It wasn't until the discovery of tellurium in 1872 that the mining came back into its own and the new town of Gold Hill established. The old foundations of wrecked mills one sees around Gold Hill, are the monuments to the enormous sums that had been taken out of the mountain leaving scars wherever one looks.

This is not a complete history of Gold Hill. It was not intended to be. It is merely a simple book report, as it were. In fact, there can be no complete history of Gold Hill, in as much as the participants of the early life of that first settlement and the intervening years have passed on leaving few records behind. When Blanche and I began this project, it was our intention to write just a little story of the Gold Hill as we knew it in our childhood and of some of the elder residents who were there when we appeared on the scene.

It then occurred to me, that perhaps it would be more interesting to start at the beginning, that is, from the time of the discovery of the first gold, and thereby learn something of the background of our town. We have had very little material with which to work other than newspaper items, some articles written by others and from memory, so, this has been our story of Gold Hill, especially of 1890 period, in fact, the first twenty years of our life.

There is so much more that could have been told about that first settlement on top of Horsfal hill. It might be of their struggle for existence during the cold winter months, of some special event, of possible Indian trouble, or of some outstanding person or persons who may have been responsible for the growth and development of their new town. It never occurred to them that others in future Years would be interested in their way of life and of the hardships encountered in those first years. The only records available seems to be the recording of new mining claims or new mining laws. Many stories could have been written about Gold Hill, by different writers, and they would all be different, for the simple reason, "each sees and each sees different," but all would boil down to the same thing and not so different after all.

Many interesting facts concerning the people as a whole, their social life and other activities are lost forever. Lost in oblivion.

There were several old prospectors still scratching around in "them thar hills" in the 1890's, when my brother and I were old enough to run around the country, and especially on Horsfal Hill, and we got to be pretty well acquainted with some of them, as they enjoyed having some one to talk with, even a couple of kids.

We enjoyed very much visiting with Mr. Hitchings in his little cabin by the side of the Horsfal road. He once told us of how he had carried the little cook-stove that he had in the cabin, all the way from Central City to Gold Hill on his back and how long it took for the trip. One day when we called on him he was frying up a batch of flapjacks and we were curious to know how many of them he could eat at one time, but he told us he always made up enough at one time to last for a week.

I remember Pete Jackson with whom we would visit every now and then. He was a bachelor, living alone in a little log cabin a short way below the Horsfall mine near the head of Black Cloud gulch where he had some claims in that area.

And there was Doc Saunders, a Dutchman from Holland. He lived in a little cabin on the point of the hill overlooking Lickskillet gulch at the junction with Left Hand. We first called on him to ask if he might have some postage stamps from Holland. I was collecting stamps. He was working a tunnel on Left Hand just below the mouth of Lickskillet. His blacksmith shop and tool house was across the road from the tunnel, and one day when we stopped to see him, on our way to the swimming hole at the Prussian dam, he was whittling on a block of wood and we, of course, wanted to know what he was doing and he said he was making a new pair of shoes to wear in the tunnel, that they lasted longer than leather shoes. We watched him gouge out those shoes, and how sorry I have been that I didn't get at least even one of the worn ones for a keepsake. Blanche says it was Mr. Saunders that her dad had to help build their cellar at the ranch.

Some of the other prospectors we knew quite well was Chris Eslinger, John Ridgley, Matt and John Liston, and an old fellow by the name of John Padgett who was working a tunnel below the Slide mine. He smoked an old pipe that you could smell for half a mile so we always knew when he was in the tunnel; a nice old fellow. Then there was Charles Kessler, the last of the placer miners. He was working Gold Run creek between Gold Hill and Summerville. We were afraid of him. We thought he was a wild man. John Dubois was a prospector who roamed over the district quite a bit and not a resident. Mr. Bradstreet, we knew very little about only that he lived on Gold Run below the cemetery and was a Justice of the Peace for several years.

For several years there were four stamp mills in operation along Left Hand creek between Gold Hill and Rockville. This name later changed to Rowena. The Reedy mill was directly across the creek from the Gold Hill road. D.M. Reedy, secretary and manager of the Illinois Gold Mining Company, with mining interests in the Left Hand area, was operator of the mill. The Reedys located in Gold Hill about 1880, and were residents until 1894 when they moved to Boulder to make their home. The Gale mill, the Slide mill and the Prussian mill were all down stream for the next mile or more. On the south side of Horsfall Hill was the Black Cloud mill at Summerville, at the top of Black Cloud hill. There was also a mill at Salina.

The freight teams were always very much in demand. There was ore to be hauled to the mills, mining timbers and machinery to the mines, groceries and supplies and miscellaneous freight. There were several such teamsters in Gold Hill. Mr. Hastings was operating the largest freight outfit at this time, running four to five four horse teams and employing several extra men.

Dan Magary, I think was the most conspicuous of the lot, so far as us kids were concerned. He had a three horse outfit, or rather, two horses for the wheel team and a big overgrown mule in the lead. Dan was a bachelor and lived pretty much to himself in a cabin across the street from the schoolhouse. His hauling consisted mostly of the lighter loads of ore and freight. Almost always he traveled the Sunshine road, taking two to three days for the trip from Gold Hill to Boulder and return, depending on his load. He built a log cabin about mid way between Boulder and Sunshine and would stop there for the night.

Some of the other outfits were - Frank Johnson, who was busy all of the time. James Guise, Frank Strock and Silas Hickok. For a year or two the company operating the Slide mine had their own teams to do their hauling. Mr. Ballanger was superintendent and L.H. Dennison, was manager of the company at that time.