Seeking to address the growing tensions in Denver, politicians friendly with the silver cause met in Denver on July 12, 1893, to lend support against the repealing of the Sherman Silver Act, but to no avail. Mining companies dropped their wages, yet as one historian reports, due to the overabundance of workers in the area, “employers could easily replace workers unwilling to accept pay cuts.” Then, as the silver mines began to close due to the continued drop in silver prices, unemployed miners and other workers from the Colorado mountains flooded into Denver in hopes of finding work.

The collapse of the silver market beginning in 1893 dropped the price of silver from 83 cents to 62 cents an ounce. Agricultural distress, coupled with the withdrawal of foreign investors and the over-expansion of the silver mining industries, led Denver to experience its first economic depression. ĭenver was already suffering economically due to several successive years of droughts and harsh winters that had hurt the agricultural industry. This caused the prices of silver to fall, and the prices of silver continued to fall further due to an overabundance of the metal when silver was struck in Leadville and in the San Juan Mountains. In 1893, those in the west lost the battle, as United States President Grover Cleveland oversaw the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. As one historian of the period noted, “Almost all economic pursuits in the state were tied in one way or another to the mining industry consequently, almost every Colorado resident had a vested interest in its success.” But whereas the silver standard enabled western rural farmers and miners to pay off their debts, bankers in the east were losing money because the circulation of silver was leading to a decline in the value of gold-based money as investors turned in the new silver notes for gold dollars (see also Free silver, silverites). government to purchase millions of ounces of silver each year. Despite this, the city of Denver, Colorado enjoyed boomtown growth during the late 19th century after the discovery and development of numerous silver mines and the passage of first the Bland–Allison Act of 1878 and then the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, both of which required the U.S.

With the Coinage Act of 1873, bimetallism was disestablished by Congress and gold was established as the standard. The Denver Depression of 1893 was the economic and psychological depression of Denver, Colorado, that began in 1893 after the rapid drop in the price of silver and lasted for several years. Period of economic downturn in Denver, Colorado

Colorado Day by Day by Derek R. Everett