WI: Spain finds Colorado gold?

A while back I did a thread on Spain finding the gold in Georgia. I've thought about "easy" to find gold in North America that might help Spain's position in the region, so what about Spain finding the gold in Colorado that spurred the Pike's Peak Gold Rush?

This isn't too remote of a chance--I think it's not much more difficult than Spain finding gold in California. Comancheros and other traders regularly traversed the area. Spain sent expeditions well into nowadays Colorado, such as the one that defeated the Comanche leader Cuerno Verde. And the gold in Colorado was known many years before the gold rush occurred through the stories of travelers in the area.

What might the implications be for Spain finding Colorado gold? New Mexico and Texas were, to some degree, meant as buffer colonies for the mining zones of the Mexican north like in Zacatecas. Since colonists will flood to Colorado (to a certain extent, but they will be there), might Colorado need a "buffer zone" and thus spur Spanish colonisation further north in Wyoming or to the east on the Plains (less likely)? The Rockies to the West make an effective buffer, IMO.

It's worth noting that the main native peoples associated with this region, the Cheyenne and Arapaho, didn't arrive until the mid-18th century. Spain might find an effective ally in the Shoshone if they can buffer them against the Blackfoot Confederacy which had dealt them many defeats in the 18th century. This might make the native situation less dire than in New Mexico or Texas. Though the Navajo, Comanche, etc. would still be an issue there, I think the need to protect the route to Colorado would cause a renewed Spanish focus on New Mexico and thus contain the situation there to some degree or another, particularly with a mixture of military victory (like against prestigious leaders like the aforementioned Cuerno Verde) and diplomacy with agreements with the native peoples.

So, effectively, stronger Spain, stronger Spanish Mexico, stronger Mexican North--how huge of implications might this have elsewhere, especially in the United States or elsewhere in the Spanish New World? Renewed expeditions for gold? Spain trying to have lightning strike twice?
 
the Spaniards found gold in NM and AZ, and it didn't seem to spur any settlement rushes... New Spain had a real problem in that it didn't have the waves of immigration that the British colonies had, and gold way out there in the peripheries wasn't much of a lure. Particularly when there were gold and silver found a whole lot closer to Mexico itself. How late are we talking about here?
 
I'm thinking of moving people up from the Valley of Mexico to settle the periphery--that seems to be the way Spain did things in that region judging by New Mexico and California. But if Spain knew of silver/gold in New Mexico and Arizona, did we get the best result out of the region in OTL? I'm not so sure. If a place like Tombstone, Arizona was developed far after the Spanish era (it would be in Sonora in that era, though), it seems to me like Spain missed deposits which could have been huge and spurred far more interest, and thus investment and with it, colonists. And the Colorado mines were huge for the Americans in colonising the place--once Spain realises that there's quite a bit there, I'd expect much more attention paid to the place (and as I noted, New Mexico too, since that's a key link).

How late? I'd think by the mid-18th century at latest, discovered by a mixture of trading expeditions with indigenous peoples as well as campaigns against natives which would turn out more successful despite Spain's weaknesses in many encounters. Like in the OTL Pike's Peak Gold Rush, it's realised that there's quite a bit of gold in those hills over the course of a few years. Since I mentioned Cuerno Verde, let's have his father of the same name be defeated near or possibly north of where his son was OTL. Or who knows--any native leader causes Spanish officials to send an expedition against them into that part of Colorado where people would find the gold.

It could be earlier, though. If someone like Coronado had gone to Colorado instead of Kansas ("Quivira"), he probably would've found something more than what he found OTL. Same thing with any other expedition aimed at Colorado. So in theory, Spain could find the gold as early as the 16th century, either through Coronado himself or another explorer who visits the area.
 
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