A confluence of cross-cultural foodways fed a series of Colorado’s mining booms, and can still be tasted across the state today.
In 1857, newspapers from Texas to Maine resounded with breaking news from the Mountain West: the Rocky Mountains boasted “immense quantities…[of] gold, silver, and precious stones,” read the New York Herald. There was gold and silver to be won, and prospectors with dreams of striking it rich headed west.
Dozens of ”boom-towns” sprang forth almost overnight to accommodate the Gold Rush of 1858 and the Silver Boom of 1879. These mining towns developed their own distinct culture, with rules (often broken), customs (sometimes violent), and an aesthetic still visible in much of the state’s historic architecture.