New CC/V Gold Mine Manager Outlines Significance of Gold for Colorado
Lifelong Company Veteran Describes Vast Changes in Technology
Trevor Phipps
On August 1, miners across the state celebrated the Colorado Mining Association’s 150th anniversary.
The mining industry joined other leaders across Colorado in honoring the state’s long-awaited birthday bash. This celebration had big implications in the Cripple Creek/Victor district, with the local gold mining company’s decades of involvement as a key player in Colorado’s mining heritage.
The Cripple Creek & Victor (CC/V) Gold Mining Company’s new manager, Lowe Billingsley, recently sat down with members of the local media to discuss the significance of gold to the state’s history. More specifically, he described the changes he experienced in his 30-plus years with the local mining industry.
Overall, Billingsley outlined how the gold mining industry helped make Colorado what it is today. “Almost every ski town in Colorado was originally founded as a mining town beginning even before 1870, years before Colorado even became a state,” Billingsley said. “Some of them were founded in like the 1840s even. When you think of the great, beautiful towns like Aspen, Crested Butte, Leadville, Ouray, Silverton, Breckenridge, these were all mining towns.”
He mentioned how Cripple Creek encountered the mining boom a little later as gold wasn’t discovered there until 1891.
However, once gold was found the “Pikes Peak or Bust” gold boom became the biggest in the state’s history.
Over the 15 years the Cripple Creek Mining District was in its boom days, more gold was pulled out of the area than anywhere else in the state. During that period, 21 millionaires were created by the gold that came from the Cripple Creek Mining District.
Billingsley said that a lot of people don’t realize that Cripple Creek has a connection to the gold dome that sits upon the state capitol building, located in downtown Denver. “The first time that a gold dome got put on the capitol, that gold came from Cripple Creek,” Billingsley said. “And when the dome got redone in the mid-2010’s, we also donated that gold for that little re-doming project at the state capitol. So, that also came from Cripple Creek, in fact it came from this mine.”
New CC&V Mining Manager Happy to Return Home
Billingsley returned to become the new general manager of SSR Mining’s Cripple Creek/Victor Mine earlier this year. The new mine manager described his position as a “coming home” experience as Victor was where he started his mining career in 1989.
After receiving a degree in geology from Colorado College, Billingsley got a job at the Cripple Creek/Victor mine as an ore control geologist. It was his second job in the industry after college. He worked at the mine until 2009.
Later he worked in Denver on the mining company’s executive team before returning as the CC/V Gold Mine’s general manager from 2014 to 2015. He then worked in other roles in the mining industry before he jumped on the opportunity to return to the mine where he started his career.
In addition to Billingsley’s professional connection to Cripple Creek, his family also has deep roots locally and in Colorado as a whole. Billingsley, who was born and raised in Colorado Springs, is a fifth-generation Coloradan and the kids he raised in the state are sixth generation.
“My great, great grandfather was actually a miner and mine owner in Cripple Creek back in the boom days right after gold was found,” Billingsley said. “He lived in Goldfield (a small town by Victor). He lived there from about 1896 or so to about 1905. One of the jobs that he had was he worked at the Gold Sovereign Mine which was in Crescent Valley.
Technology Facilitates Major Changes in the Industry
Over the past few decades, Billingsley said that the biggest changes in the industry have come from the implementation of technology. The mine manager said that these days there are more regulations and steps that the industry must follow regarding environmental compliance. In essence, he says that it takes many more tools than in the early mining days, which just involved “one guy with a pickaxe.”
One example Billingsley cited was how the mining industry used to have big survey teams conduct operations. “Thirty years ago, running a mine our size, we would need a survey crew of 12 or 16 people,” Billingsley said. “Through the use of technology, we now have a survey crew of four. Three of those guys are licensed drone pilots. We use drones almost daily for surveying. We have incorporated that technology, which has allowed us to be more efficient, and it has certainly allowed us to be safer.”
Technology has enabled the mine to acquire the data to find the gold in an easier fashion. They can now better identify where the ore body is located, and what areas contain the most valuable ore.
Computer software-driven systems now allow the miners to analyze data faster, and at a higher volume. The technology now allows them to make better decisions.
Public Tours Returning to CC/V Gold Mine
“We not only improve our ability to predict what is ore and what is waste, it also helps us overall execute on our plans,” Billingsley said. “It helps us with mine plans, and it helps us with scheduling.”
The CC&V Gold Mine plans on bringing public tours back soon, so that people can once again get the chance to see firsthand how their intricate operations work. According to media reports, the company hopes to start these tours again, as early as September.
Prior to the COVID epidemic, these tours were extremely popular, and a big driver of tourism in the Pikes Peak region.
