Willoughby: Aspen’s silver production came from small as well as large mines
Willoughby collection/Courtesy photo
You are familiar with the names of some of Aspen’s mines like the Smuggler, Molly Gibson, and Durant because those names still designate locations or businesses.
But have you heard of the Blue Jay or the Yopsie? A local bar might today be named the Yopsie had it been a more successful mine.
The largest mines – and some became larger by consolidating claims of smaller mines – produced enormous totals of silver, lead, and zinc, but the total production in Aspen included many smaller mines, some only lasting a few years. Production records from those days are known for many of the larger mines, not from the smaller ones, so the percentage of production of the combination of smaller ones relative to the larger ones is not known, but it would be significant.
An additional problem is that production of what would later be considered smaller mines was largely in the early years as, if they found any ore, they produced it during the first five to ten years. There are no production figure totals for the Blue Jay and the Yopsie, but they are good examples to demonstrate the contribution to Aspen’s mineral production.
Both mines are in the upper area of Queens Gulch. Like many mines, they are in an area of the Castle Creek fault zone where erosion left enough of the geology exposed. Prospectors zeroed in on rock in or near the Leadville Formation. Both were in the quartzite cliffs in the upper gulch where the Weber shale was also exposed. The Blue Jay found a manganese vein near the surface and followed it.
The Blue Jay was originally named the Swedish Queen. It was located by a prospector named D. B. Jarred who became known because he stole some Aspen ore, was convicted, and escaped the penitentiary in 1884. Silver was found in 1881 with an assay showing around 50 ounces per ton, and there is a note the mine shipped some ore, that same year that ranged from 100 to 500 ounces per ton, a very high silver content.
The mine had two tunnels. One was around two hundred feet long and, at the end, had a raise (the name for an uphill tunnel). Two men worked it in 1885. The major owner was J.P. Lenher. Another partner, Ben Ferris, was a co-owner of the Yopsie. Ferris sold half of his interest in the Blue Jay to Jerome Wheeler in 1892, an interesting purchase since there is no record of any ore production after 1885. The tunnel was all in hard rock and did not need timbering. My father explored it thoroughly in the 1920s. There was still manganese but no sign of any silver.
The Yopsie, three claims together, was a neighboring claim. The claim was filed in 1881 by Seeley B. Wilson, H. Henderson, and Ben Ferris. In 1883, there were four men working the claim, and a vein over three feet wide was found that looked promising enough for them to improve the trail that connected it to the lower valley. They began shipping ore that same year. The fist load was two tons with around 70 ounces of silver per ton. Later in the year, they shipped ore directly to the smelter because it had some ore with 400 ounces per ton.
They had another find in 1885 and shipped a half a ton with 157 ounces of silver and with 7% lead. The vein grew to a width of six feet, and they shipped 26 tons. In 1886, the ore included about 25% copper and 50 ounces of silver per ton.
Information is sketchy after that.
A report in 1890 noted that, in 1887, they shipped ore by burro costing $16 to $39 dollars per ton. In 1890, it was reported that the tunnel was in 1,200 feet, but no production was noted. The owner, Ferris, lived at the site in a cabin he built. Had he extended the tunnel, he would have eventually tunneled under the valuable workings of Tourtolotte Park, but a tunnel at that level had already reached the ore body from a different direction.
The Midnight Mine bought the Blue Jay claim in 1913 – for the location of its tunnel that went in the opposite direction for nearly two miles – to explore the Castle Creek fault zone for new ore bodies and to connect to the known ore bodies of the Little Annie and original Midnight that had stopped going deeper due to water issues.
The ore production for the smaller mines made a significant contribution to Aspen’s total. There are dozens and dozens of stories similar to the Yopsie and the Blue Jay.
Tim Willoughby’s family story parallels Aspen’s. He began sharing folklore while teaching at Aspen Country Day School and Colorado Mountain College. Now a tourist in his native town, he views it with historical perspective. Reach him at redmtn2@comcast.net
