Leadville’s Irish pauper graves speak to the dangers of Colorado’s mining boom – and raise questions for today

Local Irish and Irish American communities unveiled a significant public history space near Leadville, Colorado, in 2023. Roughly 600 people gathered to pay tribute to the Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial. The memorial is impressive and symbolic. A spiral walkway acts as a labyrinth that ushers visitors to statues of a kneeling miner holding a harp and a pickax, and a woman holding a baby The statues are surrounded by glass panels that feature the names and ages of the 1,339 people who were buried in the Catholic Free Section of Evergreen’s pauper cemetery in the late 1800s. I am a political scientist and historian who has spent decades researching the history of Leadville’s Irish immigrant community. The idea for this memorial grew out of my doctoral dissertation research conducted between 2001 to 2010. Based on surnames and archival church, cemetery and newspaper records, I’ve determined that as many as two-thirds of those buried in the pauper cemetery were Irish or Irish American – and half were babies and young children. Their deaths tell a hidden story of the toll that industrial labor took on immigrant communities. This statue of a mother and baby – added in 2026 – sits on the edge of the Leadville memorial plinth. James Walsh photo CC-BY-ND This story touches on my own immigrant ancestors, destitute Irish immigrants who settled in western Pennsylvania after fleeing The Great Hunger. At least four of them died in industrial accidents in Pennsylvania, while others were seriously injured. This knowledge of my own ancestors was heavy in my heart as I began excavating the history of the Leadville Irish. The pauper cemetery became for me a powerful symbol, and the unmarked graves a valuable link, connecting immigrant workers from rural Ireland to immigrant workers today. In the 21st century, immigrants face extreme levels of exploitation, harassment, detention and targeting by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Leadville’s pauper graves are a lens through which Americans can better understand the present day. Historic Irish life in Leadville – a death trap The silver rush in Leadville led to a massive influx of immigrants. The city’s population exploded from a few hundred gold miners during the early 1870s to as many as 35,000 people during the mid-1880s, according to the Federal Census. The Irish became the largest ethnic group in the city and one of the largest in the American West. Upward of 5,000 Irish and Irish Americans lived in or near Leadville in the 1880s. Nearly two-thirds of Irish men in the 1880 Federal Census were miners. Leadville became an important Irish cultural space, attracting figures such as author Oscar Wilde and Michael Davitt, founder of the Irish Land League in 1879. The Land League was a transatlantic political movement, funded largely by Irish Americans, to reshape Irish land law and protect Irish tenants from exploitation by landlords. But for Irish immigrants and their families, Leadville was a death trap, claiming the lives of countless miners, women, children and infants. Irish workers responded by organizing and making demands through massive strikes. The fate of striking Irish miners Irish miners led significant strikes against silver barons, demanding decent pay, an eight-hour workday, better safety conditions and the right to organize a union. In May 1880, thousands of miners walked out of the silver mines and marched in silence through Leadville, launching one of the largest strikes in Colorado history. In response, Gov. Frederick Pitkin declared martial law in the city. According to the Leadville Chronicle, dated June 17, 1880, he ordered the Colorado National Guard to arrest striking miners and force them to work in chain gangs building roads, crushing the movement. Sixteen years later, workers again shut down the mines. The 10-month strike, organized by the Western Federation of Miners, also ended with the city under martial law. As part of the strike that began in 1896, between eight and 24 strikers were killed by mine guards during a battle at the Coronado and Robert Emmett mines. The miners had attempted to take back mines that had been reopened with replacement workers. The bodies of these strikers were reported by local newspapers as having been hastily buried along nearby railroad tracks. To my knowledge, their remains have never been found. The 1896-1897 strike, coupled with the 1893 repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase that required the government to buy silver, marked the beginning of the end of the Leadville silver boom. The city’s Irish community migrated to Denver, Cripple Creek, Butte and other mining towns in the American West. The sunken, pauper graves in Evergreen Cemetery represent the only enduring physical representation of those who could not escape. Tales from Evergreen Cemetery Of the roughly 7,000 recorded burials in Evergreen Cemetery’s pauper section, a majority were interred during the 1880s at the height of the silver boom. The stories of those buried there paint a bleak picture. The average age at death was 22. This is based upon records in the Lake County Library listing the names and ages of those buried in the pauper graves. A team of students at the University of Colorado Denver scoured genealogy sites, the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, Leadville City Directories, Annunciation Catholic Church records and other primary sources to gain a glimpse into these people’s lives. Our research team learned that nearly half of the men listed on the memorial died in the mines. Their bodies were taken straight to the cemetery and dumped in pre-dug graves. Over one quarter of the women either died by suicide or were murdered by partners, and another 18% died in childbirth. Very few died of natural causes. The hundreds of babies and newborns died mostly during epidemics, such as the 1883 smallpox outbreak that ravaged the town’s working-class communities. Most of those buried in the Catholic pauper section of Evergreen Cemetery were Irish immigrants. James Walsh photo CC-BY-ND The Irish population as a whole didn’t have it much easier. Internment records from Leadville’s Annunciation Catholic Church – built by Irish immigrants – from 1880-1900 reveal that the average age at death for those in the larger Catholic community was 32. For context, the average life expectancy in the U.S. in 1890 was around 43. The combination of altitude, inadequate housing, disease and deadly working conditions meant that working-class communities didn’t stand a chance. The sunken graves and the memorial are an entry into larger questions about social hierarchy and the abuses and exploitation that exist today – an invitation to a wider dialogue. The struggle to honor those buried in this cemetery continues with the effort to find an accurate name for the memorial. From ‘Irish Miners’ to ‘Irish Pauper’ In my view, the memorial would be better served by a title that more accurately reflects the immigrant workers and their families honored on the glass walls. The memorial is officially titled the “Leadville Irish Miners Memorial,” but just 15% to 20% of the people named on the memorial were Irish miners. One hundred percent, however, of those listed on the memorial were people who understood desperation and poverty, defined at that time as paupers. While many of them earned a wage, it was not enough to sustain their families or help them create a better life. Wealth disparity is the defining issue of our time as well. This memorial centers that important conversation, and this is the hidden value of the memorial. Visitors to the memorial would benefit from a more accurate title, such as the Leadville Irish Pauper Memorial. Many of the graves mark the resting sites of the hundreds of babies, children, women and men who did not work as miners. They rest next to a memorial whose name does not recognize their existence. Being true to the original purpose of the memorial means a name that speaks to all of those buried there. They, after all, are the true stakeholders of this entire effort. Impoverished and exploited immigrants then and now The memorial also leads visitors to confront the humanity of immigrant workers today. In the words of Michael Mooney, an Irish miner who led the 1880 Leadville miners’ strike, quoted in The Denver Tribune on June 18 of that year: “I don’t know that the whole American flag covers me, but I think I have a corner of it.” This space can educate the public and build solidarity with 21st-century immigrant communities across cultural barriers. In the wake of the 2026 killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by armed federal agents in Minneapolis, and of continued Immigration and Customs Enforcement violence, raids and disappearances of immigrants, the reach of the memorial extends far beyond 19th-century Irish history. I believe immigrant communities today deserve a living wage, safe working conditions and a life free from fear of being violently dragged away from their children. Embracing the values at the heart of the memorial begins with renaming it to tell a more complete truth of the people who are buried in Leadville’s pauper cemetery, offering an invitation toward a higher dialogue. Read more of our stories about Colorado.