George Andrew Jackson

George Andrew Jackson was born on July 24, 1832, in Glasgow, Missouri, and gained mining experience in the California goldfields before joining the first wave of prospectors into the Pike's Peak country in 1858. That winter he ranged up Clear Creek Canyon into the Front Range, traveling with little more than a gun and his dogs.

In January 1859, drawn up the canyon by clouds of steam rising from hot springs, Jackson panned the gravel where Chicago Creek empties into Clear Creek and found placer gold, the first substantial gold discovery in Colorado. Sources give the date as early January; the Idaho Springs town history records January 5, while Jackson's own diary is usually cited for January 7. Lacking supplies, he concealed the find until spring, but when he paid for goods with gold dust the secret broke, and a rush to 'Jackson's Diggings' followed. The camp that grew there became Idaho Springs, and Jackson's strike, with John Gregory's lode discovery that May, turned the Pike's Peak excitement into a real gold rush.

Jackson sold his placer interests and spent the rest of his life in the West as a miner, rancher, and frontiersman, opening or promoting several other camps. He was killed on March 13, 1897, at Cross Canyon in San Juan County, Utah, by the accidental discharge of a gun. A monument at Idaho Springs marks the site of the discovery that opened the Colorado mountains to mining.