Silver mining in Colorado

However, mining the silver veins was delayed for the most part until smelters were built in the late 1860s.

For the most part, Mellie (1876–1969) stayed in the family home after she married John James ("J.J.") White (1870–1932) in 1901.

She inherited half of her father's share in the American Sisters Mine and served on the Georgetown Library Association from 1911 to 1922.

Mellie's husband, John James White Sr., bought the remaining stock of what was now called the Two American Sisters Mine.

He managed the construction of a dam and power plant north of Georgetown and built a new shaft house and mill at the mine site.

The Bowman-White House still remains and is registered as a historical site in Georgetown, Colorado.

Ore occurs in the Mississippian Leadville Limestone and the lower part of the overlying Pennsylvanian Belden Formation.

The New Jersey Zinc Company entered Gilman in 1912, and over a period of years purchased all the principal mines and the entire townsite.

The ore occurs as veins along north–south trending faults, and as replacement bodies in the Creede Formation, a Tertiary ash-flow tuff.

Ore minerals are sphalerite, galena, acanthite, native silver, pyrite, and chalcopyrite.