Scams of the Wild West
View PDF | Print View
by: Guest
Total views: 48
Word Count: 774
Scams of the Wild West
By
William Cate
"A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar at the entrance" - Roughing It by Mark Twain
In 1851, Mr. Twain was taken for $5,000 in a California Motherlode gold mining swindle. Five thousands dollars in 1851 is about equal to five hundred thousand dollars today. Most major mining camps had a stock exchange. Usually, swindlers who sold shares in the East, ran these local stock exchanges. A saying of the period was "The mines may be in the West, but the gold streak is back east" reflected the reality of Western gold mining history.
It wasn't only precious metals that attracted pigeons. There was the Great Mojave Diamond Discovery. The recovered diamonds were doing a good job of raising money along the Atlantic Seaboard until an observant jeweler noticed that one of the rough diamonds discovered in the desert had been cut on one side. Mother Nature isn't a diamond cutter and so the scam was exposed. If it was a mineral with a market, there was a swindler running a scam to get investors to lose their money developing a nonexistent ore deposit.
19th Century swindlers in the Western U.S developed many of the salting techniques of the 20th Century. For instance, using a shotgun to fire gold particles onto the surface of rocks This turns a worthless rock into what appears to be a bonanza vein. The pigeons were investing their money into worthless rock sample and were certain losers.
If you didn't want to invest in an existing mining camp, you could always invest in some expedition going out to find a lost treasure. From lost Indian and Spanish Wealth to lost mines, there was no shortage of opportunity to lose your money in a Western treasure hunt.
In the 19th Century, railroads were the cutting edge of high technology and thus attracted investors. Having a railroad line was often the difference between being a boomtown and a ghost town. With a railroad line, local farmers and manufacturers could ship their produce to Eastern Markets. Keep in mind that cattle drives made famous in Western movies where movement of beef to railheads so that the meat could be shipped to Boston, New York. Western swindlers, hyping railroad services, saw the opportunity to bilk townspeople and investors. Scams to build spur lines to nowhere abounded. Crooked firms claiming to have influence with the major railroads sold their services to towns that wanted assurance that their town would be served by a rail line.
In the farming tradition of past centuries, land is wealth. While Congress passed the Homestead Acts that moved people West in the search for free land, swindlers used assorted tactics to get the immigrants to pay for their land. The best know of these tactics was a byproduct of the Mexican American War. A provision of the peace treaty required the American Government to recognized Spanish land grants in the states that the Americans acquired as a result of winning the war. One enterprising swindler created phony land grant documents that gave him the State of Arizona. He had even sold some of the land to residents occupying their land before his scam was uncovered.
Gambling attracts people who want to improve the odds by cheating. The card games of the 19th Century had no shortage of gamblers dealing from the bottom of the deck or using marked cards. Casino's had rigged dice and roulette wheels. It wasn't hard to lose your money in the Longhorn saloon.
There was no shortage of health scams. The "Snake Oil" salesman was a regular part of rural life in the West. For twenty-five cents (that would be twenty-five dollars in today's money) all your health problems were cured by a gulp of a foul tasting liquid from a pint bottle. If Dr John's remedy didn't cure you, in a few weeks you could buy a different potion from Dr. Henry. Both the American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration are greatly indebted to these health swindlers of the 19th Century. It was their antics that gave rise to laws that failed to protect the public from bad medicine, but gave some folks power over who can take what drugs.
Swindles have always been part of human life. Swindles appeal to our emotions. Greed and fear are the basis for the appeal of most confidence games. It's unlikely that the human race will become logical in the next few centuries. Thus, the scam has a bright future in the lives of our children and grandchildren.
Related: Scams of the Wild West
Additional information:
Depression that has these characteristics is a treatable medical condition. hesitate to seek outside help from a therapist or other mental.
Rating:
Not yet rated
Comments
No comments posted.
Add Comment
You do not have permission to comment. If you
log in, you may be able to comment.
