The Alpine Loop Back Country Byway
Lake City to Capitol City

The road heading west from Lake City was in excellent condition, but with that crushed granite surface and all the traffic coming out, the air was pretty dusty. The canyon is narrow with rising granite wall on the north side and roaring river on the south side, below more rising granite wall. The first couple of miles were gradually uphill through this narrow gap in the rock, and it was beautiful. But Henson Creek was far too active to make for good fishing.

About the same time the canyon started to open up a bit, I came to the site of the old Ute-Ulay Mine. This was the Galena Mining District. In the 1890's this area was filled with miners working some rich gold and silver veins. However, everything was owned by the Company (the Auric Mining Company at the Ute-Ulay), including the bare bones, leaky and draft-filled housing. In early 1899, the Auric Mining Company required that all single men and men without families present live in the company boarding house, and pay exorbitant fees for the "privilege." On March 14, 1899, nearly 100 members of the Henson Miner's Union (mostly Italians but not the Swedes, Norwegians or other "Americans") started a lock-down strike at the mine because of this. At the same time, someone broke into the State Armory at Lake City and stole a bunch of rifles and ammunition.

In fear of what would happen next, Lake City Sheriff James Deck tried to negotiate with the miners (but not with the company - imagine that). When the "negotiations" failed, the sheriff wired the Governor and asked for state militia to be dispatched to quell the "rioting." 4 companies of National Guard together with the Italian Ambassador arrived in Lake City on March 16, and the strike ended soon thereafter. The strike settlement (arranged by Mine Superintendent, and later US Senator from Colorado, Samuel D. Nicholson) required that the striking Italian miners had to leave Hinsdale County: "single men within one week and men with families within six weeks." That same day Nicholson placed an ad in the Lake City Times saying, "We can use about 75 men... Italians need not apply."

After Ute-Ulay, the canyon continued to open up and the views got bigger and bigger. At times the rushing creek was right beside the road, at other times it was well below in the granite canyon. For most of this drive, though, the water was high and rushing quickly downhill. It was only a few more miles and I came to the junction with the road leading north to the Matterhorn Trailhead (where I wanted to go for a hike into the Uncompahgre Wilderness and then spend the night acclimating at a bit of altitude before heading for Engineer Pass the next day). Capitol City was within yards of that road junction.

Capitol City was founded in 1877 to service many of the gold and silver mines in the area. Miners and mining barons were one group of folks who lived here, but the easy access to personally-held capital also attracted other entrepreneurs and for several years, Capitol City was looking like it might become a major city of the modern era. The town grew and prospered until the 1882-1883 recession nearly destroyed it. That was when Wall Street speculators and their federal government cronies crashed the stock market, and devastated nearly all of Colorado almost overnight. The population of Capitol City dropped off quickly and by 1910, the town was virtually abandoned.

Today, only a couple of the old log structures survive intact, and some of the old concrete foundations for ore milling facilities remain. There are now several modern summer homes right around the original townsite of Capitol City, built on the property defined in mining claims that have somehow survived all this time (there's actually a pretty good market in buying and selling old mining claims these days - most of these claims are so far out in the bush that the owners can actually count on having a bit of privacy, even in these modern, video-camera-on-every-corner times).