Noel: Denver holds few signs of city's golden origins

Published December 16, 2006 at midnight

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How many newcomers realize Denver started as a mining camp? The city has no museum, not even a statue, to celebrate its golden origins.

There are clues: the golden state Capitol dome, the name of our NBA team, the Denver Mint and all those mines in the hills.

The discovery of sparkling sands in Cherry Creek and the South Platte in 1858 sparked one of the great mass migrations in U.S. history. Somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 gold seekers set out for the new El Dorado. The 1860 census taker found 34,277 residents in what would become Colorado Territory the next year.

With all that gold gravitating to Denver City, bankers George T. Clark and Emanuel W. Gruber figured a mint should make a mint of money. Clark, who also served as mayor of Denver 1865-67, bought the gold for Clark, Gruber & Co. Today their very rare $2.50, $5, $10 and $20 Pikes Peak gold pieces fetch as much as $110,000.

Clark, Gruber & Co. sold their mint to the U.S. Government in 1863. The Denver Branch of the U.S. Mint, however, did not begin making coins until it moved to its quarters on West Colfax Avenue between Cherokee and Delaware streets in 1906. The original minting machinery and some of the coins are treasures of the Colorado History Museum.

Local authors Kimberly Field and Lisa Ray Turner update the story with their book, The Denver Mint: 100 Years of Gangsters, Gold and Ghosts. This nifty resource offers everything from a glossary to recipes for mint brownies and mint salad, from a chapter on scantily clad coins to news that the Denver Mint, which initially produced 167 million coins a year, now produces about that many in a week.

The wooden-leg robber, bandit queen Florence Thompson, is there along with new tales such as that of "Suzy Bucks." Their small size making them hard to distinguish from a quarter, not Susan B. Anthony's feminism, led the mint to discontinue her dollar coin.

The new state quarters are monetary evidence of e pluribus unum. Everyone from Gov. Bill Owens on down tells us that the mountains on the Colorado quarter are generic. But take a look at Longs Peak and the Keyboard of the Winds from Bear Lake. If that is not the scene on our quarter, I will eat my hat.

Mint tours were curtailed after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the free tours have returned, albeit by reservation only or taking standby chances at the kiosk at Cherokee Street and West Colfax Avenue. (303-405-4761; www.usmint.gov)

The book

• The Denver Mint: 100 Years of Gangsters, Gold and Ghosts (Denver: Mapletree Pub. Co., $18.95)

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