Cathy - thinking of legendary family gold mines - the mainstay of my mother's side of the family in such legend is my great-great-great grandfather Bergen. Family history has it that he had found a rich BONONZA!! of a mother-lode up near what is now the Climax -Pass and mines area in Colorado.
Story has it he and his sick wife, who had found the vein near their encampment, had to cover it up and leave in a hurry due to the wife's progressing illness. They made it to (a town) large enough to care for her, but by that time he was ill too, by then. She died, as I remember the story, and when he recovered, despondent, he finally tried to return to the goldmine, and could not find it.
He had not recorded it, and even though staked, Colorado law after 1876 required within a certain amount of time, the mine had to produce a certain $amount, or it reverted to unclaimed mineral resource, and likely may have been "jumped", legally.
Now, after my very much alive uncle tried to locate it from vague notes found from Bergen, hired a Professional surveyor, and the entire section, township, and range are under slag ponds from hydraulic molybdenum mining effluent.
The story for old Grandpa Bergen ends ( or begins again ?) with him opening a way-station in what is now Bergen Park, later expanded it to be the Bergen Park Lodge, and now the town is Bergen Park, Colorado.
If anyone researches it, there is a chain of names from Bergen to Martin present day (my mother's maiden name). All that remains of the Lodge, except for incredible bark-intact log lodge furniture in our house, and original lodge dishes. And, up at Bergen, a memorial marker of my gr-gr-grandpa Bergen and what is a memorial small park in Bergen. I'm sure lots of our ancestors have amazing tails from those wild and wooly days.
geo Steve
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