secret Nobody Else Saw? Using cyanide again, but instead of zinc to extract the gold, which left 7% of the Au and Ag behind, using the now-perfected Carbon in Pulp Process – using hard carbon - which could extract at least 50% of remaining gold and silver from tailings without typical plant Move the tailings hydraulically with a tiny plant and 2 sleds as an Act of Reclamation! THEN the 242 acres could be developed as real estate within 1 mile of downtown Colorado Springs!
20	Partners in Gold Hill Recycle Bill Wiley and Dick Hadley, and a Joint Venture Agreement.
21	Testing Tailings Tailings were on 150 Acres of 242 total area 197 Test Holes were bored, and samples assayed. Results ranged from .02 to .07 oz per ton gold and .16 oz per ton silver Hadley’s engineers got higher returns than Wiley’s! Based on that, Hadley committed to the project.
22	Our Calculator Projected Prices of Gold Recovery in Percentages from 40% to 70% Range of $$ Income per ton with costs from $.75 to $1.50. Gross to $6.00 Investment $2.4 Million for plant. $15 M costs Profit $35 million over 6 years with gold only $200 an oz! (My cut 5% of Wiley’s 50% - $1 million over 6 years)
23	City Support and Publicity Approvals to ‘mine’ inside city limits Lots of Newspaper coverage – favorable No ‘environmental’ fuss. Dr. Beidleman, CC endorses. No outspoken critics, just some private reservations
24	The Sidebar – the Gold Ore House!
25	The Old Mill – Acropolis in Colorado – Even Tours
26	Wha Hoppened? Partners in Gold Hill Recycle – Wiley, Hadley, split 1975 Hadley missed a cash injection by 10 days (as much the fault of the Colorado Springs 1^st National Bank as Hadley) Wiley invokes the Joint Venture default paragraph Tries to get Hadley to add $500k more to get “back in.” Hadley refused. Wiley has 6 months to find another investor. Fails. Hadley forecloses on the land he had paid for, with his first $575,000. Wiley is out (and with him, me). Hadley hangs onto the land. Australians try to start a project. They go bankrupt when Australia economy crashes – not because of the gold. Hadley keeps the land and is part owner of TODAY’S (2006) purely real estate development deal with Willard.
27	Then Chimney Flap 1989 Police Chief Pursuades Building Official to declare ALL plant remains, including the Chimney, unsafe. Who condems them. Luckily I still had the Lincoln-Devore Enginering Study of 1975 for Wiley that showed the 1908 Chimney was still safe! I go to the mat in front of City Council and win the battle to save the Historic Chimney – last relic of the Great Golden Cycle Mill. Its still there and is integrated into the new Real Estate Development!
28	So, instead of 1895 Gold, 2006 Homes On the Tailings Pile!
29	The Moral of the Story The Real Gold was the History and land around Colorado City all along… and the Story of the Great Gold Mills, and the Great Midland Railroad, and the Bawdy Houses on the south side of Colorado Avenue and Church Row on the north side, and the enduring blue collar folks called ‘Westsiders’ and the little 1859 log cabin in Bancroft Park in the middle of it all!