David Forsyth - Eben Smith: The Dean of Western Mining

Mining the American West

S ERIES E DITORS: D UANE A . S MITH | R OBERT A . T RENNERT | L IPING Z HU

Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale | A NDREW G ULLIFORD

Eben Smith: The Dean of Western Mining | D AVID F ORSYTH

From Redstone to Ludlow: John Cleveland Osgoods Struggle against the United Mine Workers of America | F . D ARRELL M UNSELL

Gambling on Ore: The Nature of Metal Mining in the United States, 18601910 | K ENT A . C URTIS

Hard as the Rock Itself: Place and Identity in the American Mining Town | D AVID R OBERTSON

High Altitude Energy: A History of Fossil Fuels in Colorado | L EE S CAMEHORN

A History of Gold Dredging in Idaho | C LARK C . S PENCE

Industrializing the Rockies: Growth, Competition, and Turmoil in the Coalfields of Colorado and Wyoming | D AVID A . W OLFF

The Mechanics of Optimism: Mining Companies, Technology, and the Hot Spring Gold Rush, Montana Territory, 18641868 | J EFFREY J . S AFFORD

Mercury and the Making of California: Mining, Landscape, and Race, 18401890 | A NDREW S COTT J OHNSTON

The Once and Future Silver Queen of the Rockies: Georgetown, Colorado, and the Fight for Survival into the Twentieth Century | C HRISTINE A . B RADLEY AND D UANE A . S MITH

The Rise of the Silver Queen: Georgetown, Colorado, 18591896 | L ISTON E . L EYENDECKER, D UANE A . S MITH, AND C HRISTINE A . B RADLEY

Santa Rita del Cobre: A Copper Mining Community in New Mexico | C HRISTOPHER J . H UGGARD AND T ERRENCE M . H UMBLE

Silver Saga: The Story of Caribou, Colorado, Revised Edition | D UANE A . S MITH

Thomas F. Walsh: Progressive Businessman and Colorado Mining Tycoon | J OHN S TEWART

Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West | M ICHAEL A . A MUNDSON

David Forsyth

U NIVERSITY P RESS OF C OLORADO

Louisville

2021 by University Press of Colorado

Published by University Press of Colorado

245 Century Circle, Suite 202

Louisville, Colorado 80027

All rights reserved

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of the Association of University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, University of Wyoming, Utah State University, and Western Colorado University.

ISBN: 978-1-64642-178-7 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-64642-179-4 (ebook)

https://doi.org/10.5876/9781646421794

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Forsyth, David, 1977 author.

Title: Eben Smith : the dean of Western mining / by David Forsyth.

Other titles: Mining the American West.

Description: Louisville : University Press of Colorado, [2021] | Series: Mining the American West series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021021144 (print) | LCCN 2021021145 (ebook) | ISBN 9781646421787 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781646421794 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Smith, Eben (Ebenezer), 18311906. | MinersColoradoCripple CreekBiography. | Mining engineersColoradoCripple CreekBiography. | Gold mines and miningColoradoCripple CreekBiography. | Silver mines and miningColoradoCripple CreekBiography. | Mineral industriesColoradoCripple CreekBiography. | Cripple Creek (Colo.)History19th century.

Classification: LCC TN140.S59 F67 2021 (print) | LCC TN140.S59 (ebook) | DDC 622.092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021144

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021145

Cover photograph: Eben Smith, ca. 1875 (History Colorado, Object # 89.451.4395)

For the Fantastic Forsyths

In 1990, the late L. Douglas Hoyt, then-owner of the Smith Mansion at Eighteenth and York in Denver, gave my family and me a tour of the house. It was a wonderful chance to see the inside of the house that started my interest in Eben Smith, and I have always appreciated his willingness to indulge a kid interested in history.

This book began life as my masters thesis at the University of Colorado at Denver many years ago, and I wish to thank James Whiteside, Rebecca Hunt, Jay Fell, and Tom Noel for their advice and suggestions as I worked on it. I am also grateful to Duane Smith at Fort Lewis College for his suggestions during my research.

A number of other people were very helpful in my research. Jim Prochaska and Alan Granruth at the Gilpin Historical Society dug out pictures and papers for both Eben Smith and his granddaughter Emmy Wilson, who owned the Glory Hole Tavern in Central City. The staff at the Denver Public Librarys Western History Department brought out box after box of Eben Smiths papers along with Moffat Estate Company papers and helped point me in the direction of more sources. The staffs at the Carnegie Branch Library in Boulder, the Lake County Public Library in Leadville, and the Stephen H. Hart Library at History Colorado in Denver were also of great help to me. Librarians throughout the country helped me find newspaper articles and obituaries as I tracked the Smith family. I would like to particularly thank D. Cohen at the Sacramento Public Library and the staff at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, whose help allowed me to discover the first name of Eben Smiths first wife, Caroline, who had always been referred to as Mrs. Jordan or Mrs. Smith in sources.

At the University Press of Colorado, I would like to thank the anonymous peer readers, Jessica dArbonne, Charlotte Steinhardt, Rachael Levay, Beth Svinarich, Laura Furney, Dan Pratt, and Darrin Pratt for their suggestions, help, and guidance in getting this book published. Sue Carter helped me edit the manuscript when I thought I could not adjust one more comma or change one more word after so many years of working on it, and Cheryl Carnahan helped polish it into the final version.

I also owe a very special thanks to Eben Smiths family. His great-granddaughters Betty Works and Barbara Landweer Smith and great-great-granddaughters Nancy Smith Piano, Leslie Wheary, Julie Mynett, and Michel Tritt provided me with a vast amount of family history, stories, and photographs. Anne McCarroll and her father, Louis OKane, both of Ireland, whose grandmother and mother, Fanny Watson OKane, was good friends with Cora Smith Carnahan, were also wonderful sources and provided me with copies of many letters and photographs.

Finally, I am thankful to my family for their constant support and for putting up with Eben Smith for so many years.

In July 2012, more than 100 years after Eben Smiths death, the owners of a warehouse that once belonged to the Denver Mine and Smelter Supply Company began to demolish the building with the hope of selling the land to a new owner who wanted to construct apartment buildings. Neighbors of the warehouse, which was built in 1909, filed an ultimately unsuccessful petition to have the warehouse declared a Denver landmark and be saved from destruction. The neighbors argued that the building deserved landmark status because of its connection to Colorados mining history and to mining pioneer Eben Smith, overlooking the fact that Smith had sold his interest in the Denver Mine and Smelter Supply Company in 1901 and died in 1906, three years before the warehouse was built. Critics vocally condemned the landmark attempt, arguing that allowing a hostile neighbor to attempt to thwart an owners plans for a historic building made a mockery of Denvers landmark preservation ordinance, and