George Jackson's Coffee Cup and the First Colorado Gold
Near Idaho Springs, Colorado
The man who started it all was George Andrew Jackson, a Missourian in his early twenties who had already tried his luck in the California gold fields and was said to be a cousin of the frontiersman Kit Carson. In early January of eighteen fifty nine, Jackson set out to hunt, carrying almost nothing. His rifle, three biscuits, a tin cup, a buffalo robe, and a blanket.
He noticed clouds of steam rising from hot springs in the canyon and made camp nearby. The next morning he built a fire on a sandbar to thaw the frozen gravel, then used his coffee cup to pan the sand. Out came about nine dollars worth of gold, a small fortune when a laborer might earn a dollar a day.
Jackson kept the strike quiet for months, marking the spot and returning in the spring with a party to work the ground. One note on the date. Some sources say the discovery happened on January fifth, others say January seventh.
The exact day is genuinely uncertain, but the year and the place are not. This spot, where Chicago Creek meets Clear Creek, is where Colorado's gold story truly begins.
