Why the Denver Mint made no coins until 1906 0

[RWB]

Why was the U.S. Mint facility at Denver called the “Denver Mint” even though no coins were struck until 1906?

 

“The Mint at Denver is called a “Mint,” and not an Assay Office, for the reason only that it was so-called by the Act of Congress which established it, although it in no wise differs from the other Assay Offices.”

 Letter from Mint Director Horatio C. Burchard to Mary E. Bailey, Chattanooga, Tennessee, November 15, 1879. (NARA RG104 E-235 Vol 20, p410.)

Edited October 14, 2019 by RWB

[kbbpll]

It sounds like they could have. Clark, Gruber and Company ran their own mint in Denver and started minting 25 July 1860. "In the almost three years of operation, they minted $594,305 worth of Pike's Peak Gold in the form of gold coins. ... The building, assaying and minting equipment was formally bought by the US Treasury in April 1863...  Unlike Clark, Gruber and Company, though, the Denver plant performed no coinage of gold as first intended.One reason given by the Director of the Mint for the lack of coinage at Denver was, "…the hostility of the Indian tribes along the routes, doubtless instigated by rebel emissaries (there being a Civil War) and bad white men."  " (quotes from Wikipedia).

I never knew until now that the Denver Mint was preceded by a private mint, so thanks RWB. One of these years I'm going to have to take the mint tour.

[RWB]

Clark, Gruber & Co. owned the building and minting equipment purchased by the US Treasury Department. However, Treasury already knew the equipment was worthless and could not be used to strike US coins. Congress called the facility a "mint" to promote the idea of a Federal Mint in the Kansas/Colorado Territory. There was also hope that "Pikes Peak" or "Kansas" gold deposits would prove more extensive than in reality.

Absence of meaningful railway connections until the Denver & Rio Grande Western and unsettled conditions in the area between Denver, Cheyenne and St. Louis (as kbblp notes) made equipping and operating a mint impractical.

There is considerable archive material about the Denver Assay Office, but as yet no one has assembled it into a coherent, factual story. This might be a product of it's assay office status and general limited coin collector interest in that period of operation.