LEADVILLE, a flourishing mining town of the United States, capital of Lake county, Colorado, is situated at a height of 10,200 feet above the sea, on a narrow plateau between the Saguache or Continental Divide and the Park Range of the Rocky Mountains, about 70 miles south-west of Denver. It is connected with Denver by a branch of the Union Pacific Railway (172 miles), and by the Denver and Rio Grande Railway (279 miles). Though a place of 14,820 inhabitants at the census of 1881, Leadville was then the creation of scarcely more than three years.

As early as 1860 gold placers were discovered in the neighbourhood, and for a little time the settlement of Bough Town, as it was then called, was a busy spot in this thinly peopled region. But the gold was soon exhausted; and, though it was vaguely understood that the heavy black sand which had often proved troublesome to the gold-washers was more or less argentiferous, it was not till 1877 that the first practical attempt to turn it to account was made. No sooner, however, was the real character of the ore ascertained than eager adventurers rushed to Leadville by thousands. In August 1877 there were not more than twenty shanties on the site of the town; but the population rapidly increased, and in less than two years numbered upwards of 12,000. The first smelting furnace was set to work in October 1877. It has been estimated that up to the close of 1880 the value of the metals extracted from the soil at Leadville exceeded §35.700.000 :— [table]...