During the 1880s, when Leadville's economy was at its peak, the town was the second largest in Colorado, a mecca for prospectors, gamblers, retailers, performing artists, and entrepreneurs. In many respects, its history epitomises the volatile character of Colorado's mining industry-from the rush to establish businesses, schools, churches, and newspapers in a booming mining camp to the conflict and violence of the miner's strike of 1896. More than forty years ago, Don L Griswold and his wife, Jean Harvey Griswold, set out to describe the social, political, and economic life that grew out of Leadville's hard-rock industry.Their story of Leadville and Lake County stretches from the earliest explorations of the Upper Arkansas Valley to the beginnings of molybdenum mining in the twentieth century. A veritable encyclopedia of historical information, this massive two-volume, fully indexed reference work includes rare photographs from the Griswolds' personal collection and a bibliographic overview of Leadville's history by Colorado historian James E Fell Jr.