With riches inches ahead in mine shafts or tunnels, men were impatient and work often continued in deep winter snow and sub-zero temperatures near timberline. There was an insatiable demand for mine and construction timbers. Although work was brutal, the rewards were good enough that men such as this fellow at Garfield were willing to risk snow slides and frostbite to snake timber up dangerously narrow trails even in the dead of winter. Miners working...

In 1878, on the western edge of Chaffee County, prospector Nicholas Creede struck ore and named his mine ‘Monarch.’ Prospectors soon came from all over to try their luck, and the town of Chaffee City was born. To lessen confusion, the town was renamed Camp Monarch in 1879, and then just Monarch. Monarch was located about a mile west of the town of Garfield and had mining camps all over. When the 1893 Silver Panic hit, the town took a hit. Today...

Monarch Park in Chaffee County, Colorado. This image is from the Salida Museum Negatives Collection.