Gunnell Gold Mining and Milling Company

Mile Post 40.44

The Gunnell Mine was located on the south side of Prosser Gulch just west of Central City.   The Gunnell vein was located in 1859; however extensive development was not begun until 1874.  At the close of 1875 the shaft was 700 feet deep.  The property was operated intermittently from 1874 until 1904 when the shaft house burned and the mine flooded.  The Newhouse Tunnel drained this mine in 1909 and work was resumed.

The Gilpin Tramway reached the Gunnell Mine with its track before the end of December in 1887.  Before the end of September 1888 the tramway had also laid a sidetrack at this mine. (Gilpin Railroad Station Listing, Abbott)

The Gunnell Mine provided the first trainload of ore on the Gilpin Tram, shipping a six-car train on December 11, 1887, to the Meade Mill in Black Hawk. Although this ore vein was discovered during the original 1859 gold rush, mining began in earnest in the 1870s. Terry Cox, in his book Inside the Mountains, A History of Mining Around Central City, Colorado (published in 1989 by Pruett Publishing Company), writes that this mine produced 206,000 ounces of gold between 1859 and 1938. The Gunnell Mine seems to have been worked simultaneously with the Grand Army shaft. This was a large producer: by comparison, the Old Town Mine, which was the largest shipper on the Gilpin Tram, produced 132,000 ounces of gold by 1944.

Terry Cox continues to write about an unusual war between the Gunnell Mine and the neighboring Concrete Mine, whereby the Gunnell Mine miners invaded the Concrete Mine property and stole their ore from a particularly rich ore vein. When the Concrete Mine miners went to where they thought the ore vein should extend to on their property, they found an empty vein where their ore had been stolen. The ensuing court battles were eventually decided in the Concrete Mine owners’ favor, and they were granted the rights to the remaining ore in the Gunnell Mine. The Concrete-Grand Army-Gunnell were then worked as one property. In 1904, a fire in the pump house eliminated the pumps, and the mine filled with water. The property sat vacant for many years, but was worked by the Tremont Company, an Argo Tunnel subsidiary, and mined until about 1938.

Today, most of the mine is in ruins, but a portion of the boiler house remains, and the remaining roof and wall supports were stabilized by the present owner. The coal dump trestle remains, as does the some of the spur grades. The shaft building is mostly gone, with only a few remains of the stone walls still extant.  (Gilpin Railroad Quarterly, #25)