Basins of Silver: The Story of Silverton, Colorado’s Las Animas Mining District, by Eric Twitty, $32.95. Colorado history is rife with unusual stories about the discovery of gold and silver mines, but none is more bizarre than that of the Highland Mary near Silverton.
Edward Innis, a wealthy New York capitalist, acquired the Highland Mary claim in 1875 and began tunneling into the mountain toward what he thought was a lake of gold.
For 10 years, he ordered his workers to build the tunnel not straight to the supposed lake but in strange twists and turns. The miners came across a number of promising veins that any other operator would have pursued, but on the advice of his consultant, Innis ignored them.
Finally, in 1885, Innis revealed that the consultant was a psychic. He had spent almost all of his fortune following her advice. The consultant, by the way, made $50,000. Subsequent owners were more pragmatic and mined the ore veins of which Innis was so disdainful, and the Highland Mary was in operation on and off until 1951.
Another story that Eric Twitty tells in “Basins of Silver” concerns the Stoiber brothers, German engineers who operated some of the richest and most efficient mines in the San Juans.
Edward Stoiber’s wife, Lena, the opposite of her straight-laced husband, was a wild and obstreperous woman known as “Captain Jack.” Stoiber eventually sold his Silver Lake Mine and built Stoiberhof, a mansion in Denver at 1022 Humboldt St. (Lena’s subsequent husband was on the list of passengers lost in the sinking of the Titanic. Legend has it he actually survived, but seeing the chance to rid himself of his difficult wife, he never returned to Denver.)
“Basins of Silver” is much more than mining lore. Twitty concentrates on the discovery and development of mines and mills in the Las Animas Mining District rather than on the history of Silverton and other towns in the area. In a highly detailed work, Twitty examines mining methods, financing, changing ownership and outside economics that affected minerals mining in Colorado.
The author is obsessed with searching around mining town middens to find out what the miners ate and how they dressed. He pokes through the debris of old structures and machinery to learn the size and location of buildings. He also throws in facts about pay scale and health issues.
All of this adds up to an account that sometimes borders on textbook because of its detailed information. Nonetheless, it is perhaps the most thorough work on mines and mining technology in the San Juan Mountains.
Brides of the Multitude: Prostitution in the Old West, by Jeremy Agnew, $16.95. This is the latest in a never-ending line of books on prostitutes in the West. In fact, there are now probably as many books on the subject as there were hookers. This one is a somewhat serious treatise on the social history of prostitution — where the girls and their johns came from, what the economic and cultural circumstances were that encouraged prostitution, auxiliary businesses such as saloons and gambling halls, and so on.
In other words, readers won’t get a whole lot of salacious stories — nor much new information, for that matter — from the book. Still, it’s a good read, and there are a couple of interesting glossaries, one with the names of the women, the other with euphemisms for 19th century prostitutes. They include “Dulcinea” (as in “Don Quixote”) and “horizontal expert.”
Tombstone’s Treasure: Silver Mines and Golden Saloons, by Sherry Monahan, $16.95. Hookers were a part of Tombstone, of course. An early observer referred to one as “that strange woman whose steps take woe on hell” who robs her “victims” of “a sober, righteous and godly life.”
The prostitute had a little competition. Tombstone was blessed (or cursed) with dozens of saloons, gambling halls and bawdy houses. While the town is best known for the fight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone itself was a cosmopolitan town, a mecca for big spenders and pleasure seekers, outlaws and con men.
In an entertaining and fact-laced book, author Sherry Monahan concentrates on the mines that supported the town, producing about $5 million each year during its short boom, and on the town itself, rather than on the famous 30-second fight between the Earps and the Clantons.
She does recount a lesser-known story about the death of Morgan Earp. Wyatt Earp, undressing for bed, had a premonition that Morgan was in trouble, a feeling so strong that he put this clothes back on and went out in search of his brother.
Finding Morgan in front of a saloon, Wyatt told him, “It’s just a hunch, Morg, but I want you to come along to the hotel and go to bed.” But Morgan put him off, saying he wanted to play another game of pool, and went into a saloon, where he was shot and killed.
There were trials for those of lesser stature than the Earps, among them dust and insects. The “Tombstone Epitaph” once printed a poem about the latter:
“Oh the flies! The horrible flies!
“Buzzing around like election lies;
“Dodging about like a maniac’s dream,
“Over the butter and into the cream.”
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist who writes regularly about new regional nonfiction.
