L
lickenlvr
Guest
several years ago in Idaho springs I was charged with the care of a circa 1880s hotel that had been turned into a restaraunt and bar.? the facility was for sale and was not in use tho it was fully stocked and ready to be opend within days of a purchase.? On a particularly cold night in januare disaster struck.... in the form of a failure of the lone oil furnace in the basement.... the temp fell to 25 below that night and dozens of piipes in the ceiling burst ........ by morning the entire ceiling of the bar was on the floor...... in removing the old lath and plaster ceiling I discovered an old floor safe someone had built in the floor above....... a one foot by 6 inch tin box with a slightly rounded top. With visions of trasure glinting in my eye...... after years of th'ing here it was...... within was an old western union message pad.? On it were details of a fraud perpetrated by one of the local mine owners in the 1880 time frame...... in the notes he detailed how he planned to salt various stopes in order to fool a mining investor from england into buying his rapidly failing mine. there were several pages of letters back and forth between the two and personal notes on what he intended to do.? ?well as history later revealed ..... the investor didnt buy the mine and it went belly up 2 years later.? Though there was no monetary treasure ... it was a treasure trove of info that was previously unknown about the greed and frauds that abounded in the gold boom era of the rockies.? The documents were placed on loan to the local historical society where they still reside as far as I know.
