Depression Gold Mining in the Alma District of Colorado
Scarce promotional birdseye view map and brochure promotiong the London Mountain Gold Mining Company
The central image includes a detailed view of London Mountain, the claims of the London Mountain Gold Mining Company and the Oliver Twist Tunnel, along with infrastructure and the towns of Leadville, and Fairplay. The image is surrounded by explanatory essays regarding the company, the Oliver Twist Tunnel, Mitchell Cut and other information, with contact information for Kamp & Company in Denver.
Early on during the Great Depression, local Leadville investors sought to re-invigorate the gold mines atop Mosquito Pass. George and Robert Elder were two of those investors, putting up their savings into the London Mountain Gold Mining Company and working to coax a bonanza from the old Oliver Twist Tunnel. They, and the men who worked for them, endured violence, bank closures, mine accidents, and the forbidding conditions of 13,185-foot-high Mosquito Pass, seven miles from Leadville.
Working with the encouragement of the Works Projects Administration, which was teaching miners to pan gold on Cherry Creek near Denver, and at a time when the price of gold was increased from $20 per ounce to $32 per ounce by the Roosevelt Administration, the Elders attempted to rework the Oliver Twist Tunnel and London Mine, which had a successful history dating back to the 1880s.
Despite the best intentions of the promoters, the company was not profitable and closed by 1936.
We have handled another, slightly later, promotional bird's-eye view by the same miners.