COLORADO

The present US state of Colorado (named "Colored Red" in Spanish for its striking landscapes) has over the centuries hosted fabulously rich gold lode and placer deposits, as well as silver and other precious mineral resources.

The northern branch of the legendary Spanish Trail passes through some of the most remote reaches of the Colorado Rockies, and its fabled mines lie in the high altitudes of Colorado's primitive wilderness. While the total amount of gold recovered by Spanish explorers in the period 1700 to 1859 may yet lie in some obscure manuscript in Spanish archives, suffice it to say that it was appreciable!

To shed some light on the prospecting potential for undiscovered gold in Colorado, consider that in the period 1859 to present, Colorado's gold mines produced over forty-five million (45,000,000) troy ounces of gold. And of greater interest to the modern prospector, the United States Geological Survey's 1998 mean estimate of undiscovered gold in the Colorado Plateau lies at over thirty-eight million troy ounces!

Our extensive research into the lost treasures of the American southwest has surfaced twenty-nine well-documented Lost Treasure Tales in the state of Colorado. They are all presented below. To see these on a map of Colorado, click the "Show Map View" button at right. To see more detailed maps, visit each tale from the index below, and click on the "Page 3" maps link.