Russell Gulch is a former mining town, now largely a ghost town, in Gilpin County, Colorado, United States. It is located about two miles southwest of Central City and five miles north of Idaho Springs. The elevation is 9,150 feet.
The town was founded in 1859 by William Green Russell, who discovered gold in the gulch that bears his name. The town quickly grew as miners flocked to the area in search of fortune. By 1860, Russell Gulch had a population of over 1,000 people.
The town’s economy was based on gold mining. The miners used a variety of methods to extract the gold, including placer mining, lode mining, and hydraulic mining. Placer mining involved panning for gold in the streambeds, while lode mining involved extracting gold from the bedrock. Hydraulic mining involved using high-pressure water to blast away the bedrock and expose the gold.
The gold rush in Russell Gulch lasted for about 20 years. By the late 1870s, the gold had mostly been extracted and the town began to decline. The population of Russell Gulch continued to dwindle until it was abandoned in the early 1900s.
An interesting side-note. Russell Gulch is the only ghost town in Colorado that has a frisbee golf course. When I visited, it appeared that the frisbee golf course was also abandoned, but there were markers and equipment scattered around some of the ruins.
Geographic coordinates: 39.7786°N 105.5369°W
