Living in Custer County

Chapter 1

The Seeds of a County Were Sown By Miners in the 1870’s

EDMUND BASSICK and THE GOLDEN CHIMNEY

What’s Fact?---What’s Fiction?

I arrived in Westcliffe, Colorado in 1986. My interest in the silver and gold mining ghost towns in the area grew as I roamed the area. I was especially intrigued by the tales of Edmund Bassick and his gold/silver mine in Querida, just outside of town.

I read what booklets I could find on the Bassick Mine but they didn’t tell me much about the man, Edmund Bassick. As I got to know more people in town, I’d ask them about “the man”.

“My grandfather worked for Bassick”, said one downtown store keeper. However she only recalled a few things she remembered her grandfather telling her. “You know he made a ton of money from the mine and sold it for a fortune! But greed got the best of him” she told me, and went on to elaborate. “After he signed the papers selling off the mine, he took a horse and buckboard, and at midnight, rode back to the mine and loaded it with gold ore. Then he whipped his horse to speed up driving down Tyndall Mountain. An earth-tremor shock the ground scaring the horse who fell and the buckboard of ore tipped over, crushing Bassick to death.”

It was an interesting story, but was it true? “Oh, it’s true alright. You can read about it in THE GOLDEN CHIMNEY, if you can find a copy.”

After failing to find a copy in any local shop, I walked into the Custer County Library, took out a library card, and began to search the stacks for a copy. Finally a librarian asked if she could help me. I told her what book I was looking for. “You won’t find it here” she told me. “Our copy disappeared some years back”. However I think you can get a copy through our Inter-Library Loan”. The librarian helped me fill out the proper form, and about a week later I received a copy. I read it that night. (And I returned the copy to the Library the next day.)

THE GOLDEN CHIMNEY was written by G. M. Sublette and published in 1931, some 33 years after Bassick’s death. It is a novel, not a nonfiction biography. The author changed the spelling of Bassick to Bassett, no doubt to protect himself. However, it is a thinly veiled story of much of Edmund Bassick’s life. I couldn’t help but wonder after reading this novel, how much was fact…and how much was fiction.

In conversations with the Librarian, she suggested I visit the Library in Pueblo. “They have a special section devoted to western history”. For me, it was a “gold mine” of information.

It was summertime, and though the high elevations of Westcliffe are cool, Pueblo is at a much lower elevation. It gets to be a “furnace” about noontime that time of year. I would drive the hour’s trip to Pueblo in the early morning, and leave about 11 AM to be out of the heat by noon.

I’d spend the afternoons typing up my notes and reviewing what I had learned. Much of the events in THE GOLDEN CHIMNEY followed very closely to Bassick’s real life. It read more like an actual biography than a novel.

To learn more about Bassick, the Librarian suggested I use the microfiche copies of Denver papers that they had in their files. I thought I’d go blind reading these 100 year old papers on those machines, but it was worth it.

The newspapers I was reading were from the late 1870’s and early 1880’s. It was the era of the huge debate in Congress on whether the country should adopt a silver currency or the gold standard. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech. “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold”. I began to find that G.M. Sublette’s text quickly turned from near fact to gross fiction.

What began to peak my curiosity was the amount of rumored stock manipulation surrounding silver and gold at this time. Coupled with the fact that Bassick had sold 80% interest to a New York City company that sold stock in the Bassick Mine, it was interesting to read in those papers how the price of silver and gold stock rose and fell during the debates. Newspapers often reported tales of new discoveries and/or “salted mines” or ore veins petering out. (A salted mine is one in which some pieces of high grade gold ore are placed in a defunct mine to lure would-be investors.)

Though Bassick had sold his 80% interest in the mine for over $500,000, he still retained a 20% interest in the mine. When the New York firm that now controlled the operations of The Bassick Mining Company closed and reopened the mine several times, it greatly upset Mr. Bassick. After a “final” closure notice, Bassick protested vehemently to the Company. He claimed he knew that gold ore was still there in huge quantities. His claims were ignored. Bassick then decided to sue the Company and regain control of his mine. As I read these newspaper articles about Bassicks’ pending suit against the New York Company, I couldn’t help but wonder what “story” this might be, if one just traced the stock markets of this time. The prices of gold fluctuated like a roller coaster in the market of those days.

Bassick’s suit lingered on for fourteen years. That day at the Pueblo Library, I came upon an article that told of Edmund Bassick’s return to Denver to testify in Federal Court, per his suit. It was 1898. I closely read those microfiche articles from top to bottom looking for any more news of the suit and Mr. Bassick.

One morning as my blood-shot eyes began to weaken, I hit a bonanza! I found a story about Edmund Bassick’s death in Denver on March 12, 1898. He had a weak heart and passed away just four days before the Judge was to make his ruling about the Bassick Mine,

This was fact. Bassick’s death, as told in the story, The Golden Chimney, was total fiction.