The Saga of COLORADO GOLD - 53 Million Troy Ounces and Counting

Colorado has been mining gold even before the region became a territory and is still mining it today.

- STEVE VOYNICK

In fact, some of Colorado’s newly mined gold was refined to .9999 purity and milled into 140,000 sheets of gold leaf just 1/8000th of a millimeter thick to regild the 250-foot-tall dome of the state capital building in Denver.

When Colorado’s capital was built in 1898, the dome was clad in copper. But in 1908, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pikes Peak gold rush, the state fathers ordered the dome gilded with gold. Mine owners at the then-booming gold camp of Cripple Creek donated the required 200 troy ounces of gold. Cripple Creek miners also provided the gold for the recent regilding of the dome. However, this time, it took only 65 troy ounces, thanks to the ability to create an ever-thinner gold leaf. Another sign of changing times is the price of the gold itself: The 200 troy ounces needed to gild the dome in 1908 cost $4,000; today, the necessary 65 troy ounces cost $127,000.

Speaking at the completion of the regilding project, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper called gold “a true Colorado treasure that symbolizes its past, present, and future.” Indeed, Colorado opened with a gold rush; today, it still produces 300,000 troy ounces of gold each year. As for its future, the former governor and now U.S. senator, a geologist himself, referred to the ability to economically extract gold from very low-grade ores that will enable Colorado to produce gold for decades to come.

Colorado’s historic gold production is now nearing 53 million troy ounces. That amounts to 1,648 metric tons, which would occupy a 14-foot cube and be worth $100 billion at today’s gold prices.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS