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The stories of gold fired the imagination of many an early pioneer. So, in wagons, on horseback and if need be, on foot they came to get rich. The great transcontinental migration to the California gold mines that began in 1849 found the high mountains in Colorado a barrier to travel so that the main trails to the Far West were the Overland route, through Wyoming, on the north, and the Santa Fe route, through New Mexico, on the south. The Russell brothers, to whom nearly all historians now credit the rush to the Pikes Peak region in 1858, were originally from Georgia but who had gained experience in mining in California, led a party of Georgians, Cherokee Indians, and others to Cherry Creek just south of today’s Denver in 1858 in search of gold in what was then western Kansas. What is Assaying? Assaying is a process for determining the amount of a certain metals contained in an ore or alloy; it is used to evaluate mineral deposits and to check the composition of ores and alloys. The Western Museum of Mining & Industry in Colorado Springs works hard to teach about the early days of Colorado mining.
https://westernmininghistory.com/special/western+museum+of+mining+and+industry/6079/
