Sidebar by Allen Best
Homestake Mine Tragedy – January 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
The story of how the Homestake Mine was discovered sounds too fanciful to be real. It was 1871, and the brilliant flash of placer gold at California Gulch from 1860 had dulled considerably. Still, prospectors searched.
One party of five prospectors rode to the flanks of Mount Massive, and continued north across Galena, stopping here and there to poke around as they followed the Continental Divide north toward 13,209-foot Homestake Peak.