[Illustration: This gold dredge, still floating in its pond just south
of Fairplay, operated from 1941 to 1952. With chains of buckets like
those in the foreground, it dug gravel 70 feet below water level,
carving a 35-foot bank above water level; in effect it mined to a depth
of 105 feet. This dredge extracted nearly 115,000 ounces of gold from
about 33 million cubic yards of gravel (John Chronic photo)]
Another gold field discovered in 1859 was in the northwest corner of
South Park, along the headwaters of the South Platte River. Several
mining camps were established here. After early production of rich
placer deposits, claims were consolidated and large flumes constructed
so that gold could be recovered by hydraulic mining. In this type of
mining, streams of water from high-pressure hoses are directed at gravel
surfaces. The gravels are washed into long sluiceboxes, where gold is
caught in riffles. Hydraulic mining continued upstream from Fairplay
until about 1900.
In 1922 a dredge was constructed near Fairplay to process gravel along
the South Platte and in the valley floor. An even larger dredge,
constructed in 1941, operated until 1952, when rising labor costs
overrode the narrow margin on which it operated. At the time operations
ceased, the dredge was recovering about six cents in gold for each cubic
yard of gravel processed.
Placer gold has always been the principal mineral product of the
Fairplay area, but native gold also occurs in the surrounding mountains
in quartz veins, and many small mines were developed to extract it.
Sulfide ores were also mined; they contained silver, lead, and zinc as
well as gold. In the Mosquito Pass and Horseshoe Amphitheater areas,
there is renewed activity now because of the recent rise in the price of
silver.