Stripping a Book by Paty Jager

Fossil, Oregon

The rights to my third book in the Letters of Fate series were reverted back to me. I was excited because it was my favorite book in the series. The hero, Isaac Corum, and the heroine, Alamayda Wagner, are like oil and water when they first meet. But Isaac's protectiveness and her independent nature brings them together.

The stipulations for being able to republish this book, as it was in a Kindle World -which meant I had incorporated another author's characters and settings into my book- were to strip my story of the setting and characters from the other world.

Since my book was set at a mining town, I picked a real mining area in my home state to set the story. All I had to do was change setting names add the businesses and close towns to the story and change the names and in some cases the gender of the characters who were from the Kindle World. And since I hadn't kept my characters in that other authors world for more than a third of the book, the switching was easy.

Cornucopia 1884

Cornucopia, the mining area I used for my book has some interesting statistics:

The Cornucopia Mine group located 12 miles west of Halfway Oregon in the Wallowa Whitman National Forest was once one of the 6 largest gold mines in the United States. It ran the longest continually of any mine in Oregon. It had 36 miles of tunnels with a depth of 3,000 feet.

It’s believed the mines output was $20 million from gold, silver, lead, and copper.

The mining area began when Lon Simmons one of the first to discover gold in the early 1880’s. It’s said he hadn’t planted the first stake of his section before men were all over the side of the mountain looking for gold.

There were many small mines in the area. The Cornucopia Mine group was made up of Union-Companion Mine(the biggest), Last Chance, Queen of the West and Red Jacket.

Last Chance was a pocket mine. Meaning it was a dense accumulation of ore that was under the surface and down to the bedrock and perhaps in the bedrock. While the other mines were dredged and drilled.

Union-Companion produced the most and was said to be on the mother lode. This means it was located on a vein of the ore it produced.

The mines were so remote they used outdated equipment and methods to extract the ore. Only horses and wagons were used for transportation. The first few years were a slow process of not only getting the ore out of the ground but also delivering it to a railroad station. Baker City was the closest and it was a 3 day trip.

Isaac makes this 3 day trip hoping to give Alamayda her father's things and send her back to where she came from. Unfortunately, she is on a mission that she doesn't reveal at first and she has no intention of going home. Ever.

Isaac: Letters of Fate

Historical western filled with steamy romance and the rawness of a growing country.

Alamayda Wagner’s life has left her cynical, but also vigilant, and that’s what propels her to Cornucopia, Oregon to uncover the secrets her father took to his grave. She quickly discovers her only hope includes trusting Isaac. That soon proves to be expensive, and not just financially.

The last thing Isaac Corum needs or wants is a snooty woman telling him he didn’t do enough to save her father, which is what her letter implied. He’d helped the man more than most people would have, and swears he won’t go out of his way like that again. He’ll meet her at the Baker City train station, deliver her father’s belongings, and send her back the way she came.

Universal buy link: https://www.books2read.com/u/mVBAjl

 Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 32 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters.This is what readers have to say about the Letters of Fate series- “...filled with romance, adventure and twists and turns.” “What a refreshing and well written love story of fate and hope!”

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There's STILL Gold in Them Thar Hills

by Heather Blanton

Most authors have an idea for a story FIRST then they go and research it. I did all the research for my best-selling novel A Lady in Defiance years before I ever imagined the saga of three good, Christian sisters taming a bawdy mining town. I still find the research haunting me.

In the summer of ’93, my husband and I packed up everything from tents to guns (yes, you used to actually be allowed to travel with them in your luggage), flew to Denver, rented a jeep and started exploring the mountains. Even though we drove all over the state, from Denver to the four corners area, what captured my heart were the ghost towns high up in the San Juan Mountains. Silverton, Durango, Ouray, and Telluride are the well-known, vibrant, little towns in the area. The ghost towns you’ve probably never heard of, though, are Mineral Point, Alta, Animas Forks, and St. Elmo, to name a few.

 Now, considering that 1993 was practically the Dark Ages, we planned our trip using a 1963 travel guide, Jeep Trails to Colorado Ghost Towns by Robert Brown. The dang thing was out of print at the time and I had to special order it. But it was RICH with the history of these forgotten settlements, abandoned dreams, and unfinished stories. I was captivated by the lonely, remote ruins that once-upon-a-time had fed the dreams of both the courageous and the cowardly, the greedy and the generous, the noble and the cheaters.

The story that fascinated me the most was the tale of George Jackson of Missouri. He came west to Colorado in 1859 and discovered gold near Idaho Springs. He left (with his gold) to fight in the Civil War and then start a farm. Gold Fever never left him, though, and he returned twelve years later with a group of prospectors. They discovered more gold, somewhere near Middle Park. Allegedly, he and his group squirreled away over $10,000 in gold dust, buried in buckskin bags beneath their cabin.

Late in the fall of ’71, the prospectors were attacked by Indians but managed to hide, and the survivors slithered their way out of the mountains, the gold still lying in its hidden grave. Overjoyed to have survived, the remaining men decided they’d had enough of the San Juans and headed east—except for Jackson. As soon as the snow melted—reportedly in June—he rounded up a friend and headed back to the camp, but never made it. On the way, he pulled a gun from his sled to shoot at a coyote and shot himself right between the eyes.

Fast forward to 1912. Ray Peck, a supervisor with Routt National Forest investigated with the help of an unnamed local mountain man. They found the aspen tree in which Jackson had carved his name. Evidence of habitation and mining activities were deteriorated but evident.

Eager as beavers, they started digging. And they dug till they were blue in the face but the pair never found the buckskin bags full of gold.

 The cache is still up there in those beautiful, dangerous mountains, waiting for someone to come along and find it –to finish the story.

Historic Mining Town by Paty Jager

Mining town of Bourne, OR

I dug up this information to help me better understand the workings of a mining town for my current work in progress.

A booming mining town isn’t a quiet place.  The thud of the stamp mills could be heard for miles long before you rode into town. Mules wore bells, burros brayed, dogs barked. Planning mills worked to keep up with the demand for boards.

Dust in the streets when it’s dry, mud when it’s wet. Animal dung from horses, mules and oxen. Human refuse tossed in the streets.  And the fresh smell of pine from the new buildings constructed.

The thud of the stamp mill was the heartbeat of the town. As long as they heard the thud, thud, thud the mill was running and all was well. The mill only stopped in emergencies.

With the whisper of gold in an area, people and freight arrived daily.  Tents and crude cabins sprang up. There’s no running water. Water was drawn at a town well or pump. Each household had an outhouse

Mine in the side of the mountain

behind it.

Prospectors take up claims up and down the river if it’s placer mining or in the mountains if it’s hard rock mining.

First businesses sell needed items – a mercantile and a saloon. The mercantile provides the every day necessities and the saloon provides a place to visit, have a drink, and see a woman.  Most mining towns have few women and the respectable ones are treated like royalty. 

When wives arrived they would organize gatherings. A weekly dance with the women bringing baked food. There were so many men in a mining town all females as long as they were big enough to dance, danced every song.  On Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, and Labor Day the whole mine would shut down, even the mills.  Everyone celebrated with food, games, horse races and boxing matches. They had drilling contests with one and two man teams. The winner was the person or team who could hand-drill the deepest hole in a granite block in a named length of time. Betting took place during the drilling. Men practiced for days ahead of a holiday and used their own special drill steels. Music was an essential at the gatherings. If you were a musician you were popular. 

Company boarding houses, housed the mine workers. It was usually two story with the office, dining hall, and kitchen on the bottom floor and the sleeping quarters upstairs. Built-in wooden bunks were shared by two people. Each person worked a different shift.  The miners weren’t clean either. After a shift they’d set wet boots around the wood stove and they didn’t wash often. The smell must have been enough to make nose hairs curl. Tobacco juice mixed with mud on the floors. Pack rats and flies were also part of a company boarding house.

The most important person in a mining camp was the cook. How well the men ate determined if they stayed on.  This was a typical day’s meals if the company was a good one:

Oatmeal or some other hot grain cereal

Two slabs of bacon or ham

Huge pans of fried potatoes

Large pans of biscuits, refilled again and again

Condensed milk in cans on the tbles, some diluted in pitchers

Stewed fruit(stewed dried fruit when fresh was unavailable)

Syrup

Preserves

Cookies

Coffee cake or doughnuts

Dozens and dozens of eggs, fried and boiled

Huge pots of coffee

Sugar and butter on each table

Lunch (or dinner as it was called back then) was the biggest meal of the day. The preparation started as soon as the men finished breakfast and that was cleaned up.

Soup

Meat and gravy

Potatoes

Vegetables

Hot homemade rolls

Twenty pies (more than a quarter pie per person)

Butter and preserves

Coffee

Supper was nearly the same as lunch but without soups and as big a meal as dinner.

Meat and gravy

Potatoes

Vegetables

Pan after pan of cornbread

Cakes, iced and decorated on special occasions

Butter and preserves

Coffee

Source: The Mining Camps Speak by Beth and Bill Sagstetter

Photos: Paty Jager

www.patyjager.net

Writing into the Sunset 

Great Links for Western Lovers - @JacquieRogers

Jacquie's website | Pickle Barrel Gazette

I spent a lovely five days with a writer friend, Judith Laik, on the shores of Lake Chelan, Washington.  We plotted and brainstormed the whole time--at least, when we weren't partaking of fine wine.  Oh wait, it was that fine wine that helped with the brainstorming...  Ahem.  

Like most authors, I have several projects lined up waiting to be written.  Each of these stories requires a different knowledge set, and it's always necessary to do at least a little research for the next story.  Some people think this is work, but I call it fun, and in fact I have to limit myself.  Same with visiting museums.  Doncha just love museums! 

Anyway, take a look at some of the sites I visited this week:

Hungry Cowboys

Head on over to the Cowboy Showcase if you want to learn how to cook on the trail.  Dutch Oven Cooking with Floyd Crandall tells you how to heat, use, and clean a dutch oven.

Oregon Trail

At the Pathways of Pioneers site, historian Don Shannon tells about the tragic experience of a wagon train at Castle Butte, Idaho Territory, and their forty days of hell until 16 of 44 immigrants were finally rescued at what now is called Starvation Camp.

There's Gold In Them Thar Hills

Think the gold rush is over?  Someone forgot to tell that to about 367 members of the Idaho Gold Prospectors Association.  If you want to prospect for gold and have a little fun besides, check 'em out.

Gnarly Mountain Men

The first lucrative enterprise of the American West was fur trapping and trading.  John Jacob Astor made a pile of money from this business.  Jim Bridger (left) and his friends wanted in on the action and formed the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. 

Dressed in buckskins, wearing coonskin caps, and packing scalpin' knives, these men explored and trapped in every area of the West.  Some of the later "explorers" used these men's maps and lore.  Learn all about the trade, the men, and the business from Legends of America, Fur Trading in the American West.

Back East...
Another site that I frequent, especially when writing the Wolf Creek stories for Western Fictioneers, is the Kansapedia.  The cowtowns, several of the famous lawmen and outlaws, and lots of wheat aren't the only things you'll find in Kansas.  Besides, Matt and Miss Kitty were there... oh wait...

And Home Again
Since my stories are mostly set in Idaho, I do a lot of research there.  For a brief overview, go to the Visit Idaho Site.  For more in-depth information, go to Idaho State Historical Society Digital Collections, and here's an overview of Owyhee County history.  Of course, the best thing to do is ride a horse in the Owyhee Mountains and smell the sagebrush, but if that's not in the cards, a visit to the Idaho State Archives is in order.  They have a grant to digitize many of their newspapers, so that will be a boon to me since I live in Seattle now.

♥ Hearts of Owyhee ♥

Much Ado About Marshals

Much Ado About Madams

Much Ado About Mavericks

Much Ado About Miners

To be released Fall of 2014:

Much Ado About Mustangs

There's Gold In Them-Thar Hills...

(Though that quote was supposedly said in Georgia, pertaining the hills in the northern part of the state, in hopes of keeping miners from racing to California in 1849—I’m using it in reference to Colorado.)

It’s said Colorado gold mining began in 1858 after a discovery that set off the Denver gold rush, even though explorer Zebulon Pike noted gold in the ground in 1807. Either way, St. Charles, later renamed Denver City, was established in the spring of 1858 and by the fall of that year towns had sprung up throughout the territory.  

Once originally part of the Nebraska, Kansas, Utah and New Mexico Territory, this gold bearing region became known as the Territory of Jefferson when a provisional territorial government was formed in 1859. In 1861 Territorial officials, approving the name the Spanish used for the red dirt area decided to rename it the Territory of Colorado, which was approved by the Government that year. Fifteen years later, in 1876 Ulysses S. Grant proclaimed Colorado the 38^th state to join the Union on August 1. 

The gold discoveries around Denver were small and miners began tracing the gold to its source higher in the Mountains westward. There, near the top of the mountain, towns such as Black Hawk and Central City cropped up after miners found over a thousand dollars worth of gold in five days work. (That would be over $20,000 in today’s money.)

This not only brought on more miners, it brought others who made their millions by providing the miners what they needed, merchants, railroads, saloons, banks, even playhouses and charity organizations. Soon the surface gold was all taken, and extracting the gold from the harder ore was impossible for most miners. In 1868 Colorado’s first ore smelter was built in Black Hawk, which extracted the gold and other metals and minerals from the ore, and once again, mining in the area was at its peak—which lasted until about 1959. During that hundred year time span, 1859-1959, it’s estimated that area of Colorado produced 6,3000,000 troy ounces of gold. 

Traveling to the area was precarious, though. The narrow gauge railroad had to have tight switchbacks to make the ever increasing grade, and vast bridges were built over gulches that some claimed had never ending bottoms. Once built, the Colorado Central Railroad had numerous trains traveling from Denver to Black Hawk, Central City, and Nevadaville on a daily basis. 

In my February 19th release, Inheriting a Bride, Kit Becker must travel to this area of Colorado to lay claim to a gold mine she inherited from her grandfather. 

Blurb: He’ll get beneath every delicious layer of her disguises...

Kit Becker travels to Nevadaville prepared to use any pretense necessary to discover why she must share her inheritance, and with whom.

Clay Hoffman knows a thing or two about moneygrabbing females, so when he finds one posing as his new ward he’s determined to get beneath every delicious layer of her disguises. Discovering she’s telling the truth, Clay is torn—he should be protecting her, not thinking about making her his bride! All he knows for sure is that he’s inherited a whole heap of trouble!

www.laurirobinson.blogspot.com