|
Who
we are: (Mineral County residents & members of the Willow Creek
Committee, in relation to our history)
From the wilderness and that passion known as
the "Old West" came a group of pioneers; rough, Rocky Mountain, hell
raising, and yet God fearing adventurers who drilled, hammered, bored,
scraped, and mucked through the hardness of nature’s mountain rock to gaze
upon glimmering silver and the occasional bits of yellow gold.
These men shunned not the daily grind of
backbreaking labor, nor the riotous nights of dance-hall
girls, cards, beer, whiskey, and more whiskey.
From this lawless passion sprang
businesses, schools, churches, committees, and all the things that we
call civilization. And now it is left to us, the residents, descendants, and
kindred spirits who live the legacy and eat the fruits of labors
past;
Those who live in this harsh cold
country at the top of the Rocky Mountains and do so in order to feel the
blood of our ancestors pulse through our veins; to feel the wolf howling
in our hearts, and feel not too far away, the timeless presence of those
who went before;
It is left to us to make what is best and right
of our history and environment as a legacy to ourselves, our children, and
our world.
|
While the world is filled with sorrow
And
hearts must break and bleed
Its day all day in the day
time
And there is no night in Creede.
(Cy
Warner)
|
Commodore #4 level
|
Amethyst 5 Level
|
Commodore #4 Adit |
|
|
As shown on the map at left and
accompanying photographs, the Willow Creek Area consists of mines associated with the four major mineral producing veins.
The farthest east and firstly discovered is the Holy Moses
Vein, next, moving to the west, is the Amethyst, then the Bulldog,
and the farthest west is the Alpha-Corsair vein with the Monon vein
nearby.
All these vein systems except the Bulldog have many
historical mining structures. Work at the Bulldog didn’t begin until
the 1970's and ended in 1986.
Beginning
in 1999, the WCRC contracted the services of
Mountain States Historical in Boulder, Colorado for a Cultural
Resource Inventory of the sites along the Amethyst, Holy Moses, and
Alpha Corsair Veins. This
consultant is an historical archaeologist and specialized in
recording, evaluating, and interpreting historic mine sites. Funding
for these inventories came
from the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado Department
of Public Health & Environment, and the State Historic Fund. |
Initially, Mountain States
Historical produced a 160 page "Historical Context for the Creede Mining
District." This publication was produced from research of seven libraries
and archival repositories, and includes Creede geology and physical
setting, historic mining methods and technology, mine owner/worker arrangements,
and the psychology of pioneer mineworkers of that era. This document is to
serve as an historical framework for recent and future cultural resource
inventory work.
| Field methods of this historical investigation include and
surpass Class III procedures as defined by the U.S. Dept. of the
Interior and the Colorado State Historic Preservation Office. Each
site was recorded with the intent to gather sufficient detailed
information to reconstruct and interpret their operational and
residential histories through examination of their physical remains,
and to provide data to build a case for their nomination to or
exclusion from the National or State Registers of Historic
Places. |
Nelson Splash Pool
|
Registry
listing for sites in the district is of interest to the WCRC and the
historians of Creede due to the historical r ecognition
and the eligibility for preservation oriented
grants. To be eligible for inclusion to these registers a
site must include one or more of the following points,
A:
Association with events that made a significant contribution to broad
patters
of history.
B:
Direct association with the lives of persons significant to our past.
C:
The embodiment of distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or
method
of construction, or representing the work of a master.
D:
A likelihood of yielding information important to history.
An exhaustive approach toward documenting remains
of surface plants, transportation networks, support facilities, and
residential complexes was entered into. Maps, drawings, photos, and floor
plans were completed along with SHPO Historic Architecture and Building Survey
forms.
Each feature was assigned a number and then described with text.
Descriptions attempted to capture physical constitution, size, historic
function, era of operation, and relationship to other mines and
components. The reports are available by clicking on the links
below.
Historical
Context for the Creede Mining District
Mining
the Holy Moses Vein
Mining
the Amethyst Vein
Mining
and Prospecting the Alpha Corsair and Other Veins
Commodore toward Bachelor
|
Forge on Bachelor Mountain
|
|
