LEAD'VILLE. A city and the county-seat of Lake County, C'olo., 78 miles in a direct line southwest of Denver; on the Colorado Midland, the Denver and Rio Grande, and other railroads (Map: Colorado. D 2). The surrounding scenery offers magnificent attractions; and the eity at an elevation of 10,200 feet. affords much of unusual and striking interest. There are large sampling, refining, and reduction works, and smelting furnaces; also a handsome theatre. the Tabor Opera House; hospitals; and a United States fish-hatchery. Leadville was ineorporated as a town in 1877, and as a city in 1878. Popu lation. in 1890, 10,384: in 1900. 12,455.
Settled in 1860, Leadvillci soon became' promi nent as the centre of an active 'gold-mining in dustry. The apparent exhaustion of the gold deposits during the following decades. however, gave a serious set-back to its progress, and it did not regain its importance until 1879, after large bodies of lead-silver ores had been opened in California Gulch, from half a mile to four miles distant. The population increased from about
300 in 1877 to at least Goon in the following year and to 15,000 in 1879. Other rich silver de posits were soon found on Carbonate. Iron. and Fryer hills in the Mosquito range. and the min eral output for Leadville during the period 1879-92 reached the total of $170.000,000. Fur ther prospecting has since been rewarded by the discovery of rich ores within the city itself, thus assuring a long life to its mining industry. For sonic time the region about Leadville held first place in the production of lead and silver, and it is now gaining a prominent position as a producer also of gold. zinc. copper, bismuth, and manganese ores.