I just finished reading a book that I wanted to share with everyone. The title is “A Hole in the Ground with a Lair at the Top” by Dan Plazak. I was given a copy of the book in exchange for a review, which seemed like a fair trade to me. Below is my review:
The American West was a hotbed of mining frauds and swindles, with gullible investors repeatedly falling for promoters’ tall tales of fabulous discoveries. Dan Plazak’s fascinating book looks at the colorful characters who duped and defrauded stockholders in the wild days between the Mexican War and World War I.
This was the apex of American mining, and fever for gold, silver, copper, diamonds and even tin burned hot in many people, from middle-class professionals to fabulously wealthy Eastern investors.
Plazack’s research is thorough: he uses period newspaper and journal articles to follow the scams of outrageous confidence men, including Professor Samuel Aughey and Richard Flower. Plazack speaks with insider knowledge, having explored for oil, uranium, precious metals and more in his career as a geologist and engineer. He relates that he became interested in mining scams while pursuing a degree at Colorado School of Mines.
The book is a study in the ever-credulous nature of investors. It was laughably easy for skilled promoters to separate men from their money. Salted mines, slight-of-hand, bribery and back-door deals were common tools of the trade. Plazack combines an in-depth knowledge of mining with exacting research to paint vivid pictures of swindlers in full bloom. His skepticism is apparent in the narrative, and at times he seems incredulous that these schemes worked at all.
I found the book fascinating—I had no idea that fraud was so widespread during the storied mining booms of the West. It appears that Bernie Madoff is far from unique; Plazack details a long legacy of charismatic and seemingly upstanding individuals cheating friends, acquaintances and stockholders. The ingenuity and sheer aplomb of these swindlers took my breath away.
My favorite tale was the great diamond swindle. Diamond Butte, in northwestern Colorado, was salted by a pair of dubious entrepreneurs with inferior, uncut diamonds and rubies purchased in London in 1871. Such luminaries as General George McClellan, Horace Greeley and Charles Tiffany were taken in by the scam. Wealth, influence and power apparently offered these notable men no protection from their investment follies. It took almost 18 months and several expeditions to a remote, assuredly non-diamond-bearing corner of Colorado before the deception was uncovered.
This book delivers a study in confidence men and their all-too-willing victims, set in rip-roaring 19th-century America. It was a time of limitless possibilities, fabulous discoveries and stupendous dishonesty. Like all the best histories, lessons learned then can still be applied today!
