Teddy visits Victor

 

 

 

 

 

  

Rough treatment for would-be presidents here in Teller County

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

It has been a long time, but presidential candidates once thought a visit to Teller County was a required stop. Even if the locals were pretty rough on them when they arrived. On a campaign trip for President William McKinley in September of 1900, Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Victor in the hopes of polishing the shine in the gold camp with his candidate’s support for the permanent gold standard. Many Coloradans, however, did not approve of McKinley’s stance and favored instead a bimetallic monetary system and the free coinage of silver.
Newly-formed Teller County in fact had been named in honor of the most ardent supporter of “free silver,” Henry Teller. Teller and 22 other Republicans had walked out of 1896 Republican convention because of McKinley’s selection and his gold affectation.
Most miners in the district leaned toward “free silver” and another of its champions, William Jennings Bryan for president.
“To make matters worse, senators Lodge and Wolcott, outspoken opponents of Bryan, were to accompany Roosevelt.” notes Brian H. Levine, in his 1982 book “Lowell Thomas: Victor: The Man and the Town.”
“Rumblings of trouble were felt up and down Victor Avenue,” according to Levine. “When Roosevelt appeared at 5:15 p.m., he was greeted by cheers, music and pro-Bryanite banners.”
“Democratic hoodlums” interrupted his speech and fight broke out later when Wolcott leaned out the carriage and snatched a Bryan campaign sign away.
“The Republican Marching Club was quickly attacked. Free coinage demonstrators charged Roosevelt. Women and children joined the fight. The Gold Coin Band continued playing patriotic tunes,” writes Levine.
Roosevelt was barely able to scurry to the awaiting Midland train. In fact, he did have his pince-nez knocked from his face he might have been beamed by two-by-four wielded by a Bryan supporter if Danny Sullivan had not intervened. Sullivan reportedly received a red sapphire ring later as a measure of gratitude.
But the close call did not stop Roosevelt from returning to the district in August of 1901 as Vice President. He was welcomed this time in Victor and toured the Portland and Gold Coin mines, power lunched with Irving Howbert, Jimmy Burns, Spencer Penrose and Warren and Harry Woods, and shook thousands of hands at a reception in his honor.
The $500 worth of gold that the Vice President mined himself at the Gold Coin was sacked and presented to him as a present.
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Hands full of gold

I would hate to speculate, but things are looking up from here

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

I originally wrote this more than a decade ago as the spot price of gold took an uptick.  

 As of February 15, 2026, the spot price of gold is trading around

$5,040 - $5,060 USD per troy ounce. The price has experienced a significant rebound, with recent daily gains of over 2%. Prices vary slightly by source, with some reporting $5,060.20 and others around $5,041.20, with a 1-year increase exceeding 70%: which keeps investors checking the price of this precious metal every morning. Despite this level of speculation, gold continues to be the most popular investment precious metal for those that feel the need to get their hands on something tangible. For centuries, it has been a mysterious symbol of value and wealth.

Years ago, as the price of gold held the line at more than $900 an ounce, it became interesting to speculate. My own personal “what if” statement considers that price historically. “What if the price was always that high?”
In 2004, when Cripple Creek & Victor mining company poured its 2,000,000 ounce, all that value collected in one place would have been worth $1.8 billion (if I got all the zeros in the right place.) Those three buttons on the table that day— the ones they let you manhandle around —they might have been worth $1.08 million recently. And what about earlier than that? The Cresson Vug alone, would price out at over $54 million.
A whole lot of gold was produced profitably in the district for less than $35 an ounce, the price reached in the early 1930s.
“On March 9, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt pushed through the Emergency Banking Act, which authorized him to regulate and prohibit the export and hoarding of gold,” according to a chronology produced by Paul Morgensus of Hamilton, Montana, and provided to me by local historian Ed Hunter.
“Shortly after, on April 5, he issued an executive order to deliver all gold to the Federal Reserve… the action and subsequent actions caused total unrest among investors, bankers and others throughout the world. On July 30, Roosevelt made what became known as the ‘bombshell.’ He declared ‘rigid relationships to gold were old fashioned fetishes.’”
In January 1934, the president issued an executive order to establish the price of gold at $35 per ounce.
By 1940, the gold production had reached an all-time high in the United States; the eleventh consecutive year the industry had set a new production record.
“Gold is the only major commodity that isn’t produced primarily to be consumed in the economy — like iron, copper, pork bellies or oranges — but simply to be owned and admired,” observed the Wall Street Journal, in an April 12, 2006 article by E. S. Browning. “It is too heavy, soft and rare to have many practical uses outside of electronics and dentistry. Yet is one of the earth’s most prized objects, valued mostly because it is considered valuable.”
But it has been nearly as high before.
“The price, in retreat for almost two decades after peaking at $847 in 1980, has more than doubled in the past five years,” said the Journal article. In the last two years since the Journal article, the price has went from less than $600 to more than $900.
Of course the most interesting speculation resides in where gold’s price goes from here.
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