On a cool, crisp autumn day in 1890, there was no doubt in Bob Womack’s mind that he had uncovered a rich vein of gold. After spending considerable time examining the half-inch discolorized vein in the rock surface, Bob decided to use dynamite in an effort to break loose the ore.
Bob used his rock drill to bore a thirty-inch hole a few inches away from the vein. Then he carefully placed a single eight-inch stick of dynamite in the drilled hole.
Bob placed a second dynamite stick fused with the first. After fusing yet a third stick of dynamite, Bob climbed up the ladder, unrolling a five-foot fuse as he made his ascent out of the shaft. Once outside the shaft, Bob stretched the fuse line as far as he could and struck a match. Then he ran for cover.
There's Gold in Them There Hills
Within a minute of lighting the fuse, all of Poverty Gulch rocked from the explosion. For the next few days, Bob shoveled the pile of dirt that the blast had created. Then he again set about dynamiting near the surface of the vein. Finally, Bob was able to dislodge a portion of the ore held in the deep crack of the rock.
After retrieving as many ore samples as he could, Bob carefully laid out a rectangular area on the north peak above Poverty Gulch, some 300 by 1500 feet, next to the shaft, in an effort to expand his mining claim. Then he attached a handwritten sign to a wooden post and drove it into the ground. The sign read:
El Paso Claim Located October 20, 1890
By R. M. Womack and Dr. John Grannis
Mining District Unknown
The following day, Bob rode his horse, Whistler, over the pass to tell the townsfolk of Colorado Springs of his find and to register the new claim. Bob then paid a visit to his friend, Professor Harry Lamb, who readily agreed to assay Bob’s ore samples.
The metallurgist professor spent the next several days in the laboratory at Colorado College, carefully analyzing the specimens. When he was finished, Dr. Lamb wrote out his assay report. Two of Bob’s ore samples had assayed as high as $250 to the ton. Bob Womack was quite pleased, but not surprised by the results of Dr. Lamb’s assay.
Doubting Speculation
Nevertheless, it must have been an overwhelming sense of euphoria for forty-six year old Bob Womack, to have finally, after nearly two decades, located the gold vein he knew all along was there.
It wasn’t so much that he was looking to get rich, but to discover the elusive vein and piece together that incredible jigsaw puzzle of rock formations and erosion causing threads of high grade ore running rampant amidst the incredible volcanic formation of the Cripple Creek area.
Despite the fabulous assay report, Bob’s immediate dilemma was lack of funds to develop the new El Paso gold claim and improve the original Grand View mine.
For the next few weeks, Bob and his partner, Dr.John Grannis, met with a few mining experts in the Colorado Springs area, showing them the ore samples, as well as Dr. Lamb’s assay report.
Because of the unusual gray color of the specimens, which was not present in previous Colorado gold strikes, the mining men showed little, if any interest.
During a conversation with a trusted friend, Dr. Grannis expressed his frustration over the lack of interest in Womack’s gold specimens. Dr. Grannis’ friend, Harry Seldomridge, offered to display one of the ore samples in the front window of his father’s store.
Grannis agreed and gave him one of the gold-bearing specimens. For several weeks Womack’s gold-bearing ore sat in the window of the J. F. Seldomridge & Sons grain store on Tejon Street in Colorado Springs.
Dr. Grannis also visited with Hiram Rogers, a reporter with the Weekly Gazette newspaper. After an extensive conversation, Rogers declined to write about Bob Womack’s find. Sometime later, Rogers wrote with obvious indifference of his missed journalistic opportunity:
“I remember seeing Bob’s latest ore with indifferent curiosity, for who that has lived in the Rocky Mountains has not been shown oceans of such stuff that came from a future bonanza? As a newspaper man I looked Dr. Grannis up and asked him about it. His replies were not sufficient to impress me, and I let it pass. Naturally, a discovery by Bob Womack was discounted in Colorado Springs.”
With no means to adequately develop his mining claims, Bob returned to Poverty Gulch to work the mines himself. Day after day Bob would take his hammer and chisel and slowly chip away at the ore vein.
Collecting the pieces and chunks of the gray-colored ore, Bob would carefully place them in a grain sack and haul them down the mountain slope to his cabin. By the time the winter snows fell over the Cripple Creek area, Bob had plenty of ore, but no buyers.
While Bob spent the fall of 1890 working his claims, Dr. Grannis made a habit of stopping by the grain store of Seldomridge & Sons on a weekly basis. During one of his visits, Grannis noticed a gentleman inspecting Womack’s ore specimens.
Grannis introduced himself to the man, who was Ed De LaVergne. After a conversation centered around mining, of which De LaVergne professed great interest, Grannis suggested that De LaVergne take a few courses in metallurgy and assaying from Professor Harry Lamb at the Colorado College.
When De LaVergne completed his courses at Colorado College, in December 1890, he received the formal certification as an assayer. A few days later, he remembered seeing Womack’s ore samples displayed in the window of the Seldomridge & Sons grain store, across the street from his family’s furniture store. One day, during a break at the family business, De LaVergne crossed the street to take another look at the ore specimens.
De LaVergne had learned of the Hayden Survey and the “volcanic theory” from Professor Lamb, and agreed with Professor Lamb’s assay report of Womack’s ore specimens. De LaVergne asked Lamb to arrange a meeting with Bob Womack.
After a few days, Lamb set up the meeting at Colorado College. In attendance were De LaVergne, Lamb, Dr. Grannis, and Bob Womack. During the meeting, Lamb explained in detail the volcanic theory established during the 1873 Hayden Survey and Bob’s involvement with the survey team.
Bob explained to De LaVergne that while he believed in the theory, he had also found several pieces of gold-bearing float in the creeks and streams of the Cripple Creek area over the dozen years he had lived there. De LaVergne developed an interest that the possibility of a real wealth of gold hidden at and near Womack’s mining claims at Poverty Gulch existed.
De LaVergne politely asked Bob’s permission to visit his mining claims and explore the Cripple Creek area. In mid-January 1891, Ed De LaVergne and Fred Frisbee left for a prospecting trip at Poverty Gulch.
Bob's Vindication
After reaching the area, the two men called on George and Emma Carr at the Broken Box Ranch, where the couple graciously invited them to stay during their time in Cripple Creek.
De LaVergne and Frisbee spent three weeks exploring the region. They found a few sites which they believed quite possibly contained promising ore.
Before they returned to Colorado Springs with their ore samples, De LaVergne and Frisbee staked off two claims, both on the same slope above Poverty Gulch as Bob Womack’s claims.
De LaVergne and Frisbee’s El Dorado Lode claim was located on the western edge of Womack’s El Paso claim. Just below these claims, was the Mollie Kathleen mine, located on September 12, 1891, by Mrs. Mollie Kathleen, who became the first female miner in the region.
Over the next few months, word got around throughout the Cripple Creek area that mining claims were being staked out across the region. Perhaps it was George and Emma Carr who spread the word.
Cripple Creek Becomes “Greatest Gold Camp On Earth”
In any case, George Carr and a few friends, including Sheriff William Spell, formed a group and filed a
few claims of their own. William Spell had first met Bob Womack at the Carr’s Broken Box Ranch in the winter of 1889. Years later, Leslie Doyle Spell recalled the occasion:
“At the Broken Box Ranch, as Carr’s domain was known, we were warmly greeted by Mrs. Carr, our gracious hostess. Several of the neighbors from surrounding ranches were also gathered there for a roundup and branding. This roundup, incidentally, was to be the last one held at the Broken Box.
One man I remember in particular – the old prospector, Bob Womack, who was spending the winter with the Carrs, doing chores, mending fences and helping with the cattle.
As is customary with prospectors, young and old, all he could talk about was the wonderful finds he was going to make in his search for gold.
Dad, always a good listener, became quite an interested subject for Womack to work upon and was almost convinced enough to grubstake him.
After hearing Bob’s story dad asked Mr. Carr if there was really anything to his glowing tale. Carr replied that frequently Womack would find samples that would assay fairly well and then again fail to find anything at all, but persisted in searching for the source of the float samples he would find.
While Bob and my father were spending hours in front of the fireplace in the old Womack cabin where we were lodged during that memorable housewarming of 1890, and discussing Bob’s wonderful prospects, I also was listening with intense interest. If I had been a grown man then I am sure Bob and I would have been partners in his gold venture, for all of my life I have carried the lure of prospecting in my veins.”
The news of the many mining claims near the Cripple Creek area quickly reached the Colorado Springs area. Hiram Rogers, the same reporter with the Weekly Gazette newspaper, who had previously declined to report on Bob Womack’s incredible gold find, took the opportunity to, in typical journalistic fashion, to correct his error. In the February 22, 1891, issue of the paper, under the headline, “The Reported Gold!”
Yet it did not matter. Within a year, millionaires were being made from Cripple Creek gold and the greatest gold camp on earth was born.
And it all started from a common cowpoke named Bob Womack.
Linda Wommack can be reached at lwomm3258@aol.com
This is an excerpt from Linda Wommack's new book, “Cripple Creek, Bob Womack, Greatest Gold Camp on Earth,” Bob Womack is the author's great-great uncle.
