Lost Gold Mine

A miner. William Henry Jackson.

By P.J. Hunt

Is there a lost gold mine up the Poudre Canyon west of Fort Collins?

Some pioneers said there was, and a 1914 Rocky Mountain News article recalled the story, which involved a hanging and a lost boy who was nearly killed by a bear.

In the 1860s, two prospectors called Hans and Michael showed up at Camp Collins. They had gold and bought liquor for a spree that lasted several days. Then they left.

People thought nothing of it until the prospectors showed up again with gold. The locals asked where they found it. Hans and Michael refused to say. 

One of the locals followed the prospectors. He lost their trail because of a snow storm but said they headed up Poudre Canyon.

The next time the prospectors arrived, they had considerably more gold with them, and they traded their burro for an ox. They loaded more mining supplies than usual in a wagon and left. The locals were more interested than ever, figuring the prospectors had found a rich vein.

But the next time the prospectors came down, things had changed. They said a bear had killed their ox. They traded gold for liquor as usual, but they quarreled with each other.

Then one night, they fought. Michael hit Hans with a pistol butt and killed him. He might not have intended to kill him; both were very drunk.

The locals figured this was their chance. They seized Michael and threatened to hang him if he didn’t share his secret.

He refused to talk; so the men put a rope around his neck, threw the rope over a tree branch, and pulled him up for a few seconds. 

They intended only to scare him. But when they let him down, he was dead. The locals quickly lost interest in the gold because of the incident.

A few years later, a boy became lost in Poudre Canyon while hunting alone. People searched for him, but within a couple of days he showed up.

He had been scared out of his wits. While wandering through the canyon, he said he had spent a night in an old log cabin he stumbled upon.

The next day, the boy said he picked up a bleached bone near the cabin and put it in his saddle bag. He followed a trail from the cabin to a mine. He entered the mine and discovered a large bear with cubs.

The bear came after him, and the boy barely escaped with his life, managing to get to his horse and ride wildly down the canyon.

Some of the local men realized that the bone the boy brought back was from an ox. They figured he had accidentally found the mine of Michael and Hans. But the boy had been so lost and frightened that he couldn’t remember where the cabin was.

No one ever reported finding the mine, and the tale may be nothing more than  fiction. It is typical of the “lost gold mine” stories that circulated in early Colorado.

Few historians mention the story. But it might have been hushed up because of the hanging.

If the mine is up there, it might be near a dilapidated log cabin and some bleached ox bones.