114: Greed - The Cripple Creek Gold Rush

In the valley below Mount Pisgah, there is a meandering creek that for the last 30 million years has crept through a desolate prairie, carving into the core of an ancient volcano revealing nuggets of native gold that remained undisturbed on the surface until Bob Womack found a chunk in a cattle pasture in Poverty Gulch and staked the El Paso claim in 1890 - igniting the last Colorado Gold Rush and fostering:

“The Greatest Gold Camp On Earth.”

It’s true. More gold was pulled out of Cripple Creek than all of Alaska and California’s gold rushes combined. 28 Millionaires were made and the little mining enclave became the financial capital of the country in just a few years. Word of the Gold boom triggered a mass migration of gold thirsty men, with little to no experience mining, to a town that was primed to take their fortune faster than the Gold Fever packed their bags to get there.

They say “Money doesn’t grow on trees” - yet it is the root of all evil - so what happens when men start pulling precious metals deeply rooted in the Earth out of the ground faster than Farmers can harvest crops?

Greed.

A gluttonous hunger for GOLD that erodes the morals of men and women; infecting their souls like a fever - and the contagious excitement of a gold rush spares no one.

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