{"id":2339,"date":"2021-10-14T01:25:55","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T01:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2339"},"modified":"2021-10-22T00:00:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T00:00:02","slug":"ftv-strike-it-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2339","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Strike it Rich!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of my favorite displays at the Michigan Iron Industry Museum outside of Negaunee is housed behind the door of an old bank vault.\u00a0 There is a graph inside showing how much money was generated by all of the big mineral rushes that swept this young nation.\u00a0 Manifest Destiny compelled the government to expand the United States all the way to the Pacific Ocean, but it was the discovery of gold and silver that called loudly for Easteners to hasten to the untamed West.\u00a0 The 1849 California gold rush, for example, lured some 300,000 miner wanna-bes to the gold fields, the largest mass migration in United States History.\u00a0 It is estimated that some 100,000 of these migrants would be dead within 20 years of the discovery at Sutter\u2019s Mill, with at least 4,000 murdered during this rough and tumble era.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though it is estimated the 1849 rush produced some $955 million in gold*, few prospectors became as wealthy as the merchants and businessmen who gouged the newcomers for their mining necessities.\u00a0 As much as I loathe reality based television shows, I will admit to keeping tabs on the Discovery Channel\u2019s <\/span>Gold Rush<\/span><\/i> series (okay, <\/span>The Curse of Oak Island<\/span><\/i> is also on my short list).\u00a0 A quick mental accounting shows the various <\/span>Gold Rush<\/span><\/i> operations have pulled roughly $40 million of the gold stuff out of the ground since the series debuted in 2010 (keeping in mind the price of gold is much higher now than it was in 1849).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How do these numbers stack up when compared to the value of the copper and iron ore mined in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula?\u00a0 According to the display at the Iron Industry Museum, copper extracted totalled some $9.6 BILLION*,\u00a0 and iron ore an astounding $48 BILLION*.\u00a0 Michigan lumber added an additional $4 BILLION* to the economy. (*<\/span>Based on the period from 1833-1983 cumulative data – calculated in 1983 dollars.\u00a0 Source:\u00a0 Michigan Iron Industry Museum<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 The focus of this article, however, is another western mineral rush that began in 1872 which I had never heard of.\u00a0 In his book <\/span>The Men Who United The States – America\u2019s Explorers, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible <\/span><\/i>(2014 – Harper Perennial Books), author Simon Winchester gives an account of the men who came down with \u2018strike it rich\u2019 fever, not for gold, silver, copper, or iron ore, but for diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first chills of gem fever were felt by San Francisco banker William Ralston.\u00a0 Ralston had made his fortune mining silver on the fabled Comstock lode in Nevada.\u00a0 With this first hand experience, he was open to information about any newly discovered forms of mineral wealth in which he might invest.\u00a0 Ralston was visited by Philip Arnold and his cousin John Slack;\u00a0 two Kentucky prospectors who wanted to deposit a bag in his bank.\u00a0 The cashier demanded to know what was in the sack before he would accept it for the vault.\u00a0 After the pair reluctantly showed him the contents,\u00a0 he quickly summoned Ralston, the bank\u2019s founder.\u00a0 When shown the previously mentioned diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires inside,\u00a0 Ralston deemed the collection to be \u2018quite extraordinary\u2019, but he wanted more details.\u00a0 The prospectors were reluctant when Ralson pressed them for more information, but eventually confessed the haul had been discovered a fair distance away from San Francisco.\u00a0 After months of fruitless searching, Arnold and Slack had stumbled upon a hill where precious stones like rubies, garnets, other colored stones, and some diamonds could be found scattered about.\u00a0 They told Ralston there were so many that a kick of the boot heel on the ground would uncover more and more precious gems buried in the dust.\u00a0 They also told Ralston they had carried out only what their mules could handle, leaving at least ten times that amount behind in a secure location.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Naturally, the pair refused to divulge the location but they did agree to take two diamond experts to inspect the site, but only if they travelled there blindfolded.\u00a0 The experts returned with another large sack of gems two weeks later declaring the find was even more wondrous than they had imagined.\u00a0 They described diamonds jutting out of the earth, lodged in cracks in the rocks, and glittering like ice crystals in the dry stream beds.\u00a0 With two bags of these precious stones in his vault (and an estimated value of a quarter of a million dollars in mind), Rahlston took immediate action.\u00a0 First, he talked twenty-five of the Bay City\u2019s finest into capitalizing his new<\/span> San Francisco and New York Mining and Commercial Company<\/span><\/i> to the tune of $80,000 each ($2 million total).\u00a0 According to Winchester, \u201cThe word got out:\u00a0 madness erupted.\u00a0 A diamond frenzy spread like a forest fire through the San Francisco financial aristocracy;\u00a0 and by summer\u2019s end, twenty-five other firms had been founded, with a total capitalization of a quarter of a billion dollars.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ralston assembled a board of directors that included the obligatory lawyers, politicos, and an adventurer named Asbury Harpending.\u00a0 Two of the lawyers were sent with samples in hand to have them appraised by New York\u2019s leading jeweler at the time, Charles Tiffany.\u00a0 His verdict?\u00a0 The stones were all authentic, a collection of precious gems of great value.\u00a0 He placed the value of the small sampling he had seen at $150,000.\u00a0 Not one to take risks, Ralston then hired Henry Janin, then the foremost mining engineer in the country.\u00a0 Janin was dispatched to the secret site (again, blindfolded for the final mule ride in) to further assess the value of the property.\u00a0 After a day and a half train journey with the shades drawn, the pair guided the blindfolded Janin on a two day ride\u00a0 through the blazing heat until they reached the claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Winchester\u2019s description of Janin\u2019s exploration reads like a slick ad-man\u2019s promotional:\u00a0 \u201cThe diamond fields were on the northern side of an unusual cone-shaped mountain, a peak that rose quite memorably out of the scrubby landscape.\u00a0 After spending the better part of twenty-four hours camped there, having walked across the prodigiously jewel-strewn hillsides, he pronounced the find entirely genuine.\u00a0 He offered his professional view that the company and its backers were set to make a fortune.\u201d\u00a0 The description was perfect for stirring up even more of a frenzy.\u00a0 The clamour to obtain stock in the new venture by private investors reached fever pitch.\u00a0 The company was turning down offers as high as $200,000 for a share of the promised land.\u00a0 Even Lord Rothschild sent emissaries from London to try and buy the company outright.\u00a0 He was rebuffed but was offered a seat on the board.\u00a0 Ralston opened an office in one of the impressive buildings in the city center and hired two dozen clerks to conduct the daily business.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Philip Arnold and John Slack professed to not be interested in all of this \u2018board room and briefcase\u2019 business.\u00a0 Their wish was to get back to their stock and trade.\u00a0 They offered to cash out so (as Winchester puts it), \u201cthey could return to their artless world of pick and shovel, mule, and map.\u201d\u00a0 For their $600,000 payout ($300,000 each), they left the company with confidential directions on how to get to the diamond fields.\u00a0 In what is now seen as a stroke of genius, they also demanded a continued share to be paid on an ongoing basis – a percentage of any future profits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At this juncture, Clarence King entered the story.\u00a0 A Yale-educated, Harvard refined geologist and mountaineer by trade, King would eventually be appointed the first-ever director of the United States Geological Survey.\u00a0 King first heard about the fabled diamond mountain just after he had concluded a series of surveys and explorations throughout the west.\u00a0 Most recently, he had served as the geologist-in-charge of the Army\u2019s seven year Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel.\u00a0 This expansive work took King\u2019s survey team more than a thousand miles from Winnemucca to Cheyenne and all points in between.\u00a0 Their final report was used as the guiding document for construction of the first trans-continental railroad.\u00a0 When King heard about this unbelievable find, he didn\u2019t believe it.\u00a0 In fact, King smelled a rat.\u00a0 Little did he or anyone else know his detective work would soon make him the most famous geologist America ever produced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clarence King put his geological training to work and every fiber of his being told him the claims to be patently absurd:\u00a0 diamonds can occur in one place, sapphires in another, and rubies in a third, but never, in his experience, were they all found in one place.\u00a0 It was not an impossibility, but it was very unlikely.\u00a0 He set out to put a finger on the map where this secret location might be and again used his vast experience surveying the western regions to solve the problem.\u00a0 The first thing King did was ask Janin some questions about his train and mule trip to the site.\u00a0 He especially wanted to know what the weather had been like during Janin\u2019s trip and what direction Janin thought they had traveled by mule.\u00a0 Janin told King he believed they had travelled south by mule and reported the weather had been hot and dry.\u00a0 Henry further stated he felt he might perish from thirst and weariness by the time they reached the diamond mountain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Making like Sherlock Holmes, King pieced together these bits of information, and when combined with the length of the train ride it took to get there, he concluded the following:\u00a0 \u201c[King] knew that a thirty-six hour train ride out of San Francisco would take them well past Salt Lake City.\u00a0 Clarence knew Utah and Nevada had been drenched with rain storms at the same time Janin and his guides had passed through which would place their destination farther east in the rain shadow of the Rockies, probably Cheyenne.\u00a0 King made his way to Wyoming with an old school friend who was also the chief topographer of his last survey, James Gardinere.\u00a0 Along the route East and at the small rail station in Rawlings Springs, Wyoming, they asked more questions of the train and station attendants.\u00a0 King\u2019s suspicions were confirmed by reports they heard about a mounted party leaving the station in a southerly direction.\u00a0 They headed south from Rawlings Springs figuring the destination was within a fifteen mile radius of the station.\u00a0 The \u2018cone-shaped mountain\u2019 they were seeking sounded familiar from their earlier surveys so they were confident they would find the site in short order.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Upon crossing into Colorado in early October, the small party found themselves at an elevation of 7,000 feet glad for the cold weather gear they had packed for the exploration.\u00a0 The wind had blown the snow off the trail allowing them to follow the visible horse tracks.\u00a0 Not long after entering Colorado, the cone-shaped mountain came into view.\u00a0 The crude wooden sign claiming water rights from a small stream was like a large exclamation point proving this was the right place – it was signed by none other than Henry Janin himself.\u00a0 As King\u2019s expedition members inspected the site, they began finding rubies, amethysts, spinels, and garnets, but only a few diamonds.\u00a0 Finding one diamond perched on top of a small finger of rock all but convinced King that Arnold and Stack had \u2018salted\u2019 the site with enough stones to make them seem abundant.\u00a0 How could a diamond remain perched on a finger of stone, and remain there over the centuries of brutal Colorado weather unless it had been planted there?\u00a0 King\u2019s suspicious mind went into overdrive when they noticed many of the ant hills had holes around their bases that had obviously been created by the hand of man (and a stick).\u00a0 They found a diamond at the bottom of each hole placed there with every intent they should eventually be discovered.\u00a0 The entire story was an elaborate hoax used by Arnold and Stack to become wealthy without the burdensome need to mine one solitary gem.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The shysters had purchased $25,000 worth of off cuts and rejects from stone cutters and gem dealers in London and Amsterdam some months before they ventured west.\u00a0 Seemingly, they had made a tidy gain for their modest investment but the fallout from the faux gem mine was just beginning.\u00a0 Tiffany had to regain his damaged stature after declaring the gems \u2018a rajah\u2019s ransom\u2019.\u00a0 Asbury Harpending had written a book about the whole diamond adventure (exaggerating the tale even more than Arnold and Slack), and ended up being sued for libel.\u00a0 Before the whole plot was unearthed, Henry Janin managed to sell his shares for $40,000 and oddly enough, he and King became life-long friends.\u00a0 William Ralston framed his worthless shares as a reminder to be more careful in the future.\u00a0 He also paid back his investors but three years later, a run on his bank caused his financial empire to collapse and Ralston\u2019s body was found floating in the bay.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Philip Arnold would later be arrested and charged back in Kentucky, but the state refused to extradite him.\u00a0 He eventually paid back half of his \u2018earnings\u2019 and used the other half to open his own bank.\u00a0 A bullet in the shoulder from a jealous rival (Winchester doesn\u2019t mention if it was over a love interest or the bank) caused him a painful death due to pneumonia and complications from his wound.\u00a0 His cousin, John Slack, was never heard from again.\u00a0 Thus ended a tale of riches that was indeed too good to be true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is a strange coda to the whole Great Diamond Fraud involving the intrepid geologist \/ Sherlock Holmes of the story, Clarence King.\u00a0 A privileged Eastern son, he eventually returned to New York and lived a city life as a single man about town.\u00a0 He eventually met a nurse maid named Ida Copeland whom he would marry and raise five children.\u00a0 King\u2019s married life was conducted secretly and separately from his other life.\u00a0 He had told Ida his name was James Todd and that he came from Baltimore.\u00a0 He also told her he worked as a pullman porter for the railroad, a job traditionally held by those of Negro descent.\u00a0 Copeland, herself decended from a Georgia slave family, assumed he must have some percentage of \u2018black\u2019 in him (under Victorian social rules, any percentage of \u2018Negro blood\u2019 in his ancestry would make him \u2018a black man\u2019) inspite of his very pale skin and blue eyes.\u00a0 His separate lives never connected and he spent thirteen years dancing between two different worlds without ever telling his wife, children, or his friends (King\u2019s or Todd\u2019s acquaintances).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0King borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years from his good friend John Hay.\u00a0 Running two separate households proved expensive and his ventures at mining and cattle ranching in the West did not pan out.\u00a0 The strain of this dual life may have contributed to his failing health and he contracted tuberculosis. \u00a0 King\/Todd moved to the American Southwest to convalesce but never found a cure.\u00a0 He died on Christmas Eve, 1901, and perhaps at Clarence\u2019s request, the attending doctor wrote a letter to Ida explaining she wasn\u2019t really Mrs. Todd, but Mrs. King.\u00a0 King had always stated he felt the ideal America would be \u201c[When] the composite elements of American populations are melted down into one race alloy, when there are no more Irish, or Germans, or Negroes, and English, but only <\/span>Americans.\u201d <\/span><\/i>The letter did not offer any further information about King\u2019s other life, other than his real name.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This was pretty advanced thinking in light of how race relations were viewed in the period following the Civil War.\u00a0 It may also be the reason the doctor did not list King as \u2018caucasan\u2019 or \u2018black\u2019 on his death certificate.\u00a0 In the section asking for a description of the deceased, the doctor had simply typed \u2018<\/span>American\u2019.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 It is ironic that the man who unraveled one of the greatest get rich quick scams of the century spent more than a decade of his later years perpetuating a different kind of con, this one driven by his love for a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Can you think of a better song involving baubles?\u00a0 An older Gary Lewis and the Playboys rocking one of those oldies package shows…still sounds good, doesn’t he?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of my favorite displays at the Michigan Iron Industry Museum outside of Negaunee is housed behind the door of an old bank vault.\u00a0 There is a graph inside showing how much money was generated by all of the big mineral rushes that swept this young nation.\u00a0 Manifest Destiny compelled the government to expand the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2348,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions\/2348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}