I just finished reading two excellent books about Colorado. These books are old (late 1800's and early 1900's) and are free e-books at B&N.

Tales of the Colorado Pioneers by Alice Polk Hill. She visited several Colorado locations and wrote accounts given by the pioneers. This is NOT a boring history book (Ok, so I skipped through most of the Denver stuff, but the rest was VERY interesting)!

A history of Leadville, Colorado by Marshall Conant Graff. Not as colorful and entertaining as Alice Polk Hill, but still very good if your at all interested in the history of Leadville. I would like to quote one small section from towards the end of the book :

"Once more Leadville was the leading camp. Then in 1911 a new form of gold mining was launched. The Derry Ranch Gold Dredging Company placed an immense boat or dredge upon the old Derry place. This is the humblest of all forms of mining. Yet I saw it in operation when it was taking out $10,000 every two weeks, which is an average of $1.00 a minute, and still the ground shows no trace of yellow.

And one day I stood on the bank taking a picture of this great float, when an old miner approached, and after a moments conversation said, pointing up the gulch:"I was there when we took gold out with a pan; later we used the cradle and the Long Tom; then came Hydraulic mining and deep lode mining, and now this", and pointing over to where the dredge was piling up a huge mound of rock and gravel, he continued:

"I will not, but you will live to see the day when some one else with a new process comes along and takes gold out of those rocks they are throwing away now.""

What a wise and foresightful miner he was!

These books were scanned, and the OCR didn't work so well, so at times the books are a little hard to read and even sometimes funny, but they are free and I enjoyed them very much.

Thanks for this, will download on the iPad tonight to read.....post more if you ever come across them!

Sure! These are also free and worth checking out :

Colorado : a summer trip by Bayard Taylor. Published in 1867. I just started reading this and it's a lot like Tales of the Colorado Pioneers by Alice Polk Hill. Bayard is kind of a wuss though, in my opinion.

COLORADO: A Historical, Descriptive and Statistical Work on the Rocky Mountain Gold and Silver Mining Region. By Frank Fossett. Very informative and not too dry.

Geology of Colorado ore deposits by Arthur Lakes. Have a dictionary handy because the Nook app isn't going to help with some of these words. Dry, but informative.

Early Records of Gilpin County, Colorado 1859-1861 by Thomas Marshall. I haven't started this one yet, but looks like it's going to be good.

Again, the OCR on these books was not very good. In several cases, c is replaced by o and visa versa. R is sometimes replaced with K. I had to laugh at a chapter in one book titled: "Entering the Kooky Mountains."

I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do!

Boogie

Sweet...downloading them all right now!