How A Nineteenth Century Mining Town Became The Most Irish Community between the West Coast and the Mississippi River."

 By Donna Wichelman

Over the last year, I’ve written about how the influx of immigrants to find their fortunes settled the western territories of the continental United States. The Territory of Colorado, in particular, saw the population explode due to immigrants who heard there were vast resources of gold and silver in the region. Many African Americans and whites, who’d helped fight for their emancipation, also came from the northern states and wanted to put the Civil War behind them.

In her book, The Rise of the Silver Queen, Historian Christine Bradley speaks about the many ethnic groups who arrived in Georgetown, Colorado, during the town’s silver mining heyday (1868 – 1878). They came “from every point of the globe…,” she says (The Rise of the Silver Queen, p. 88). These included Cornish, Chinese, Germans, French, Welsh, Jewish, and Italians, hoping to make it rich on a large silver lode.

Ruins of the Terrible Mining Company near Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery, June 2019

Among the many groups who arrived, one could argue that no other impacted the Territory of Colorado more than the Irish, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Alvarez Cemetery in Georgetown and the Evergreen Cemetery in Leadville, Colorado. If one walks the grounds of these two cemeteries, it becomes immediately apparent that a massive amount of gravestones exist engraved with Irish surnames such as Bruce and McHugh, Dougherty and O’Donnell, McHugh and McGuiuggan, and Flannery and O’Sullivan.

Alvarez Cemetery, Georgetown, Colorado, Donna’s Gallery, October 2018

Alvarez Cemetery, Georgetown, Colorado, Donna’s Gallery, October 2018

In 2023, the Evergreen Cemetery in Leadville, Colorado, completed an Irish Immigrant Miner's Memorial honoring the 1,300 Irish who settled in Leadville in the nineteenth century. The monument stands as a testament to those whose hopes and dreams brought them to America and who struggled to make a life in the new world.

In honor of my Irish protagonist, Anna Sullivan, in my Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, I wanted to visit the memorial. Though I’d seen a picture of it in my research, I didn’t know what to expect. So, when I walked into the area sectioned off for the Irish gravestones and memorial, I wasn't prepared for the heart-wrenching moment that impacted me.

Donna Standing Next to the Irish Memorial, Evergreen Cemetery, Leadville, Colorado: Donna’s Gallery, June 2025

According to one plaque at the memorial, approximately one-fifth of all residents of Leadville in 1880 were of Irish heritage, making it the "most Irish community per capita of any community between the West Coast and the Mississippi River."

Yet, despite their significant presence in Leadville, the Irish, as a whole, could not rise much above the poverty they had experienced in Ireland. Most couldn’t afford a proper burial for their kin. Scanning the names on the tall Plexiglas lists of people who lived and died in Leadville, I noticed the great number of children who died as infants or in early childhood. Most of them were buried in unmarked graves or with a simple wooden marker in the Catholic Pauper section of the cemetery, because their families couldn't pay the $15 that was required for a gravestone.

Name of Those Who Died in Early Childhood: Donna's Gallery, June 2025

Unmarked Irish Graves in the Catholic Pauper Section of the Cemetery: Donna's Gallery, June 2025

 

For more than a century, the graves of the Irish dead were left to deteriorate, some of them becoming a part of the forested cemetery--only impressions in the ground. But in 2003, Dr. James Walsh, a historian from the University of Denver working on his doctoral thesis, came across the Everygreen Cemetery. He and his students, and the Irish Network Colorado, undertook the project to identify the graves, using church records.

Today, a spiral labyrinth leads to a bronze statue of an Irish miner now nicknamed Liam O'Sullivan. The miner is surrounded by mining tools, an Irish harp, and the names of those who were once lost and unknown in the unmarked graves--a tribute to their lives and their impact on Colorado.

A personal note of interest: Long before I discovered the Evergreen Cemetery, I had already written A Song of Deliverance and had named my protagonist and her uncle. Ironically, I had chosen the names Anna O'Sullivan (she chose to change it to Sullivan in the book) and Liam O'Hallesey. Coincidence or an act of Providence?

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, released in December 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty-one years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.