It operated only as an assay office, which melted and assayed bullion before returning it to customers. Despite its authorization to coin money, the mint did not make coins. The government acquired the Clark, Gruber building and machinery for $25,000 and opened the Denver Mint Assay Office in 1863. At the time, US Mints existed only in Philadelphia and San Francisco. In April 1862, Congress authorized the creation of a branch of the US Mint in Denver for coining gold. By October the company had produced nearly $120,000 in coins. The company built a two-story brick building at what is now the corner of Sixteenth and Market Streets and started to manufacture gold coins in July 1860. Shipping gold was expensive, however, so Clark, Gruber soon decided to mint gold coins in Denver. One of the most successful of these was Clark, Gruber, and Co., founded by Austin and Milton Clark and Emanuel Gruber. Assay OfficeĪfter the Colorado Gold Rush began in 1858–59, companies quickly emerged in Denver to buy gold dust from miners and ship it to mints in the East. Expanded several times over the twentieth century, the mint now produces billions of coins per year and is one of the most popular attractions in the city. In 1895 Congress authorized the mint to produce coins and also provided for a new building, which opened in 1904 at the corner of West Colfax Avenue and Cherokee Street. Established by Congress in 1862, the Denver Mint operated for more than four decades as an assay office, determining the quality of bullion but not producing any coins.

Denver mint store hours