History of the Town of Perigo

The story of E.G. Gambell’s 1859 gold discovery

By John Schapekahm

Up Pickle Creek and past Missouri Lake, then up Missouri Canyon, past Wide-Awake town, over the hump and down into Gambell Gulch, seven miles from Black Hawk, three miles from Rollinsville, is/was Perigo.
Here’s the backstory
E.G. Gambell left his home in Ohio to participate in the westward trek of the 19th century gold seekers. Prior to his arrival in Colorado, he actively mined in California. When things did not pan out (pardon the pun) so well for him, he joined the throngs of “Go-Backs” who turned around and headed back east. Arriving in Golden Gate City (present-day Golden) in May 1859 with other fresh arrivals, he proceeded to organize a group of men for a concentrated gold-seeking expedition.
After a few false starts, the Gambell party loaded supplies on strings of pack mules and started their way up prospecting South Boulder Canyon. The party, as had happened in so many other instances, got swallowed up in a spring blizzard. In the face of the blinding snowstorm, they turned their mules loose to fend for themselves, while the men hoisted the packs onto their own shoulders. When the storm abated, the Argonauts found their way into a high, broad mountain meadow, watered by a streambed tributary to South Boulder Creek. They made primitive camp and threw up an array of hastily devised brush and log shelters.
Since both frost and deep snow remain rather late at that elevation, Gambell and his men gathered wood for fires to thaw the ground. On June 6, 1859, they found promising deposits of placer gold alongside the streambed. When food supplies became dangerously depleted, Gambell and a few of the other men set out for Denver to buy hardware and lay in a new supply of food. Unfortunately, since hard money was in short supply at the time, the men took out about $90 in gold dust to pay for the purchases.
In environment already gone mad with gold fever, the appearance of such a quantity of gold dust set off a near riot. Gambell should have known that such a quantity of gold would give him away. When Gambell responded to questions about the source of their riches with understandably vague answers, hostility developed. Under cover of darkness, Gambell and company slipped out of Denver and made camp the first night near Golden. When the rays of the morning sun roused them from their slumbers, they found themselves surrounded by an angry crowd of Denverites. In no position to defend themselves or escape, Gambell and his men became prisoners of the unruly mob. The crowd forced the hapless Gambell to tell where he found gold. Once he divulged the location, the captors rewarded their prisoners with a fine breakfast and released them. Shaken, but somewhat the wiser for their experience, they returned to their claim in what would soon be known and Gambell Gulch.
Among the incoming gold-seekers was a giant of a man named John M. Dumont who came from Nebraska on an exhausted mule. Accompanying him was a partner by the name of Perigo. Not content to merely work the placer bed, Dumont and Perigo began searching for the “blossom rock” from which the placer gold must have washed. Between them, they located both the Gold Dirt Lode and the Perigo Lodes, in opposite ends of the Gulch. The Gold Dirt Lode produced something between $30,000 and $2 million in gold depending on whom one believes. Later owner John Q.A. Rollins sold one isolated 33-foot long claim on the Gold Dirt vein for $250,000.
Up from Black Hawk came W.L. Douglas who also staked out a claim on the same Gold Dirt Lode. His profits from the claim exceeded his wildest dreams. Douglas amassed a sizable fortune from a combination of hard work and incredible luck. When he sold out, he left the district with a wad of cash that enabled him to become a leading tycoon doing business as the W.L. Douglas Shoe Company of Brockton Massachusetts.
Up and down the gulch, the Golden Flint Mining Company, Ophir, Savage, Golden Sun, Crown Point, Free Gold, and Virginia mines poured out a torrent of gold for several years.
As increasing numbers entered the gulch, their efforts to devise shelter resulted in a pair of towns, Gold Dirt at the bottom and Perigo a mile up the gulch. In both cases the buildings were of conventional log construction, an impressive array of one and two room cabins, and other structures housing saloons and stores, along what would become their business streets.
In the early days, miners set up crude arastras to crush the gold-bearing ore. Later on, three different stamp mills replaced the arastras. Peter MacFarlane & Company of Central City, in partnership with Hendrie & Bolthoff of Denver, subsequently took over the largest and most successful of the stamp mills. With the measure of permanency achieved, the Town of Perigo acquired a post office. As time passed and life assumed its own distinctive characteristics, Perigo became known as a particularly sociable place and its exclusive Perigo Social Club flourished for years. Residents held community dances frequently to help pass the time. Perigo even attempted legitimate theater and made serious efforts to attract road shows from Denver and Central City.
As time passed, the mines went too deep, they ran out of the easily obtainable gold, and the miners moved on. They left little evidence of their brief stay.
E.G. Gambell wandered over the hills to mine some more at Nevadaville. Still later, he tried his luck once more in Middle Park. Concluding a very long and full life, he died in Denver on September 10, 1908. Today his name has been victimized by careless contemporary misspellings and the site of his discovery is erroneously known as Gamble Gulch.