PIKE'S PEAK MINING RANGE

PIKE'S PEAK MINING RANGE. Site of LEAD and ZINC mining activity south of Dubuque between 1830 and 1917. Located on the southwestern edge of Dubuque, the site was known as the Pike's Peak Range because it was developed at the time of the gold rush in Colorado. (1) The area saw mining activity nearly as soon as white settlement was allowed in the region. Richard Bonson began the mining development in Mineral Lots 271, 272, 273, 274, and 276 in the southeast quarter of Section 33. Bonson sold the land to Jacob Miller in November 1882. Miller leased the mineral rights to various individuals and companies until 1967 when the City of Dubuque purchased the Miller farm.

Mining operations on the Pike's Peak Range were troubled by water as were other mines in the Dubuque area. The Pike's Peak Mining Company installed a pump in the Brugh-Amsden Mine in 1899 and lowered the water level sixty feet allowing significant new mining on the property. In 1906 mineral leases were purchased by the Dubuque and Lake Superior Mining Company headquartered in Superior, Wisconsin. These rights eventually were owned by the Pittsburgh-Galena Mining Company that recovered at least 20% pure zinc ore from the lead ore in dumps from the Brugh and Beadle mines.

This activity began in 1915 when the Pittsburg-Galena Mining Company obtained a lease on the property and began to pump the water from the nearly twenty-year old mine shaft. After the shaft, which was 160 feet in depth, was pumped dry the drifts were explored. The operations were abandoned for the winter and the hole quickly filled with water which reached a depth of fifty feet by 1916. New pumps were installed to again drain the shaft. In the past distance from the mine to a mill or concentrator where the ore was separated from the rock handicapped the mining company. To solve this problem, the company in 1916 erected a mill on the site. To have a source of water to wash the ore as it was milled, a pond was dug that was fifty to sixty feet wide and seven feet deep. Filling the pond used water pumped from the mine shaft. This effort marked the end of serious mining on the Range, although the leases were transferred to the Ridge Motor and Machine Company in 1942.

Now the location of F.D.R. Park, the area has been described as the last remaining mining complex. Efforts to designate the area an historical site had not proven successful by 2010.

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Source:

1. Jacobsen, James E. The Architectural and Historical Resources of Dubuque, Iowa, 1837-1955Online: http://www.cityofdubuque.org/DocumentCenter/Home/View/2936, p. 6