Editor's note: This review comes to you from the Colorado Book Review. More reviews can be found at the Denver Public Library.

Because depressions are depressing, most of them (with the exception of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession of 2007–2009) are forgotten by all except some scholars. That is unfortunate because major downturns have significant consequences while they wreak their havoc for years afterward. Now, thanks to John Steinle, a former Jefferson County Museum director of the Hiwan Homestead and history educator, we have a carefully crafted, readable, reasonable-length work covering the causes, progress, and consequences of the economic, political, and social turbulence surrounding the Depression of 1893 in Colorado.

Steinle begins with an introductory account of Leadville, a boomtown beholden to its rich silver mines for its good fortune. It entered the 1890s full of hope and seemingly assured of continuing prosperity, which in the previous decade had given employment to thousands and made a few men such as Horace Tabor wealthy. Next, Steinle broadens his scope to give a quick recap of Colorado’s development since the late 1850s with emphasis on the importance of precious metal mining, the engine that drove much of the state’s economic development in its first four decades.

Then Steinle recounts the forces that in the early 1890s quickly plunged Colorado from mountaintops of prosperity into pits of economic depression, shattering the livelihoods of humble miners and destroying the fortunes of haughty millionaires. Many factors contributed to the breakdown, including an inadequate money supply, decreasing farm prices, and—particularly damaging to Colorado’s economy—a decline in the price of silver.

Economic dislocations led to political changes, including the rise of the Populists. This was a new political party initially favored by farmers and others who wanted to increase the money supply and later embraced by many Coloradans who found hope in the Populists’ support for silver. Davis Waite, the most successful of Colorado’s Populists, won the governorship in 1892 and served one turbulent term (1893–1895) during which he went to war with the City of Denver, a confrontation which Steinle ably covers. The author goes beyond Colorado to chart the national scene as Republicans and Democrats vied for preeminence.

During the turmoil of the 1890s Colorado witnessed massive unemployment, an exodus of many of the down-and-out, violent clashes between mine laborers and mine owners, and an almost miraculous return to happier times, particularly for the rich and the middle class, thanks to gold discoveries in Leadville and even more importantly in the Cripple Creek–Victor area. Steinle explains all this in sufficient detail to keep readers’ interest while not overwhelming them with minutiae and economic jargon.

Now we have a coherent, concise, and understandable account of one of Colorado’s most significant downturns. Attractively produced and graced with dozens of carefully reproduced, sharp photographs, the book will both delight and inform readers, giving them a worthy addition to their libraries.