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He told them plainly that he had come across this country to prospect the Rocky Mountains and he was unwilling to give up. They were not immediately successful in finding significant amounts of gold, and by the end of June, Russell found himself with only a dozen men remaining. The group started out with about 100 prospectors. They had heard of the find made by the Indians, and secured Cherokee guides to assist them in exploring the area. In the spring of 1858, William Green Russell and his two brothers, placer miners originally from Georgia who had also dug for gold in California, led a party to prospect and explore along the South Platte River. It is said that Cherokee Indians occasionally brought small lots of placer gold from the upper Platte in the early 1850s, but the first major finds were not made until later in that decade. They found a little gold in Ralston Creek, a tributary of the South Platte. Among the early California Argonauts was a band of Cherokees who stopped on their way to California and prospected some of the creeks and rivers of the Rockies eastern slope. In Colorado, as it is in most places, placer gravels were the first form of mines worked, and by searching for their sources, many of the important vein deposits were discovered. Even when the California discoveries brought new emigrants westward in search of gold, those pioneers did not seem to realize that gold was found in many places besides California. In the early 1800s, Colorado was explored by special expeditions, trappers and other pioneers, but apparently most of these early travelers paid little attention to the mineral deposits as they passed through. The Cripple Creek mining district, largest in Colorado, as well as several minor districts, lies in another zone southeast of the main mineral belt. This zone does not hold all of the mines. From a location near Boulder on the northeast, this belt extends south and west into the San Juan Mountains and beyond. The majority of the gold deposits are confined to a northeast-trending belt known as the Colorado Mineral Belt, located in the mountainous western part of the state. Bylaws for Traditional Mining DistrictsĬolorado is one of the more productive states when it comes to gold, ranking third, behind Nevada and California.