Episode 1 of 2

First Significant Gold Discovery

When: July 1858
Where: Little Dry Creek
Part of: Pike's Peak Gold Rush draws Fifty-Niners to the Rockies

Russell's party found a placer deposit near Little Dry Creek in July 1858, yielding 20 troy ounces of gold.

This was the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region. The find was announced with excitement by the Kansas City Journal of Commerce on August 26, 1858, under the headline "THE NEW ELDORADO!!".

Sources

Pike's Peak gold rush Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-05

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.