Speaker 1: Ridiculous. Crime is a production of I heart radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Doutton, do you know it's ridiculous? Oh, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you asked. I do. It's actually human arrogance, like no,
Speaker 1: I mean for real, like you know, we always think like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're so special, but it turns out like if you
Speaker 1: really look around and you investigate, like animal research, you
Speaker 1: find that animals are just like us. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: did you know that it's been noted in captivity that
Speaker 1: killer whales can learn to speak bottlenose dolphin? Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not only that, sperm whales in the wild, like
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean, they speak with an accent that other
Speaker 1: whales can't. Do they when they speak Dolphin? Are they
Speaker 1: speaking in a heavy whale accent? I wonder, but sperm
Speaker 1: whales speak with their own specific Caribbean accent exactly like.
Speaker 1: I just would love to hear what that sounded like.
Speaker 1: And Cats, you know, like we think like Oh, cats
Speaker 1: don't really like speak English like like well, it turns
Speaker 1: out they do. They understand their name, they just choose
Speaker 1: not to respond. They just ignore you when you say
Speaker 1: their name. But they do. And then also, like, for instance, cows, right. Cows.
Speaker 1: Did you know that they love Cool Jazz? Yeah, cows,
Speaker 1: if you played cool jazz, they will produce one point,
Speaker 1: one point five more pints of milk per day for Jazz.
Speaker 1: For Yeah, well, for any like. You know, Cool Colm Jazz,
Speaker 1: smooth jazz, Cool Jazz, really calming music, often warm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the quiet, quiet, wow, some animals are just like us.
Speaker 1: Everybody always thinks that we're so special. Human arrogance. Telling
Speaker 1: your ridiculous agreed, that is ridiculous. Do you know what
Speaker 1: else is ridiculous? Oh, you got one. Yeah, throwing a
Speaker 1: bunch of gems on the ground, calling it a motherload.
Speaker 1: It sounds like some one of my uncles would do.
Speaker 1: Probably this is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and
Speaker 1: outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always murder free. And
Speaker 1: guess what ridiculous? I've talked about the California Gold Rush
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties before in my life, and also
Speaker 1: talking to you here, Um, Shanghai, Kelly and all that
Speaker 1: great episode to the UK. Right, yeah, and I've talked
Speaker 1: about the Yukon gold rush eighteen sixties, soapy Smith. Today
Speaker 1: I have the story of a diamond rush sort of.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there were such a thing as diamond rush.
Speaker 1: This sort of by the eighteen seventies, right, the golden
Speaker 1: silver rushes of forty and fifty nine respectively had petered out.
Speaker 1: In the late eighteen sixties, diamonds were discovered in South
Speaker 1: Africa and so optimistic prospectors started looking around North America
Speaker 1: figuring look, we got gold, we got silver, diamonds were amazing.
Speaker 1: So a few were actually found near Plasserville, California, in
Speaker 1: gold country. There were a few verbal accounts from Western explorers,
Speaker 1: but no one found like a huge mine a big
Speaker 1: load of them. Enter Philip Arnold. No, I don't really
Speaker 1: know about where you find diamonds, like in the what
Speaker 1: type of rock strata or like you know gold, you
Speaker 1: need certain granite qualities, right, you need certain rock formations
Speaker 1: with diamonds. Do we even have the geology? Isn't there
Speaker 1: one where you look for courts somewhere? Yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: that was with gold. Yeah, basically like streaks. Of course
Speaker 1: I don't know diamonds. If there's a distinct smell, it's
Speaker 1: an ore. Right, you gotta Break Open the Rock and
Speaker 1: see the diamonds inside. So how are you going to
Speaker 1: know anyway. I just wonder what they were looking for.
Speaker 1: You look for Cay Jeweler's in the in the wild.
Speaker 1: Philip Arnold. So he was born in Kentucky in eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty nine. Does it really matter when? But as a
Speaker 1: young man he dropped out of school and he wanted
Speaker 1: to apprentice as a hatter, but he found that it
Speaker 1: didn't suit him. So what did he do? He ran away.
Speaker 1: I was gonna became cobb when you take a job
Speaker 1: and it's not a good fit, you just straight everyone
Speaker 1: to abandon every flee arms of flaylan. So he lied
Speaker 1: about his age and enrolled in the army and he
Speaker 1: served in the Mexican war. So he was out by
Speaker 1: forty eight and after that he goes to California to
Speaker 1: work as a gold rush forty niner. This guy's hitting
Speaker 1: all the big marks. Totally doesn't strike it rich, runs
Speaker 1: away arms flaalan. So he worked on all these Um,
Speaker 1: he worked on various mining expeditions in the West for decades. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: he did go back to Kentucky in eighteen fifty five
Speaker 1: and he got married and then he went back again
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty two to buy some property he went
Speaker 1: back during the war. Wanna say suspicious timing. Property going cheap.
Speaker 1: I met this real cheap property in Kentucky right about now, colonel.
Speaker 1: He's an opportunist. So he goes to Arizona and there
Speaker 1: he meets another dude from Kentucky named Asbury harpending. That's
Speaker 1: a hell of a Kentucky name. He's one of California's
Speaker 1: foremost financiers. I Bet Asbury harpending. Is it harpending harpending?
Speaker 1: I can't ask him, he's dead. It's all of them.
Speaker 1: So in the mid eighteen sixties he goes to work
Speaker 1: for Harpendings Lincoln Gold Mine Company in Plaster County California.
Speaker 1: So PLASTERVILLE, plastic. One of the board members is an
Speaker 1: associate of harpendings and he is a dude named George Roberts.
Speaker 1: Are you writing all of this down? Taking copy's notes?
Speaker 1: Thank God, because I'm not. In a two thousand four
Speaker 1: article in Smithsonian magazine, which, by the way, is amazing. Shout.
Speaker 1: I love so many magazine it's really good. It's amazing. Roberts,
Speaker 1: in the article was described as, quote, the sort of
Speaker 1: businessman described in newspapers as prominent, but his was a
Speaker 1: prominence earned by moving fast and not asking too many questions.
Speaker 1: Move fast breaks down. So by eight seventy arnold goes
Speaker 1: back to San Francisco. He's working at the diamond drill
Speaker 1: company as an assistant bookkeeper. So he's mining adjacent right,
Speaker 1: he's not actually out there in the field. James Cooper
Speaker 1: also worked at the Diamond Drill Company and Arnold knew
Speaker 1: him from earlier prospecting days. So Cooper teaches arnold about
Speaker 1: diamonds and gems. Well, yeah, and they're just, you know,
Speaker 1: they're working at the company together, yapping about diamonds. Now
Speaker 1: it was allegedly cooper who first brought up the idea
Speaker 1: of as salting a piece of land with gems. Do
Speaker 1: you know what that means? I'm guess. So you gotta
Speaker 1: pepper round, you're gonna salt it, sprinkle it, sprinkly, sprinkle me.
Speaker 1: He didn't. He, Cooper didn't participate in the impending hoax,
Speaker 1: but he's just like, you know, be really cool. You
Speaker 1: guys being Super Fun for us to do. Just get
Speaker 1: a bunch of the Earth Hannibal Styles. So there's this
Speaker 1: book called diamonds in the Salt and it's written by
Speaker 1: Bruce Woodard. He said that Cooper also gave Arnold a
Speaker 1: starting collection of leftover gems from the shop. So he's
Speaker 1: got he's got little scrappings, he's cut scrabblings from the
Speaker 1: bottom of the bin. It's like how it like fried
Speaker 1: chicken places they sell popcorn chicken, which is just the
Speaker 1: stuff that fell off the regular chicken and the Fryer.
Speaker 1: That's my dairy or like in a butcher's shop, like
Speaker 1: the stuff that comes off the table gets turned into
Speaker 1: hot dogs. He's got the hot dogs of gems. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I'll give you all these scrabblings and Um,
Speaker 1: enter John Slack, names, John Slack. Okay, Um, Cooper slack
Speaker 1: and yeah, so one note to go back a little bit.
Speaker 1: That this Dude Arnold, he likely purchased some of the
Speaker 1: non diamonds, which would be like rubies, sapphires, etcetera, from
Speaker 1: native Americans in Arizona. Okay, so they had more than like.
Speaker 1: That's just supposition on People's part. Okay, okay. I was wondering,
Speaker 1: do they have these emeralds down in the southwest? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know they have, like you know, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what if, like Arkansas, there's a lot in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: There's all those places where you have the caverns. John
Speaker 1: Slack so arnold needs help, so he brings in his cousin,
Speaker 1: John Slack Action Slack Um. He was nine years older.
Speaker 1: He's also from Kentucky, is his cousin, and he was
Speaker 1: also a minor, forty niner. So cool if he was
Speaker 1: nine years old from his nine year old cousin for
Speaker 1: his tiny fingers to dig in the dirt. The idea, man,
Speaker 1: it's so good. The plan. How could it fail? November eighteen,
Speaker 1: Seventy Arnold and John Slack Um they go to George
Speaker 1: Robert's office. The cousins are looking all weather beaten and
Speaker 1: they said well, Hey, George, we got something really valuable.
Speaker 1: They're like okay, Um, now it's too late in the
Speaker 1: day to go deposit whatever they have at Bank of California.
Speaker 1: So they're hoping that, Hey, can you store this for us?
Speaker 1: We missed the bank is closed and it's just like
Speaker 1: a bag. Can you store this for us, which, if
Speaker 1: anyone comes to you and says can you hold this form, no,
Speaker 1: the answer is no, especially if it's dripping especially if
Speaker 1: it's dripping Um. So they're like, well, we got some
Speaker 1: like rough diamonds, but we don't want to tell you
Speaker 1: where we got them. We just have a bag of
Speaker 1: rough diamonds. So, you know, Robert says, I'll store it
Speaker 1: for you, and they said, please, don't tell anybody about this.
Speaker 1: Is Their plan. Get him to tell one exactly. They
Speaker 1: know that if you say don't tell anyone about this,
Speaker 1: this man is going to turn around and tell everybody.
Speaker 1: So what does he do? He Turns Around and he
Speaker 1: tells William Ralston, the founder of Bank of California. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like, check it out, William, these dudes, these two
Speaker 1: Ding Dong's, came in bag of diamonds. I'm holding onto it.
Speaker 1: We got fresh marks in town. Who else does he tell?
Speaker 1: As very harpending? Yeah, so Ralston is one of the
Speaker 1: richest guys in California and he made his fortune mostly
Speaker 1: from like the silver bananza in Nevada's comstockload. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was discovered in eighteen fifty nine Sara, Nevada's that's why
Speaker 1: Nevada is called the silver state. That comstock looad kicked
Speaker 1: off all the exploration for silver in Nevada. UTAH. That
Speaker 1: cool weird town of Tonapon, Nevada exists because of the COMSTOCKLOAD.
Speaker 1: A lot of the big names in the California gold
Speaker 1: rush had a piece of this action too. Switched over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Roberts brings in more interested parties. He's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be telling anyone. He tells all the big names.
Speaker 1: He tells William Lent in general. George Dodge lent had
Speaker 1: been a major investor in the comstock load. So this
Speaker 1: group comes together and they want to buy the cousins out.
Speaker 1: So they're they're doing exactly what the cousins thought. We
Speaker 1: want to buy you out. They're like no, no, sorry,
Speaker 1: these are our special loose diamonds. We're not going to
Speaker 1: tell you where we got him. Slack, John Slack. He
Speaker 1: he says, okay, I'll make you deal. Give me fifty
Speaker 1: dollars now and then fifty dollars when we come back
Speaker 1: to our from our next visit to the quote unquote field.
Speaker 1: So he's like, acts like he's doing this side deal.
Speaker 1: I want you to please, I'm begging you to keep
Speaker 1: in mind that fifty dollars then is like one point
Speaker 1: two million dollars now. So he goes to them and says,
Speaker 1: give me one point too cool, and I'll come back
Speaker 1: to you after I've gone and check the field and
Speaker 1: make sure there's more diamonds out there worth it. And
Speaker 1: this guy is like saying yeah, because I at the
Speaker 1: inside angle, like I'm planning, I'm buying this. Wasn't it
Speaker 1: for him? He's thinking that this, if they've located a
Speaker 1: place where there's all this these rough diamonds, are going
Speaker 1: to be able to open a diamond mine. And they're
Speaker 1: thinking these guys are marks and they can make me
Speaker 1: move over on them. They don't realize what they've had.
Speaker 1: That okay with you. So July one that Arnold and
Speaker 1: slack they decided to go to London to buy more
Speaker 1: uncut gems, like London, London, London, London. So Arnold's calling
Speaker 1: himself Ondo. They're taking steamships to go buy Lord. I
Speaker 1: love this. They like flap their wings, and then slack
Speaker 1: uses his middle name, bircham. So they use these aliases.
Speaker 1: They buy twenty dollars with rough diamonds and rubies. So
Speaker 1: they come back to California. They got sixty pounds pounds.
Speaker 1: Legitimately they've I'm imagining they put them in a crate
Speaker 1: like a chess and so it's like a cartoon. You
Speaker 1: open it up and he's like yeah, although they're rough.
Speaker 1: So it's like rocks Um. So they have the diamonds
Speaker 1: and the rubies, sixty pounds. They smuggle them back in
Speaker 1: and then they show Roberts and they're like, look what
Speaker 1: we found in the field, sixty pounds. So they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back. We're going back to the field
Speaker 1: and they told the businessman we're going to bring you
Speaker 1: back a couple of million dollars worth of stones. So
Speaker 1: if they're talking millions, then think about the value. Now
Speaker 1: that's where we are right now. So we have huge
Speaker 1: crates of stones that everyone thinks is getting pulled out
Speaker 1: of the earth somewhere in the West field, undisclosed location.
Speaker 1: When we come back from this break, I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: you know how that delivery of precious stones went. And
Speaker 1: and we're back hey, our pants on. I still got
Speaker 1: all my teeth when we left off Arnold and slack.
Speaker 1: Remember those two? Uh, they'd promised George Roberts, a board
Speaker 1: member of Kentucky Creep, Asbury Harpendings, Lincoln Gold Mining Company
Speaker 1: Plaster County California. George Roberts slippery businessman. So he says
Speaker 1: he's beat. He'll be quiet about the gems. Turns around
Speaker 1: tells the President of the Bank of California, tells Asbury,
Speaker 1: Arnold and slack. He basically goes back into the smoky
Speaker 1: dark room and says, Hey, guys, I got a live one. Well,
Speaker 1: they're all doing all sorts of other illicit deals and
Speaker 1: the exploiting people and they're like, Oh, time out on
Speaker 1: this exploitation. We've got another one coming in Arnold and slack.
Speaker 1: They go to a remote spot in southern Wyoming. What
Speaker 1: they've decided is the field and that's where they salt
Speaker 1: the ground. So they have like they're like flower girls
Speaker 1: at a wedding, just tossing like little like fabric petals
Speaker 1: all over the ground. They were wearing little pinafores and
Speaker 1: it was wild. SOTYO history, like Wyoming, abbreviated wyo history
Speaker 1: dot org. Quote. Arnold and slack had salted the Mesa
Speaker 1: which straddles the Wyoming Colorado border, about forty four miles
Speaker 1: south of rock springs, Wyoming territory, with low grade diamonds
Speaker 1: and other gemstones. To this day, the Mesa is officially
Speaker 1: marked on US Geological Survey Topographic maps as diamond field.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could go out there and still
Speaker 1: find a loose rock to they maybe, I mean if
Speaker 1: they spread around wide enough. But yeah, so it's just Oh,
Speaker 1: diamond field, that's where the diamonds are. So Arnold chose
Speaker 1: the location because it was so remote and the weather
Speaker 1: was so bad. No one's gonna want to go out there.
Speaker 1: No one's gonna pop in, you know, just like I
Speaker 1: was in the neighborhood, just a loot to check out
Speaker 1: diamond field, taking a walk and with my dogs and
Speaker 1: Oh my look, Dang kids get a pail. So they
Speaker 1: even so right, they still don't want anyone tracking them.
Speaker 1: So they keep the trail hidden by wrapping the horses
Speaker 1: hoofs in Canvas and they wore moccasins. Damn, that's going
Speaker 1: the extra mile. They don't want anyone. I've never heard
Speaker 1: of anyone wrapping a horse's feet like that. I do
Speaker 1: it all the time, but go to the store. I
Speaker 1: don't want to know. That's commitment. Thank you. So back
Speaker 1: in California, Um hardpending, Asbury harpending, he meets him at
Speaker 1: the train station when they come back, and he said, quote,
Speaker 1: both were travel stained and weather beaten men and had
Speaker 1: the general appearance of having gone through much hardship and privation.
Speaker 1: Slack was sound asleep, but, Arnold said, grimly erect, like
Speaker 1: a vigilant old soldier with a rifle by his side.
Speaker 1: Also a bulky looking buckskin package. So they come back
Speaker 1: and they're like and see, like they're in character, like
Speaker 1: you know, they're just lounging in the train. We're getting
Speaker 1: close to the station, rumful up those one to three
Speaker 1: sleep pretends. So in the package, in that bulky looking
Speaker 1: buckskin package, large collection of diamonds. The cousins said they
Speaker 1: had originally had two bundles but they lost the other
Speaker 1: one crossing a river. So it's like, you think, this
Speaker 1: is a lot more guys, much more of what a trip?
Speaker 1: So way too many just to carry. I love how
Speaker 1: they're playing these guys. Oh, they're amazing. So the Group
Speaker 1: of investors, they decided to get the diamonds inspected by
Speaker 1: a third party. You think they bring ten of the
Speaker 1: gems that Arnold had given them to New York and
Speaker 1: they head over and talked to none other than Charles Tiffany, damn,
Speaker 1: founder of the eponymous tiffany. Go right to the top.
Speaker 1: The New York meeting participants also included civil war generals
Speaker 1: George McClellan and Benjaminer, the coward, George mcquean. That's what
Speaker 1: he's doing. He got into the Emerald Business. So Benjamin Butler,
Speaker 1: he's a US representative from Massachusetts. He was recommended as
Speaker 1: someone who could help with issues regarding the land, like
Speaker 1: I can grease those wheels, um. And then Horace Greeley coune.
Speaker 1: He was there, but who knows why? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: chrony is m he just liked to watch. So Um
Speaker 1: tiffany praises the stones corruption. It's my cank. Tiffany appraises
Speaker 1: the stones at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which
Speaker 1: is three point six million dollars today. Yeah, that's a lot,
Speaker 1: that's a fair bit. And please remember, I'm begging you,
Speaker 1: please remember, these are just ten percent of a collection
Speaker 1: that had been purchased in London for dollars exactly. This
Speaker 1: isn't incredible. It's quite the come up. So these New
Speaker 1: York jewelers that they're having, like, is there any way
Speaker 1: that they're in on this. No, they can't be. No,
Speaker 1: they have no idea. That bad at their jobs completely
Speaker 1: and they're rough. So it's not like I can tell
Speaker 1: that these were cut somewhere or whatever. So, Um, it
Speaker 1: was later revealed because tiffany's expertise was in cut stones,
Speaker 1: not in uncut ones. But still, I mean like it's
Speaker 1: like if you're a farmer and you grow corn and
Speaker 1: I bring you baby corn and you're like, oh, that
Speaker 1: looks just like corn. I mean like you've got to
Speaker 1: be able to Parse a couple of these things. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know, but you know what act
Speaker 1: like you know. That's what tiffany's up in there acting
Speaker 1: like he knows. So the group values the most recent
Speaker 1: bounty brought in at one point five million and then
Speaker 1: officially forms the San Francisco and New York mining and
Speaker 1: commercial company when in doubt form a company. December eight
Speaker 1: seventy one arnold goes back to London. It was like,
Speaker 1: come on, I need somewhere. I'm good. Jumps Dude. He
Speaker 1: spends there between eight thousand and thirty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: on uncut gems. We know how this is going. To
Speaker 1: come right. I'm wondering, like there's obviously no communication between
Speaker 1: London and New York. That's what surprising me is that
Speaker 1: they're not like they're going over there making a major
Speaker 1: purchase and they don't. None of this is filtering ring
Speaker 1: back across the Atlantic. has either from just well still though,
Speaker 1: a major purchase. I mean like the jewelers. You think
Speaker 1: there'd be some like, you know, price change, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we got a big plant. There's this whale in London constelling,
Speaker 1: buying up jewels. Why don't they come to New York?
Speaker 1: Who are they? Whatever? Good questions. And if they're Americans
Speaker 1: going to London, the Brits would know that. Maybe they
Speaker 1: used fake accents. That would be amazing. Do you have
Speaker 1: any diamonds? And then people trying to speak French to
Speaker 1: them and they all UM, okay. So they start this company,
Speaker 1: legal paperworks in place. They decided to take their first
Speaker 1: visit to the diamond field. I mean it makes sense.
Speaker 1: You've now created this diamond field. So they hire a
Speaker 1: well respected mining engineer named Henry Jannon to come along
Speaker 1: for the ride. Hop in Henry Jannon, total protogists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had inspected hundreds of minds really conservative in his
Speaker 1: assessments as well. So he's like Hurst or like the
Speaker 1: color talks to him. No, I think he's like science
Speaker 1: guy and because he'd done all these conservative assessments so
Speaker 1: that the owners would wind up getting way more than
Speaker 1: a thought out of all of these minds. So it's
Speaker 1: like a good guy to come in. He's not going
Speaker 1: to overstate it. He's basically internationally known for being the
Speaker 1: final boss of mine inspection. They bring in the final
Speaker 1: boss Spring of Eighteen, Seventy two, Arnold John Slack, harpending, Asbury, Jannon,
Speaker 1: a general dodge, and then a British acquaintance of harpending's
Speaker 1: named Alfred rubery. They get together in St Louis and
Speaker 1: they head on a train to Wyoming. Now, fun fact
Speaker 1: Asbury and rubery they first met in the United States
Speaker 1: during the civil war. Both were sympathetic to the south.
Speaker 1: They outfitted a schooner in San Francisco Harvard to plunder
Speaker 1: ships for the cause of confederacy. However, that went overwhelm
Speaker 1: I bet the San Francisco whalers and gold ships are
Speaker 1: just like, Oh yeah, come with it. So well, they
Speaker 1: could both get arrested and convicted of trees. I was
Speaker 1: going to say that did not last long. Harpending did
Speaker 1: ten years. Well, he was sentenced to ten years in Alcatraz, damn,
Speaker 1: and after four months he was released, though, because Lincoln
Speaker 1: granted amnesty to all political prisoners who would agree to
Speaker 1: take and keep the oath of allegiance. So rubery was
Speaker 1: also sentenced to ten years, also pardoned. So he gets
Speaker 1: by on the whole, mouth towards none. So here we have.
Speaker 1: This is who we're dealing with here. Um Anyway, Arnold
Speaker 1: and slack. They're about to head this group up to
Speaker 1: this spot where they say that they've just been picking gems. Willing, Willy, Um,
Speaker 1: they purposefully take the group on the super roundabout path
Speaker 1: to the field, trying to confuse them about the exact location. Finally,
Speaker 1: on June four, after four long days on horseback, they arrive.
Speaker 1: The group they begin digging. They find gems almost immediately because, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like everywhere, harpending Asbury. Harpending later writes, quote, I
Speaker 1: had not been on the ground three minutes before I
Speaker 1: found a large diamond. I got off my horse. That
Speaker 1: day we got over five hundred diamonds, rubies sapphires and emeralds.
Speaker 1: Arnold would generally tell me where the best places were
Speaker 1: to dig for the gems, the Easter egg where. This
Speaker 1: is right in front of the cage, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: look under that room. So over the next few days
Speaker 1: the group continues to look successfully surprised gems. Jannen, don't
Speaker 1: forget final bosses. He surveyed three thousand acres, although the
Speaker 1: salted area was only like an acre. So he surveys it.
Speaker 1: They head back to San Francisco. They left slack and
Speaker 1: rubery to guard the grounds. Right unknown reasons, who knows
Speaker 1: those two? They bail out after a few days. The
Speaker 1: ones guarding it. Slack, he had been paid his hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Remember the fifty and then fifty. He was never seen
Speaker 1: by the group again. So smart he's like, I think
Speaker 1: I've gotten as much as I can. I'm going to
Speaker 1: tap out now. So Jannon, though, he submits a report
Speaker 1: of his findings to the group. He estimates the value
Speaker 1: of the company's stock at around forty dollars share and
Speaker 1: the property at least four million. Right. So, as part
Speaker 1: of his deal, Jannen, who just assessed the value of
Speaker 1: the stock, he purchases a thousand shares at ten dollars each.
Speaker 1: He's saying that the shares or forty, but they're going
Speaker 1: to let him buy a thousand at ten. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is his like payback from the group. It's like
Speaker 1: he gets in on the ground and then he sells him.
Speaker 1: He later sells him. He gets around thirty grand and
Speaker 1: becomes the only non swindler to profit from this scam. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm glad the honest man made an honest profit. Everyone
Speaker 1: was sure that this diamond field was legit. We know better, Saron,
Speaker 1: do we ever? Yea. So let's listen to some ads.
Speaker 1: Just hear him out, okay, just listen to him and
Speaker 1: when we get back I'm going to tell you what
Speaker 1: happened when it's discovered that a gem rich field in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere is in fact to legit to
Speaker 1: quite well, hello, Hey, I'm back. Hey, where was I? Ah, yes, French, yes, okay.
Speaker 1: So it was decided, based on an assessment by legendary
Speaker 1: mining engineer Henry Jannon, that the field was indeed swollen
Speaker 1: with gems, just like a tick, and everything was on
Speaker 1: the up and up. I mean, I was just kind
Speaker 1: of surprised Jannon went for the like. You know, if
Speaker 1: he knows this industry, he knows how rocks are, he
Speaker 1: knows like where you're gonna find gem fields. When you
Speaker 1: go out and you find like diamonds three inches into
Speaker 1: the dirt or maybe just sitting there, lightly custed but
Speaker 1: covered with dust, you have to be like, this is
Speaker 1: not normal. We didn't have to like get out axes
Speaker 1: and cut into yeah, like, where's my Rock Hammer? What Thee?
Speaker 1: Where are the children I can send down this hole? Um?
Speaker 1: So remember Jann and he says the stock in the
Speaker 1: company's worth forty is share and then he buys it
Speaker 1: at ten. Arnold was paid hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for his fine and then he also got three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars worth of stock right which he sold off.
Speaker 1: He sells it to Asbury. In all he makes about
Speaker 1: five hundred fifty thousand dollars. Take away the thirty five
Speaker 1: or to fifty he spent on gems in London. So
Speaker 1: he makes five and fifty thousand dollars in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: two is something like thirteen point three million dollars today. Damn.
Speaker 1: That's liked by this point the news of the find
Speaker 1: and Jannon's report becomes public. No one knows where the
Speaker 1: land is still and although many tried unsuccessfully to guess
Speaker 1: its location and send their own parties out there to look.
Speaker 1: So people are sneaking around. In the fall of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy two men from the San Francisco and New York
Speaker 1: mining and commercial company and Jann and they made another
Speaker 1: trip to Wyoming to try and secure the land. Hie
Speaker 1: Up loose ends and then they purchased this land. Yet
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Okay, Arnold sides not to join them.
Speaker 1: He's like you guys, go ahead. He's already moved back
Speaker 1: to Kentucky. At this point he's like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going home. On the train back to the bay area,
Speaker 1: Jannon runs into two geologists, Samuel Emmons and James Gardner.
Speaker 1: Now those who worked for Clarence King, a recognized geologist
Speaker 1: who some years before had persuaded the US government to
Speaker 1: fund a survey of the land between the rockies and
Speaker 1: the SIERRAS. So this guy, he's got the government looking
Speaker 1: at stuff. He and his team, including Emmans and Gardner,
Speaker 1: surveyed the fifty miles on either side of the parallel.
Speaker 1: So they know this area. They are, you know, they're
Speaker 1: like the final final bosses. They're quite intimate. This is
Speaker 1: like the back of their hand. So emmans and gardener right.
Speaker 1: They suspect that Jannon and his crew are coming from
Speaker 1: the mysterious gem field that everyone's been talking about and
Speaker 1: they wondered if the field was near the land that
Speaker 1: they surveyed. So they asked the group like kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, innocent, innocuous questions. So where are you coming from?
Speaker 1: What did you do there? What longitude and latitude of
Speaker 1: you guys coming from? What was the quality of the
Speaker 1: dirt where you were hanging out? Um, and they're able
Speaker 1: to figure out where the field is based on all
Speaker 1: their secret questions. So then they go back and they
Speaker 1: tell Clarence King, the geologist, final final boss, about this
Speaker 1: encounter they had on the train. King says, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's go look for ourselves. I think I can find
Speaker 1: the land. I want to corroborate Jannon's findings, just, you know,
Speaker 1: academic expertise. A big discovery, but I mean, if you
Speaker 1: think about it, this is a revolutionary thing that there's
Speaker 1: this incredible not just diamonds but rubies and Sapphire, everything
Speaker 1: you can imagine. Just he's like, I want to see this.
Speaker 1: Native population had noticed it in the thousands. They had
Speaker 1: been there. But you know, you know as you do.
Speaker 1: So the group sets out right. They didn't tell anybody
Speaker 1: else about the real purpose of their trip and instead
Speaker 1: they were telling people that they were going to look
Speaker 1: for carboniferous fossils instead of diamonds. That's one of the
Speaker 1: scientific non laws. So they get to Wyoming, they get
Speaker 1: off the train. They continued on for a few days.
Speaker 1: They find the site. Zaren, I want you to close
Speaker 1: your eyes. I was wondering my eyes over here permanently
Speaker 1: open and stuff. Okay, one second. Are Closed. I want
Speaker 1: you to picture it. Yes, the three geologists, Samuel Emmons,
Speaker 1: James Gardner and their boss, Clarence King, stand in Rock Springs,
Speaker 1: Wyoming territory. They've stepped off the train and have secured
Speaker 1: horses for their forty odd mile trip into the desolate distance.
Speaker 1: The Sky is so incredibly vast. Above and before them,
Speaker 1: the hills are like a mustard gold velvet, the shrubs
Speaker 1: and grasses all crisping in the fall air, just waiting
Speaker 1: for that cold ight of winter. The wind howls around
Speaker 1: them as they set off dust swirls. They consult the
Speaker 1: rough map they've drawn up of the approximate location of
Speaker 1: this so called gem field. After a number of days,
Speaker 1: they locate the spot. They tie up their horses, they
Speaker 1: get out their equipment, they begin their search. This is
Speaker 1: a most American moment, people looking at a barren, deserted
Speaker 1: or silently empty landscape before them, hoping beyond hope to
Speaker 1: find fortune where others would just walk on by. But
Speaker 1: these guys are part of a most modern American moment.
Speaker 1: They are the cynics, they're the specialists who want information
Speaker 1: confirmed before they'll believe anything, and these are, unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: very rare Americans. So one of the men stoops over,
Speaker 1: scraping away at this arid soil. He finds gems. The
Speaker 1: other men dig they find the same gems. It seems
Speaker 1: to them that these came right from the ground beneath them,
Speaker 1: the product of Wild Wyoming. They were thrilled, they were surprised.
Speaker 1: They logged their fines into the evening and they bedded
Speaker 1: down for the night. I can only imagine that the
Speaker 1: sky above them, so clear on an autumn evening, was
Speaker 1: just thick with stars, the Milky Way Tucking him in
Speaker 1: the endless night full of diamonds reflecting back to the
Speaker 1: riches that slept underneath them in the dirt. However, looking
Speaker 1: more carefully the next morning, they realized there's kind of
Speaker 1: a pattern to how these gems are distributed. For example,
Speaker 1: this is my favorite. King found a diamond, quote perched
Speaker 1: precariously under a slender rock. So like tossed a diamond
Speaker 1: on the ground that set a rock on top of it.
Speaker 1: Like ya trying to catch a mouse with a diamond,
Speaker 1: you put a little rock. Yes, so they're like how,
Speaker 1: how could this have been like this for hundreds, nay thousands,
Speaker 1: of years? A scientific mystery. And there also seemed to
Speaker 1: be sort of a uniform ratio of one diamond found
Speaker 1: with around a dozen rubies. Yes, are also what I
Speaker 1: imagine is that there is a pathway if you follow it,
Speaker 1: and they kind of are cast from that pathway side. Um,
Speaker 1: they also found gems in ant hills, but they were
Speaker 1: only in the ant hills that had footprints, are disturbed
Speaker 1: dirt near them. So all this dangerous? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: why would there be in the middle of an ant
Speaker 1: hill wouldn't the ant hill is unearthed. They would move
Speaker 1: the earth around. Yeah, that's part of the earth they'd
Speaker 1: be kicking out anyway. Um, so the geologists they go
Speaker 1: further afield. They dig holes where diamonds should be based
Speaker 1: on what they've been seeing. But the earth is clearly
Speaker 1: undisturbed and they found no diamonds. That's all. So king
Speaker 1: concluded quote summing up the minerals. This rock has produced
Speaker 1: four distinct types of diamond, a few oriental rubies, garnets, spinels, sapphires,
Speaker 1: emeralds and Amethysts, an association enough minerals of impossible occurrence
Speaker 1: in nature, and some mimerals that are only found in India,
Speaker 1: some others only found in Iran. It's very curious. It
Speaker 1: is fascinating. So a few days into their work, a
Speaker 1: man on horseback approaches them. He introduces himself as JF
Speaker 1: Berry from New York City. He'd followed them there and
Speaker 1: been watching them. Creepy the whole time. He's like hiding,
Speaker 1: he's like so he says like hey, you guys found gems.
Speaker 1: Creepy one of them. Let slip that the site is
Speaker 1: a hoax. He's exhausted, he's been digging in ant hills.
Speaker 1: He's like yeah, we found gems and it's all garbage.
Speaker 1: He's nursing his hand blisters. So then, but then they're
Speaker 1: like they get worried that the news is going to
Speaker 1: blow the whole thing wide open and put their colleagues
Speaker 1: at risk. So the geologists they high tail it back
Speaker 1: to San Francisco so that they can tell the mining
Speaker 1: and commercial company what they've discovered. More November, seventy two
Speaker 1: they arrived in San Francisco. Now K out of respect,
Speaker 1: first goes to Jannon, not the company. I like that
Speaker 1: night things that in terms of like respect for your colleague.
Speaker 1: That's done because he knows this is going to ruin you.
Speaker 1: Many like man, you may want to go to India
Speaker 1: look for the gems there. So Jannon, at first he
Speaker 1: stands by his findings and he's like no, I you
Speaker 1: know this is I know what I saw. So then
Speaker 1: they talk all night and finally Jannon accepts like he
Speaker 1: was duped. That's got to be hard. You know, people
Speaker 1: get really tired. It's really hard for most people to
Speaker 1: admit mistakes or admit they don't know. It's also really
Speaker 1: hard to use reason and rationality to correct emotions. Those
Speaker 1: are two different languages, so you can't use one to
Speaker 1: usually correct the other. You can use belief to correct emotion,
Speaker 1: but you usually can't use fact to correct emotions. If
Speaker 1: he's committed himself to it, he will not be swayed. No,
Speaker 1: and I think that's like, that's a really hard moment.
Speaker 1: I could see how it takes all night to bring
Speaker 1: him to that point. Um So, the next morning, King
Speaker 1: and Jannon, they go to the mine and commercial company
Speaker 1: directors and they tell them you have been victims of fraud.
Speaker 1: I hate to break it to you. The directors asked
Speaker 1: King the geologists to take a few of them out
Speaker 1: there with Jannin. Go out to the field they go.
Speaker 1: Now they're seeing it all with new eyes. They have
Speaker 1: all this new information. They're like, Oh my God, how
Speaker 1: do we not this is totally a hoax, as there's
Speaker 1: like one gem perched on top of it's in a
Speaker 1: plastic Easter, like, how did this get out her? We
Speaker 1: don't have plastic yet. Um So, the newly hired general
Speaker 1: manager of the company said he saw ruby scattered in
Speaker 1: such a way that, quote, it would have been impossible
Speaker 1: for nature to have deposited them. As for a person
Speaker 1: standing in San Francisco to toss a marble in the
Speaker 1: air and have it fall on the Bunker Hill monument right,
Speaker 1: he's painting a beautiful picture. So the directors like, raise
Speaker 1: your hand if you want to dissolve the company. All
Speaker 1: the hands went up. Some people raised two hands and
Speaker 1: a foot. So Arnold and slack they get indicted for
Speaker 1: fraud by a grand jury. Case never goes to trial.
Speaker 1: They indicted in mcentia but they never went to trial.
Speaker 1: Arnold gets sued by William lent remember, he was the
Speaker 1: big investor in the comstock load, the big money man.
Speaker 1: They settled out of court for a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, though he said Um he paid. Arnold says
Speaker 1: he paid not because he was guilty but because the
Speaker 1: lawsuit was time consuming and he wanted to move on
Speaker 1: with his life and he was tired of the Pinkerton's harassing.
Speaker 1: He's like here's your one fifty boring A. I'm onto
Speaker 1: greener pastors. You guys. Back in Kentucky Arnold had bought
Speaker 1: a house, obviously from the money he made the hoax.
Speaker 1: The House had marble fireplaces, had really crazy, chandeliers, high ceilings,
Speaker 1: beautiful wallpapers, always very nice, good touch. To this day
Speaker 1: there are locals who are convinced that there are still
Speaker 1: diamonds buried in the basement a house. Such a typical
Speaker 1: local Lord exactly. You know, there are kids who like
Speaker 1: stare from the bushes of the he also bought five
Speaker 1: acres in his wife's name where he bred thoroughbred horses
Speaker 1: and he raised sheep. There's a real wealth in this story.
Speaker 1: We know about the Horse Trade. There he invested in
Speaker 1: real estate, became a banker. He became what he was
Speaker 1: trying to take down. Um in the spring of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, he was in dispute with another banker, but
Speaker 1: that banker had insulted Arnold in a letter, doubting his trust,
Speaker 1: trustworthiness because of the possible involvement in the diamond hoax.
Speaker 1: There was a shootout and Arnold was hit in the shoulder.
Speaker 1: It did not kill him, but in the winter of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine he caught pneumonia and he died in
Speaker 1: the hospital in February eight. So was that like a
Speaker 1: Kentucky Colonel Duel like so I write in a letter.
Speaker 1: So you insulted me and I think you're a fraud,
Speaker 1: and drop a white glove and you smell like dukie
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, I never and then so what
Speaker 1: about slack? What about John? After abandoning his duty guarding
Speaker 1: the field, slack went to St Louis. He worked. What
Speaker 1: would you do if you had the money that he had?
Speaker 1: You bailed out on guarding the supposed diamond field. You
Speaker 1: go to St Louis. What would you do? M Go
Speaker 1: to St Louis late eighteen hundreds by a stockyard. He
Speaker 1: worked as a carpenter at a coffin company. What not
Speaker 1: in my top one choices. And then he eventually became
Speaker 1: president there he worked his wing did I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: Then he goes to New Mexico and the job he
Speaker 1: had in New Mexico was adjacent. He became an undertaker.
Speaker 1: Now he didn't get into the Topaz business. No, he
Speaker 1: became an undertaker. He died in eighteen ninety six, at
Speaker 1: the age of seventy six. So Arnold pretty much pulled
Speaker 1: it off. Slack would have too, but he cut and
Speaker 1: ran and wound up doing a lot of death work.
Speaker 1: He still had a little bit that Szaren, what is
Speaker 1: your ridiculous takeaway here, Oh man, Um, one that rich
Speaker 1: people are easy to scam, especially if you can tell
Speaker 1: them that you're dumb. You know, I just don't know
Speaker 1: these things, but a big, strong, strap and gentleman such
Speaker 1: as yourself, you probably could. You know, like you play
Speaker 1: that up, but like, in terms of finances, I think
Speaker 1: they're gonna go. They'RE gonna go for it, and this
Speaker 1: apparently has been true for aons. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: just goes back. You know, this is exactly the thing
Speaker 1: that we saw in the DOT com boom. This was
Speaker 1: the thing that you see in real estate scams. Is
Speaker 1: the thing you saw in l a, the Owens Valley River,
Speaker 1: I mean like everywhere you go you will see this,
Speaker 1: like somebody comes along necks like, I just don't know
Speaker 1: what to do, and then they scam these rich people
Speaker 1: who are so certain. So usually, I mean it's the
Speaker 1: it's the traditional act of the confidence artists. They work
Speaker 1: on your confidence. So it's it's a flawless scheme. I'm
Speaker 1: just so surprised that these people who, you know, they
Speaker 1: know money, they know wealth, but they don't know anything
Speaker 1: about jewels or gems and they don't stop to think.
Speaker 1: So I'm just struck by how many times they had
Speaker 1: to go out there with experts before they could actually
Speaker 1: see the truth, because they're so convinced by what they
Speaker 1: wanted to believe. But they think they're pulling a scam
Speaker 1: to what I'm saying. So they're like, oh, we're getting
Speaker 1: one over on them. So they're so busy thinking about
Speaker 1: the scam that they don't actually check their own beliefs.
Speaker 1: Their scam is based on a faulty belief, but there's
Speaker 1: nobody looking at the greed that they don't check that.
Speaker 1: I'm like that's the parts. That's ridiculous. I'm like, come
Speaker 1: on now, how did you get wealthy? Right, well, I
Speaker 1: said it earlier about that being the most American moment.
Speaker 1: You know, when Americans are at their best, at their
Speaker 1: most sort of Whitman esque, they see possibility everywhere. They're
Speaker 1: expansive in thought, they're curious, adventurous. Yeah, they don't get
Speaker 1: sidetracked by the like base animal tribalism of wanting to
Speaker 1: just be with people that look and think and sound
Speaker 1: and believe like they do right or do things in
Speaker 1: the old way. Yeah, they're open, they're eager. Life is vast,
Speaker 1: it's exciting, it's full of possibility. That's the America, that's
Speaker 1: the dream America, the sort of fiction. So in this
Speaker 1: story we have like the sad underbelly of that moment.
Speaker 1: That's the one driven by greed. I I like Arnold
Speaker 1: and slack, right. So they used the big wigs greed
Speaker 1: against them, the bank owners, the mining magnets. They're so
Speaker 1: eager to get money off the backs of individual miners,
Speaker 1: just like they've been doing. It's what made them so
Speaker 1: unbelievably wealthy. I mean, like it is so hard to
Speaker 1: comprehend how much money these guys got, all the like
Speaker 1: the big four, all the railroad barons, everything, like you
Speaker 1: talked about that with old billy minor, the train robber. Right.
Speaker 1: So the fat cats in this case, they didn't think critically,
Speaker 1: like you said. They never asked. They thought greedily and
Speaker 1: then they acted in haste because they're so quick to
Speaker 1: take advantage of Arnold and slack and, as I used
Speaker 1: to exploiting people, and they see someone and they go
Speaker 1: a quick read. It's like, Oh, we can exploit this person. Yeah, well, surprise.
Speaker 1: So once again I'm not being too critical the criminals
Speaker 1: here at all. No one was hurt or killed. Are
Speaker 1: My favorite. They just lightened the pockets some fat cat
Speaker 1: and then the cool scientists cracked the case, that they
Speaker 1: got out there and actually like, Oh hey, let's just
Speaker 1: go walk this and see what we find. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think those are like the true winners here, even
Speaker 1: that they walked away with no money. They won. They
Speaker 1: beat them, they beat everything. That's it. That's all I have.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You can find US online at ridiculous crime
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Speaker 1: about a ridiculous crime you want to hear about? Email
Speaker 1: US ridiculous crime at Gmail Dot Com. That's it. Tune
Speaker 1: next time. Ridiculous crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 1: Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by Chairman of the big board,
Speaker 1: Dave Kuston. Research is by seasoned gemologist Marissa Brown. The
Speaker 1: theme song is by Minor Forty Niner Thomas Lee and
Speaker 1: wizen saloon keeper Travis Dutton. Executive Producers Are Skeptical appraisers
Speaker 1: Ben Bowen and Noel Brown. We dis say it one
Speaker 1: more time. Dequeous. Ridiculous crime is a production of IHEART radio.
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