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Camp Bird Mine

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6 miles west of Ouray on Ouray County 361 at junction of Canyon and Imogene creeks

Thomas J. Walsh, an Irish carpenter who reworked old silver claims, found high-grade gold ore and spent $20,000 to buy claims which he consolidated and named the Camp Bird, for the camp-robbing gray jays who snatched his grub. After extracting millions in gold ore, Walsh sold his holdings to a British firm for another $5.2 million. The new owners built the large, Queen Anne Style mine manager's house (1903), a genteel apparition sitting at the edge of immense tailing ponds. Walsh's daughter, Washington socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean, acquired the Hope Diamond and described the family's wealth and tragedy in Father Struck It Rich (1936).

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Data

What's Nearby

Tanner House
First Presbyterian Church
St. Elmo Hotel
Elks Lodge
Wright Opera House

Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Camp Bird Mine", [Ridgway, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-OR25.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 575-575.

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