A Brief History of the Clear Creek Watershed

On a cold winter day in January 1859, George Jackson discovered gold in a sandbar in the western reaches of Clear Creek (then called Vasquez Creek) just south of present-day Idaho Springs, thus starting the Colorado Gold Rush. Within a year, almost every foot of upper Clear Creek was staked out as a placer claim by miners eager to find their fortune by gold panning. It wasn’t long, however, before the creek’s easily accessible placer deposits were “panned out”.

The heartier miners shifted their focus to hard-rock mining, using the hydro-energy from the creek to help with milling operations. Miners continued to venture west, and in 1864 silver was discovered in Georgetown. With thousands of mines in operation, the population of Clear Creek Watershed swelled, at one point reaching 50,000 residents. The first train ran up Clear Creek Canyon in 1872 to Black Hawk. Mining and milling boomed in the area until the late 1890s. Silver mining continued for only two decades until the United States government removed silver as a standard for our monetary system. Gold mining continued sporadically in the communities along the creek until the early 1940s, when it could no longer be sustained.

As miners settled into the mountain communities, the agricultural industry was growing along the front range. Farmers diverted water from Clear Creek to irrigate fields of wheat, alfalfa and corn. Many of these ditches and canals still exist.

While mining and agricultural activity provided economic benefits and led to Colorado’s statehood, they also had negative impacts on water quality throughout the watershed—particularly as measured by today’s environmental standards.

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