Life in the Colorado mining town of Leadville during the 1800’s Silver Rush was brutal. Due to famine and mine closures in Ireland, many Irish miners and their families immigrated to Leadville in search of work and a better life. Though there was work in Leadville, it was dangerous and difficult, with long hours and and an unforgiving high-elevation environment. All of this resulted in an average mortality age of 23.
Over 1,300 predominantly Irish immigrants passed away in much the same manner in which they arrived in the United States: poor and neglected. Unable to afford the standard $15 burial, their bodies were placed in the Catholic Pauper’s Section of the Evergreen Cemetery with only piles of rocks or wooden markers to designate their resting place. Tragically, half of those graves belonged to infants and children. Over time, the markers were consumed by the forest, and their names were forgotten. Likewise, the pine caskets deteriorated, and the graves became sunken depressions in the ground.
These graves were largely ignored for over a century, until James Walsh, a historian from the University of Colorado Denver, discovered the cemetery in 2003 while working on his doctoral thesis. Dr. Walsh organized an effort with his students and a volunteer Irish advocacy group to “name the nameless.” They worked tirelessly to identify the unmarked graves, relying heavily on church records.
Today, those names are proudly displayed on a beautiful memorial at the front of the Pauper’s Cemetery. A spiral walkway to the top of the memorial leads to a statue of an Irish miner fondly nicknamed Liam O’Sullivan. Liam is surrounded by mining implements, an Irish harp, and the names of the lost souls he honors. The spiral down on the other side of the monument leads to the sunken graves.
