Colorado Silver Boom

The Colorado Silver Boom is a dramatic expansionist period of silver mining activity in the U. S. state of Colorado in the late 19th century.

The boom starts in 1879 with the discovery of silver at Leadville.

Over 82 million dollars worth of silver is mined during the period, making it the second great mineral boom in the state, and coming twenty years after the earlier and shorter Colorado Gold Rush of 1859.

The boom is largely the consequence of large-scale purchases of silver by the United States Government authorized by Congress in 1878.

The boom endures throughout the 1880s, resulting in an intense increase in both the population and wealth of Colorado, especially in the mountains.

It comeso an end in 1893 in the wake of the collapse of silver prices caused by the repeal of Sherman Silver Purchase Act.