A mining heiress on her father’s secret empire.
Father left me an empire. A vast, Colorado mining empire, stretching from Boulder County southwest across the Gunnison Gold Belt to La Plata County, and encompassing numerous mines, mineral claims, thousands of acres, and a labyrinth of mining companies. The complexity of that empire buried Father, Albert Eugene Reynolds, in March 1921. Since he was young, he’d always been a very private man; few knew just how vast and varied and financially interwoven his empire was. And because its inner workings were so complicated and funded by a small and select group, Father preferred the public knew as little as possible.
I, Anna Reynolds Morse Garrey, the only daughter of Albert and Eudora, am the sole heir of the Reynolds legacy. My first husband, Bradish Morse, owner of the Morse Brothers Machinery Company in Denver, assisted me with the sprawling Reynolds empire to the best of his ability. Unfortunately, he didn’t cherish it as I did. He died in 1931. Several years later, my second husband, George Garrey, a mining engineer, did his best, but he, too, succumbed in 1957 to its vastness and unpredictability. As for me, Father’s legacy has provided a long, productive, and charitable life. I’ve thrived on its burgeoning dynamo. I write this brief history in 1982, aged 98, while away from my Denver home [ed. note: a grand Italianate, three-story mansion at 1555 Sherman Street, purchased by Reynolds from Senator Simon Guggenheim], to revisit a favorite place from my past: the Gold Links Mine, five miles from Ohio City, Gunnison County.
I look through amethyst-hued, distorted glass to see a past version of myself: a young woman, just 20, outside this modest vernacular house, looking for a future. It’s 1904, and I didn’t see then that my future was wherever Father had a producing mine. In the late 1870s, it was Lake City, where he managed the Palmetto and Ocean Wave mines. Early 1880s, it was Ouray, near his Revenue- Virginius Mine. In the late 1880s, we lived in Aspen, near the Durant Mine. We also had a home in Creede, below the Commodore Mine. And another in Telluride, near the Cimarron Mine. And yet another in Summitville, above Del Norte.
But above all, my most cherished home was here, on the Gold Links. Father seemed most alive here, locating rich mineral veins deep underground between limestone and dolomite strata.
We already owned thousands of acres in Chicago Park, near Pitkin; however, Ohio City was a heartfelt place. Population: 100. Even for Mother, Dora. Fresh bread from Tarkington Bakery. Candy from Dice’s Store. Watching guests come and go at the Gardner Hotel.
Mother was her Denver charity work: State Home for Children, University of Denver, and other causes. Albert and Dora vastly influenced Colorado’s development. Work I resumed after she passed in 1916. But without Father’s mines, there’d be no charity. That hadn’t been Father’s intent when journeying west from Newfane, New York. First, he was a sutler, selling to the U.S. military, the Arapahoe, and the Cheyenne.
Next, he freighted and then ran cattle. On the recommendation of William Bent, a half-Native frontier trader and rancher, father explored Colorado’s southwestern mountains. That’s where he met Mahlon Thatcher, a Pueblo banker. They became close friends and business partners.
Like others of that time, mining attracted Father. After opening a general store in Lake City in the late 1870s, Father and Mahlon invested in the Belle of the West and Frank Hough mines. They failed to bring the profits Father sought. Far from discouraged, he believed fortune was just a drill’s length away. His next mining venture was in the Mt. Sneffels Mining District, above Ouray. There, the Reynolds-Thatcher investment “pool” purchased the Virginius Mine.
In that proven gold and silver producer, ore was extracted from a shaft high up the steep northern slope of Ruby Mountain. With depth, the ore quality often lessened; however, quantity grew. Father realized the Virginius could be highly profitable again if only he could cut mining costs. He had tunnels cut into Ruby Mountain, crosscutting the Virginius’ 1500-foot shaft at various levels. Low-grade ore was then moved horizontally out of the Revenue Tunnel, significantly saving on expensive hoisting costs. Father’s innovation of the adit-mining technique became a standard for other Colorado mines that spanned a long and precipitous topography.
Amidst these ventures, I was born in 1884 in Wisconsin while Father was in Aspen. Father and Mahlon had formed the “Aspen Pool” to help David Hyman develop his Durant Mine on Aspen Mountain. Father also managed the Durant and soon discovered the owners of the contingent Aspen mine were extracting silver ore from Hyman’s property, so he recommended Hyman legally challenge its owner, Jerome B. Wheeler, by invoking the apex principle. This litigation meant a court would decide which company had the right to extract the ore in question by determining on which mining claim the mineral vein surfaced. Court hearings began in 1885 and lasted through 1887, embroiling the entire town of Aspen and costing the litigants over $750,000. Judge Moses ultimately decided in favor of Father and the Durant, though Hyman, against Father’s recommendations, settled with Wheeler, and the Compromise Mining Company was formed.
Luckily, years of profit ensued for all. Father and Mahlon formed another investment pool to develop the Commodore Mine in Creede, and another pool for the Gold Cup Mine in Tin Cup. The Commodore proved a boon, while Father was swindled on the Gold Cup. Upwards of $150,000 was lost. But the Virginius-Revenue continued paying, as did the Durant, so Father leased the Gold Cup and moved on.
Although hoodwinked in his first Gunnison County venture, Father continued to believe in the area’s potential. Three respected Gunnison mining men — Will Fine, John Pearson, and Bill Eckbert — introduced Father to Chicago Park, in the Quartz Creek District, northeast of the town of Pitkin. Father purchased two past producers, the Silent Friend and Silver Islet, because he believed new mining technology could make old mines profitable again. He also added several thousand acres to his holdings. Father then convinced Mahlon Thatcher, David Hyman, and others to join him in this venture.
It was easy to get to Pitkin by train in the 1890s: either on the Denver, Leadville, and Gunnison through the Alpine Tunnel or over Marshall Pass via the Denver & Rio Grande. We traveled in special train cars, luxurious ones filled with men in long, tweed sack coats and tight-buttoned vests, holding cigars and gold pocket watches; women wearing wondrous hour-glassed dresses, “leg-o- mutton” sleeves, and a variety of elaborate hats. A journey not unlike a fantastic Jules Verne novel.
Dividends flowed in from mining properties throughout Colorado, yet Father searched for more. In search of mineralized zones in Chicago Park, he employed Colorado School of Mines professor Ben Sadtler to use a new technology known as diamond-drill prospecting, which uses a diamond-encrusted drill bit to produce a core sample. Many of these drill sites exceeded five hundred feet in depth and were done on various prospective mining claims throughout Chicago Park and Islet Mountain. After chemical and geological analysis of these core samples, Sadtler believed rich silver deposits lay hundreds of feet below the surface. Father formed The Colorado Smelting and Mining Company to find it, though several hundred thousand dollars later, nothing significant was discovered.
In 1903, two prospectors, J.C. Bowerman and Stephen Dunn, hustled Dad on the Independence Lode in Gunnison’s Bowerman District, three miles southeast of Pitkin. Father had to fight to get some of his $60,000 purchase price back. Fortunately, the losses were taken from the profits of his other mining ventures.
When 1904 arrived, we were in Ohio City. Fine, Pearson, and Eckbert had, once more, convinced Father they stood on dormant wealth. Father purchased a cornucopia of mines and mining claims five miles north of town. Four tunnels were excavated on the Gold Links property, and $600,000 in gold was extracted during the next eight years. Due to processing costs, the Gold Links was not the bonanza Father had expected. But as the surrounding mines in the Gold Brick District, like the Carter, Raymond, and Cortland, paid profits, Father believed it was only a matter of using new technology. And that meant Gold Creek and Islet Mountain would continue to be my playground for years to come.
Decades later, as the mines at Summitville covered the expenses of our Gunnison County operations, Father and I still believed in the Gold Brick District. That’s why Bradish and I continued Father’s work there long after he passed. Ten years after Father, Bradish died in 1931. Throughout the Depression years, I managed Father’s empire on my own, keeping hundreds of men employed throughout Colorado. In 1937, I was honored by the Colorado Mining Association for my contributions to the industry. Then George Garrey arrived. He preferred my Summitville properties to the Gold Links. I let him manage those while I continued to oversee my beloved Gold Links.
After George passed, my son, Albert Morse, and his wife, Reese, showed little interest in the Reynolds mining empire. My son had no desire to be buried by the Reynolds empire. Albert earned an MBA from Harvard, then went into plastics. He and Reese cherish art and actively promote the work of Salvador Dali. Last March, they established The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. With the help of Father’s empire, of course. Still, they don’t quite see things as I do, through an amethyst window on the Gold Links.
Anna Reynolds died August 19, 1982, in Ohio City, Colorado, and was buried in Denver’s Fairmount Cemetery.