John F. Campion was a founding father and first President of the Colorado Museum of Natural History, now the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. His business acumen and generous donation of a world-class gold collection helped get the Museum off to a good start.
John Francis Campion was born in 1848 on Prince Edward Island, Canada. In 1862 the family moved to Sacramento, California, where young John, after a two-year stint in the United States Navy, learned to prospect for gold and silver. At age 20 he found his first significant silver mine in the White Pine area of eastern Nevada. Campion discovered and developed several successful mines in Nevada, where typically rich silver ore was associated with carbonate host rocks. In 1879 he moved to Leadville, Colorado, after hearing of rich silver discoveries in carbonate rocks in that area. After ten years Campion found success and formed the Iron Hill Consolidated Mining Company. In 1890 he bought the Little Jonny Mine, a fair silver mine seemingly about to play out. Campion consolidated the Little Jonny with one of his properties and tunneled through notoriously unstable ground to find a very rich gold deposit. This find set off the "Leadville Gold Belt" rush just as the price of silver was falling drastically in 1893. At Breckenridge, he found rich native gold deposits in his Wapiti Mine, the source of world-class crystal gold specimens that formed the core of his famous mineral collection. Because of Little Jonny and Wapiti, Campion and his investors became immensely wealthy.
Campion married Nellie M. Daly in 1895 and settled in Denver. They had four children. Campion quickly became active in local business affairs. He served as vice president of the Denver Northwestern Pacific Railway, the famous Moffat Road, president of Big Horn Land and Cattle Company, and was co-founder of Great Western Sugar Company, which brought sugar beet farming to Colorado. Campion also shared his wealth and talents with the community. He was president of the Municipal Art League of Denver and the Denver Chamber of Commerce, where he arranged transfer of its library to the nascent Denver Public Library.
Campion was one of the driving forces to establish a natural history museum in Denver. He was a member of the initial group of prominent citizens that met in late 1897 to consider the proposal by the naturalist Edwin Carter of Breckenridge to sell his collection of mounted Colorado mammal and bird specimens to an institution that would house and protect it. The group arranged funding and assembled a management team. The Colorado Museum of Natural History was incorporated on December 6, 1900, with Campion chosen as President of the Board of Trustees. He served as President until his death in 1916. To add to its initial attractions, Campion donated to the Museum his 600-piece gold collection, which includes some of the finest examples of crystallized gold. The Campion gold collection forms the centerpiece of the Museum's displays in Coors Mineral Hall.
From the guide to the Campion Collection, 1894-1915, (Denver Museum of Nature & Science, )
