Golden Cycle Corp. was incorporated in November 1895 as the Golden Cycle Mining Co., the name changed in April, 1915 to The Golden Cycle Mining and Reduction Co. and in July, 1929, the name again changed to The Golden Cycle Corp. The Company began as a mining company, but later entered the milling business and when it was acquired by the Carlton interests, it was still further diversified. The original Golden Cycle Mining Co. was owned largely by the John T Milliken Interests of St. Lewis, MO., who sold 95 percent of the capital stock to A. E. Carlton in March of 1915. The Carlton interests then acquired the Midland Railroad just prior to World War 1, but during the war all but the branch line, called the Midland Terminal Railroad, was abandoned. Thus within a period of very few years the Carlton’s had acquired active mines in the Cripple Creek-Victor District, the Golden Cycle Mill and the Pikes Peak Fuel Co. in Colorado Springs, as well as the main railroad serving the District.
The Carlton brothers, usually referred to as A. E. and L.G. were very farsighted and realized that to have a well integrated operation they should have first a continuing source of or, the transportation facilities to get the ore to their mill in Colorado Springs, as well as ore haulage in the District-which they had developed under the name of The Colorado Trading and Transfer Co.-and a coal mine (Pikeview Mine) to furnish fuel for the roasting of District ores and used later to generate power to run the mill and coal mine. Also, since business was unusually good in the District, they acquired control of a bank, which has been the only bank operating in the District for many years.
The Carlton’s also branched out into the beet sugar business having acquired control and operated The Holly Sugar Corp. and the Franklin County Sugar Co. and other subsidiary companies active in the sugar and petroleum businesses.
After the closing of the Portland Gold Mining Co.’s Independence Mill at Victor, Colo., in 1928, the Golden Cycle Mill continued to treat all of the ore mined in the Cripple Creek District with the exception of two brief periods when the Cameron Mill treated the ore from the Cameron Mine and when the Cripple Creek District with the exception of two brief periods when the Cameron Mill treated the ore from the Cameron Mine and when the Cripple Creek Mill was built on Globe Hill in the District to treat the ore from the Stratton Estate properties and also that ore from the Carbonate Queen Mine, which was owned by the John T Milliken Estate. Neither of these mills operated for long, primarily for lack of suitable tonnage.
The original Golden Cycle Mill burned in 1907, and was rebuilt. The new mill had its first full year’s operation in 1908, and through 1949 had treated 13,564982 tons of ore from the Cripple Creek District and 794,280 tons from other districts in Colorado or a total of 14,359,262 tons having a gross value of $182,961,359.00. This value is based upon $ 20.00 per ounce price for gold up to and including 1934, and $ 35.00 per ounce value thereafter. It is seen from the total value of all ore shipped from the Cripple Creek District ($463,000,000.00), the Golden Cycle Mill treated over 40 per cent of this ore. The gold content of the Cripple Creek ore varied from 0.30 ounces per ton to 1.08 ounces per ton. Based on a price of $ 35 per ounce, the value varied from $10.50 to $37.80 per ton.
The Golden Cycle Mill installed Edwards-Type roasters when it was being rebuilt after the fire, and since this type roaster had proven so successful in Australia where ore similar to District ore was being milled, these roasters gave the best results obtained to that time on Cripple Creek ores. This accounted largely for the success of the early operation of the Golden Cycle Mill and its long continuous operation.
The general process was as follows: Crushing to size of approximately on eighth inch, roasting wet grinding in cyanide solution to minus 16 mesh, blanketing (amalgamation of blanket concentrates), sandslime separation and leaching of sands in large diameter sand tanks, thickening and agitation in both mechanical and at times air-agitators, filtering and clarifying gold-bearing cyanide solutions and finally precipitating the gold (and small amount of silver) from the pregnant cyanide solutions first in zinc shavings boxes which were later replaced with zinc dust precipitation presses; the zinc precipitate was refined in Rockwell type furnaces and the resulting bullion was shipped to the United States Mint in Denver.
The Carlton’s decided in 1929 to add a flotation unit to the Golden Cycle Mill for treating base metal as well as gold-silver ores from other parts of Colorado. The writer joined the Cycle Mill staff at that time and designed such a plant, which was installed, and it continued to operate until the Cycle Mill closed in early 1949. This flotation section treated gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc ore, making a shipping grade of lead-copper and zinc concentrates; the flotation tails were treated in the cyanide plant to recover any remaining gold-silver values.
The treatment of base metal ores was discontinued in the middle or late 1930’s as the base metal market became so depressed that the flotation plant was used most of the time to treat Cripple Creek dump and low grade mine ores. The roasting process was thereby eliminated on a large tonnage of head ore, as only about 3 per cent of the tonnage (the pyrite concentrate) had to be roasted.
However, at the beginning of the World War II, it was deemed advisable to again resume the milling of base metal ores produced in Colorado, since by so doing we were permitted to continue to operate the Cripple Creek District on a limited scale. This contributed greatly to the war effort as we were treating approximately 400 tons of base metal ore per day, producing lead/copper concentrates and zinc concentrates which were shipped to the smelters. However, at the end of the war the base metal mining industry in Colorado suffered greatly, so we were not justified in continuing treating this type of ore in the floatation plant (which resulted the Cycle Mill discontinuing the purchase of base metal ores). This section of the mill resumed the treatment of low grade and dump ore until the Cycle Mills was closed.
The Pikes Peak Fuel Division, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Golden Cycle Corp., produced and sold lignite coal at its Pikeview Mine, located just north of Colorado Springs, for many years. During the World War II period, the power plant at Pikeview, having a capacity in excess of 8000 kilowatts, served in a standby capacity to the city of Colorado Springs, thereby insuring the city of sufficient power capacity to serve the numerous armed services establishments in the region.
The Fuel Division also operated a sand, crushed rock and gravel business, supplying most of the concrete aggregate used in the region for the past several years. Prior to abandoning the railroad in 1949, crushed rock aggregate was produced in the Cripple Creek District and shipped to Colorado Springs by rail.
The Corporation operated the Midland Terminal Railroad as a wholly owned subsidiary from the time of World War I until 1949. The main tonnage in recent years was ore, crushed rock and ballast gravel all of which amounted to as much as 1500-1600 tons per day, plus a freight haul back to Cripple Creek. However, at the close of World War II, the operations in the District had become so disrupted that the tonnage of ore being shipped did not justify the continued operation of the railroad—especially since the railway unions made exorbitant demands. Consequently, the Corporation abandoned the operation, sold the rail and rolling stock and simultaneously decided to move the mill to the Cripple Creek District.
The Carlton Mill, which was completed and started treating ore in May 1951, was similar to the Cycle Mill, so far as treatment processes used. However, the knowledge gained through processing Cripple Creek ores for nearly 40 years helped to develop new techniques, so that one might say that the Carlton Mill was a newly improved Cycle Mill.
Briefly, the present flowsheet employed in the Carlton Mill is as follows: Ore is crushed and automatically sampled, ground to approximately all minus 80 mesh, subjected to flotation where about 90 percent of gold values are recovered in 3 percent of the tonnage as a sulpho-telluride concentrate. This concentrate is thickened and filtered and fed as a slurry (78 percent solids) to a Dorroco-Flusolids Reactor (roaster) wherein the sulfur and tellurium are eliminated as their respective oxides. This type roasting is called "autogenous roasting" in that the sulfur in the pyrite produces the fuel to complete the roast. The calcined concentrates are then subjected to the usual cyanide Dorr-type agitators. Gold which is recovered from cyaniding the roasted concentrates is precipitated by the conventional zinc dust precipitation solutions is recovered on fine activated carbon which is fed to the agitator pulp, counter current to the flow of the pulp, a portion of the carbon being screened out of No. 2 agitator and is sent to the refinery or melt room for converting the gold into bullion. This improved process and new equipment in the Carlton Mill permits it to operate much more economically that could have been done in its predecessor, the Golden Cycle Mill.
The Carlton Mill has a daily capacity of approximately 1000 tons of Cripple Creek ore, but on account of the depressed condition of the gold mining industry it is presently treating only 200 tons daily. It had treated 1,054,081 tons to date, bringing the combined tonnage treated by the Golden Cycle Mill in Colorado Springs and the Carlton Mill to 15,413,343 tons.
Thus it is seen that The Golden Cycle Corp. has had a very definite influence upon the life of the Cripple Creek – Victor District. There is no doubt in the mind of anyone who has real knowledge of the life, history and the development of the District, that the two Carlton brothers, Albert E., And Leslie G., did more to keep the District going since World War I, than all the rest of the operators who were active in the District since that time. Their influence has continued since their deaths. No gold mining camp has continued to operate at a high peak of production indefinitely. The relatively small (area wise) Cripple Creek District is no exception, and although it has enjoyed a fantastic production in the past, it is now producing on a much smaller scale.
Those who know the District are confident that it will produce many more ounces of gold before it comes to its end. Not only has it produced "millions in gold", but it has also had many illustrious persons and like wise many notorious characters, both types becoming known not only throughout the United States, but in many foreign countries. Many methods of mining and milling have been pioneered and proven in the District and have then become standard practice throughout the mining world. The Golden Cycle Corp. and its personnel have been responsible for many such achievements. *
Since 1929 Max W Bowen, a 1924 graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, has been in various managerial and supervisory capacities with Golden Cycle Corp. For the past 10 years he has served as Vice President and general manager of the Company. Mr. Bowen was a member to the Board of Trustees of the Colorado School of Mines for 12 years and this spring received the School’s Distinguished Achievement Award. In 1959 he was president of the Colorado Mining Association.
The writer desires to express his thanks and appreciation to Merrill E. Shoup, the President of Golden Cycle and Holly Sugar corporations, as well as numerous other Carlton controlled companies—for permission to prepare this paper. Information included in this paper was partially obtained from the following publications: The Official Manual of the Cripple Creek District (1900) by Fred Hills, EM: Geology and Gold Deposits of the Cripple Creek District, Colorado, (1906) by Lindgren &Ransome, USGS; Mining in Colorado, US Prof. Paper 138, (1926), by C. W. Henderson; several papers by Loughlin and A. H. Koschmann, USGS (1926-1949), and Annual Reports of The Golden Cycle Corporation. Some of Pictures in the October 1960 issue of the Mines Magazine were supplied by Raymond G. Colwell, retired, US Forestry Service.
THE MINES MAGAZINE * December 1960
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