Gold!. Ian Neligh
because it has such a cool history to it,” Hagadorn said. “[And] it is the biggest.”
Unlike the other pieces that received their names based on their appearance, Tom’s Baby was so named because of the antics of a gold miner more than 129 years ago. Tom Groves, understandably beside himself with excitement after the discovery, eagerly showed it off along the streets of Breckenridge while cradling it in his arms like an infant.
The Biggest
In 1887 miners Tom Groves and Harry Lytton were contracted to work for a mine owner in an area called Farncomb Hill. The two were surprised when on a hot July day they came across an underground pocket, or vug, of gold. Such discoveries were amazingly rare, and the miners removed some 243 ounces of gold from the spot.
Included in that discovery, and at the bottom of the pocket, was the largest gold nugget discovered in the state, then weighing thirteen and a half pounds. According to historian and mining engineer Rick Hague, the two men were afraid the gold would be stolen on their trip back to town so Tom Groves disguised it by wrapping it in a blanket and keeping it under his jacket. But it didn’t take long for the news to get out.
“Yesterday hundreds of visitors called on … [the assayer] at his office at the concentrator on the west side, to feast their eyes on this find,” reported the Breckenridge Daily Journal.
The reporter stated that Tom Groves was so excited by the discovery of the nugget and handled it with such care that “… the boys declared that it was ‘Tom’s Baby.’ And so it goes.” The article went on to say the nugget would later be sent down to Denver so that “Denverites may learn that there are other inducements in Colorado besides Denver town lots.”
Like lots of gold. Tom Groves and Harry Lytton were paid a percentage of the gold’s worth, and the famous nugget forever left Breckenridge—and for a time disappeared from the pages of history. Hague said the nugget was last seen being handed to the train conductor just before he left the station on his way to Denver.
Lost and Found
At some point, Tom’s Baby was procured by Denver’s newly started museum, which began in 1900 when Denver residents bought several Colorado collections, including an assortment of gold specimens. According to museum records, Tom’s Baby was on display in 1930 before once again disappearing. In 1972 a Breckenridge author began trying to track down the missing gold nugget and was led to vaults in the First Denver National Bank owned by the museum. Tom’s Baby was rediscovered there—albeit three pounds lighter and in a box labeled “dinosaur bones.” It was concluded that the missing piece had likely broken off in the intervening years. Rediscovered, Tom’s Baby was put back on display in the museum in the late ’70s.
“This piece is important for its historical aspects,” Hagadorn told me as we stared through the protective glass at the specimen. “This piece is important because it is the largest gold nugget in Colorado and it is not necessarily like a nugget that you’d find tumbling down a stream in your pan. If you did, it’d be a very lucky day.”
Lucky day indeed. Based on the size and current price of gold at $1,224 per ounce, Tom’s Baby would be worth close to $200,000. But its actual value is priceless. Hagadorn said based on the gold nugget’s history, uniqueness, and because it is part of the museum’s founding collection, narrowing in on a value is almost impossible.
“For us, this collection is closely tied to the museum’s deep history,” Hagadorn said, adding it was a “mind-blowing” specimen. “It has a value that is not economic; it is historical in nature. These specimens are like art; they are worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for it.”
The value and historical significance of Tom’s Baby was also recognized in 1887 by the Breckenridge Daily Journal: “It will probably be a long time before ‘Tom’s Baby’ will be retired as Colorado’s big nugget.”
So far, that day still hasn’t come.
DIVING FOR GOLD
Clear Creek sat silent and ice-packed just south of Interstate 70 on a cold January morning. The popular stream sees thousands of rafters, anglers, and tourists during the summer, but it was now motionless and clogged with a frosty blue and white winter strata. It’s an ice that chokes and strangles the river into stillness at least four months out of the year in the mountains of Colorado.
Even farther from the interstate sits a frontage road that winds along the canyon. Rusted and faded buildings from the area’s long-dead mining industry follow the road and litter the river’s banks on both sides. Beneath a steep, yellow mine-tailings dump south of Clear Creek squats an ancient shack overlooking the river.
It’s impossible to know how old the building is—suffice to say that it’s received attention at least once a decade. After the local stone and mortar walls went up, someone installed rough metal sheeting to its front and on the roof. And sometime in the last several years Ken Reid added a wooden sign that reads “Man Cave” above the shack’s door. The door is held shut with a massive rusty chain.
Reid is a big man, fifty-three-years-old with a giant black beard, perfect teeth, and a cowboy hat faded to where its color is potentially brownish. He talks in a voice so low, listeners often have to strain to reach its depths. He’s quick to share an earthshaking laugh, a bit of advice, or a hard-won lesson—and his blue eyes sparkle perpetually with gold fever. Ken Reid looks like he stepped out of a hundred-year-old sepia-toned photograph of the Old West.
“The Cave,” as he calls it, looks out over a large portion of his mineral claim along Clear Creek. He said it’s a spot that has earned him quite a bit of money over the years. A port-a-potty leans against one wall and behind it sits a generator, which he tugged on several times. It choked and rumbled to life, sending electricity to a handful of random lights dangling from the ceiling that flickered on and illuminated the building’s dark interior. Inside there’s a cast-iron stove in one corner that he periodically stoked with wood. The heat was just enough to scare off the worst of the cold, which creeps up from the river and slides down the mountain to meet at the metal shack. Outside it was twenty degrees, but inside it was almost warm, smelling of burning wood, generator exhaust, and cigarette smoke.
Around the room lay broken computer parts for rare mineral salvage, mining equipment, an assortment of chemicals, a beaten, brown leather chair—and a plastic tub resting on two upended buckets. Ken Reid is a full-time, professional gold prospector and one of the last to still earn a living from working the cold water and dirt of Clear Creek.
During the warmer months, he climbs into a well-worn wet suit and dives beneath the river’s famously strong currents—currents that, during the summer, often take several lives a year in rafting and other river-related accidents.
The stream collects water from melting snow as far back as the Continental Divide. Most of the year it is bitter cold and strong enough in places to pull a full-grown man off his feet.
It’s under that water where Reid sucks dirt and stone into the hose of his underwater dredge. Like a powerful vacuum cleaner, it pulls in rocks and other material, sorts through it, and returns the unwanted portion back to the stream. It is in the stuff left behind in his dredge that Reid finds the gold.
When winter comes blowing down Clear Creek, Reid packs up his equipment and brings his operation back indoors to the Cave. There he pans through some of the finer dirt he collected over the summer. The material rested in large tubs on the floor, located throughout the room. In that dirt was hidden the finest gold dust.
Reid said he tries to get into the water to go diving with his dredge as soon as he can but doesn’t dive in water during the winter—at least not anymore. Years ago he discovered a way to inject hot water into his wet suit so that he could go into the frozen waters, under the ice, and continue to operate his equipment. And