History

Black Hawk, "The City of Mills," is one of Colorado's oldest cities. It is one of a number of towns that grew up in "Gregory's Gulch," the narrow ravine where Georgia prospector John H. Gregory first discovered lode gold in the western part of Kansas Territory in 1859.

Within months, thousands of would-be miners poured into the gulch, hoping for more big strikes like Gregory's. A few found bonanzas, many found paying claims, but the great majority either moved elsewhere to try their luck or, proclaiming the whole "Pike's Peak Gold Rush" a hoax, went back to their settled lives in the States.

Black Hawk was incoporated by an act of the territorial legislature on March 11, 1864. The future seemed assured, but trouble lay on the horizon. As the rich surface oreas began to play out, deeper hard-rock mines began to yield complex sulfide ores call suphurets-rock that prevented the simple stamp mills from recovering but a fraction of the gold locked inside.

Within a few years, the Colorado Central railroad line had reached Black Hawk, making it possible for coal to be shipped to the smelters and mills and supplies to be shipped up to the growing mining towns. The town's skyline also boasted a new shcool and Presbyterian Church. Fine brick business blocks spread along the gulch from the intersection of Main and Gregory Streets.