Dredge Boats

A look at the new blog post category, Why We Collect, with a focus on nature and how our mining history is still on display.

Breckenridge and southern Summit County experienced three mining booms.  The first, lasting from 1859 until the mid-1860s, brought prospectors who looked for the “easy” gold–the nuggets in streams, the pieces laying on the ground and buried in shallow soils on the hillsides.  They used pans, rocker boxes, long toms, and later high pressure hoses called “giants” to wash the gold-filled soil into sluice boxes.  The second boom, the hard rock mining boom, began in the 1870s.  Rather than the individual prospector chasing his dream, companies hired miners and others to work the mines.