Minerals of the Wolftone Mine, Leadville Mining District, Lake County, Colorado

摘要

The Leadville mining district, whose history, geology, and mineralogy have been described in numerous publications, is one of the most famous silver mining camps in the United States. For an in-depth study of the ore deposits and mineralogy of the district, the reader is referred to Emmons, Irving, and Loughlin (1927), Loughlin (1918, 1926), and Shannon and Shannon (1985). The fortunes of mining made several individuals millionaires, mostly from the profits of the rich silver mines that produced more than 250 million ounces of silver during the life of the Leadville camp. Possibly the most famous Leadville millionaire and "silver king" was Horace A. W. Tabor, who, at the height of his career, made scandalous headlines in Colorado newspapers by divorcing his straight-laced wife to marry a beautiful doll-faced young girl named Lizzie "Baby" McCourt Doe. The thriving mining camp also attracted such characters as Doc Holliday, of notorious Wild West fame, who dealt faro at the saloons lining the main street of Leadville. Interesting accounts of Leadville history and social life can be found in Blair (1980) and Voynick (1992). Life in the once-booming mining camp had tamed down considerably by the start of the twentieth century; many of the rich lead carbonate/silver mines in the district were on their last legs, and production was down. With the discovery of oxidized zinc ores in the mines on Carbonate Hill in 1909-10, new life was breathed into the economy of Leadville. This article focuses on a 2,000-ton stockpile of oxidized zinc ore that was mined in the Wolftone mine about 1918-20 but was never shipped to the smelter because of falling zinc prices following the post-World War I Great Depression.