About me

Welcome to my gold panning adventure in Calhan, Colorado. My name is Ed Choiniere, and I am a hobbyist gold prospector. I have been practicing my gold panning techniques for many years. This is done at home with packages of paydirt (pay) that can be purchased on the Internet. These are usually 1-pound bags of pay and depending on the seller, may have some stones, pebbles or other stuff mixed in the bag. Depending on how big the gold is and the accompanying rocks you may have to qualify the material first. Qualifying is accomplished using different sizes of screens to get down to the size of the gold therein. Once you are down to the smallest particles possible you then start panning. Throw a small amount of the qualified pay into the sorting pan, fill the pan with a couple inches of water and agitate the pan from side to side. The strategy here is to agitate the pay in the pan so the heavy particles, hopefully gold, will sink to the bottom and you can spill out the lighter materials. The goal is to work it down until you have black sand and gold flakes. The black sand is usually iron and can be separated from the gold with a magnet. This is a very exhausting, but exhilarating process, especially when you see particles of gold.  Now you can capture the gold with an eye dropper or set of tweezers. Next reload the pan and repeat. I also do some of the gold recovery using a Spiral Gold Panning Machine. Much easier than panning, but I still pan to keep my skills up. I first panned gold on a trip to Cripple Creek, Colorado in August of 1976. Two girls ran a booth where you paid $10 and got a pan of pay dirt. I found two little flakes of gold. They gave you a little souvenir bottle for your sample. 

My Mission

I'm searching for what is called placer (pronounced plasser) gold. This type of gold is usually found in rivers or old riverbeds and are formed by water streaming through gold rich earth and washing parts of it downstream. Gold, being very heavy, will settle in cracks in streambed rocks or under waterfalls, just waiting to be found.  Gold prices hit a high of $2413.80 pr ounce on my birthday 4/19/2024. Current price of gold id $2375.00 per ounce.

Colorado is a very arid state, and they keep a tight rein on the aquifers. I used to visit my brother the week of July 4th when I was working and several of the year's fireworks were forbidden because of the fire hazard. Calhan is located in El Paso County, a high plain area where there is a lot of wind. There are several hundred wind turbines visible from his house at 35050 Judge Orr Road and if a fire got started there, it would be like California with the Santa Ana winds. Scorched earth.

However, there is a streambed on my brother's property that flows when the occasional heavy rains come to Calhan and that is where I'll start my search for gold. 

Avi "Hard Gold: The Colorado Gold Rush Of 1829", Published by Hyperion Books For Children, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, 1011-5690, 2008. 11-13. These pages in Avi's book chronicle the start of the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush.

The Colorado Gold Rush started in 1858 with gold discovered in Cherry Creek which a tributary of the South Platte River. Much like California in 1949 the Newspapers ran huge articles announcing the new discoveries and each story hyped the ease of finding gold more than the previous article. 

Colorado

Sprague, Marshall. Colorado: A Bicentennial History. Published and distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1976 Page 3.

The name Colorado comes from the Spanish for red or ruddy which fits a common hue of the Colorado Rockies.

Sprague, Marshall. Colorado: A Bicentennial History. Published and distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1976 Page 19. 

The territory where Colorado is now located was part of the Louisiana Purchase called the Unorganized Territory. This territory was sold by Napoleon Bonaparte of France to Thomas Jefferson of the United States.

There is a great section on the Louisiana Purchase online in an Article titled Louisiana Purchase on the Encyclopedia Britannica.com/event/Louisian-Purchase web site, Publisher: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 25 April 2024.

Originally King Charles IV of Spain claimed the territory along with Napoleon Bonaparte of France. The French had ceded the territory to Spain in 1762 after the Seven Years' War, but Napoleon prevailed over Charles IV who reluctantly agreed, under threat of war, to cede all the land back to France. The treaty of retrocession was named the Treaty of San Ildefonso confirmed March 12, 1801.

This article also covers the machinations the chosen negotiators for each of the parties went through to try to make a deal. For Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, his representative was Robert R. Livingston, the United States minister at Paris, France. Napoleon Bonaparte's representative was Charles-Maurice Talleyrand. A minister of Napoleon's with a poor international reputation and an equally poor nickname which was "merde-tete" (sh*t head). Well, Talleyrand was avoiding Livingston who finally got a message to Napolean and told him the United States primarily wanted New Orleans and secondly wanted open commerce on the Mississippi for all. Livingston also played a Chess Gambit by noting that if France was reluctant to deal, the British were now interested. One can picture Bonaparte screaming, "Sacre bleu!". And the deal was on...

Dorset, Phyllis Flanders, The New Eldorado The Story of Colorado's Gold and Silver Rushes, Published by The Macmillan Company, 866 Third Avenue, New York, New York, 10022. Parts 1, 2 and 3.

The Gold Rush period was from 1858 to 1870. The Silver Rush spanned 1870 to 1890. The book also offers another Gold Rush in Part III titled Gold Again 1870-1890. For the Gold Rush the motto was Pike's Peak or Bust which was written on the canvas of many of the covered wagons coming to Colorado for the much-hyped opportunity to strike it rich in gold. The motto was updated for the automobile era with cars having Pike's Peak Or Boil painted on them. I'm pretty sure I first thought I saw the Or Boil Slogan on a Three Stooges vehicle in one of their mining shorts. Similar to California following the prospectors were a bunch of carpet baggers looking to make money off the prospectors by selling them equipment and food supplies, liquor, women, gambling, lodging, laundry, barber shops and other sundries. 

Silver was discovered in the same place prospectors were finding gold. The price of silver wasn't worth digging it up. But, in 1870 when the easy gold had petered out silver prices were now up to a level where it could support a miner. No where as rich as gold but was enough to keep you alive.

Wolfe, Muriel S., Stampede to Timberline, Published by Athens: Ohio University Press. 1991 (reprint) Pages 48 to 51.

The Gold again period started in 1870 when a bonanza was discovered in Cripple Creek. This was a most serendipitous find since most of the easy gold has already been harvested. During these times Gold Mining was being done by corporations such as New Mont Mining, instead of single prospectors with single claims. A claim is where a prospector will lay claim to a piece of land by putting wood pegs in the four corners of the parcel and registering it with the town or state Mining Board. This where the term Claim Jumper comes from because thieves would try to steal claims by replacing the original pegs with their own or somehow challenging or protesting the claim in court. The early courts were made up of miners who had been in the area for a while. But it was pretty much the Wild West out there where guns were the front line of security and then town, county or state law enforcement and courts, 

Blair, Edward, Leadville: Colorados Magic City, Published by Boulder: Pruett, 1980. Pages 245 to 251.

A big discovery was made in California Gulch of a heavy black sand. This usually led to a vein of gold ore, but this was not the case. Instead, when the black sand was assayed it was found to be carbonate of lead carrying 40 ounces per ton of silver. This was a Eureka moment and the miners traced it up the mountain to its source which turned out to be a ten-foot-thick vein. And although they tried to keep it quiet the news burst out and it was the bigger than the 49ers or 59ers rushes. One of the first prospectors to hit it big was George Fryer who founded the New Discovery Mine in Evans Gulch which after this discovery became known as Fryer Hill. So contagious was the new fever that even Governor John L. Routt left his aides in charge while he headed for the hills to mine.

Explore Colorado 2023 Official Travel Guide, Published by Miles Partnership, milespartnership.com for the Colorado Tourism Office, 2023

Things to do in Colorado Winters: Snowshoeing, Skiing, Cross-Country Skiing, Alpine Coasters, Ski Biking, Fat Biking, Ice Skating, Horse-Drawn Sleigh Rides and Snow Tubing

Things to do in Colorado during non-snow times of the year: Walking, Hiking, Jogging, Marathons (both walking and running), Rafting, Boating, Wildlife Watching, Birding, Mountain Biking, Road Biking, Backpacking, Camping, Golf, Ziplining, Aerial Parks, Fishing, Hunting, Dirt Biking, ATVing, Jeep Off-road Trips, Stand-Up Paddleboarding, Horseback Riding, Camping, Stargazing, Zoos, Museums, Sporting Events and more.

The guide also mentions that you can go to Cripple Creek and visit the Mining Museum. But the real gold is to be found in the several Casinos in town.

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