Unfortunately, the late Jim Blanning is likely to be remembered by the general public as “the crazy old guy who planted bombs in Aspen, Colorado on New Year’s Eve” rather than a passionate, local prospector. That is the other side to his story – a tragic tale old and relived many times over in Colorado history. To his brothers at the Denver Mining Club, Jim Blanning was a ragged ass miner standing for his rights against the encroaching ski industry like Don Quixote. Thankfully, he did not succeed in igniting a bomb that night! It is a sad story of not only one senile old man pitted against insurmountable obstacles but also one of historic recurrence in Colorado: the enigmatic lure of posting mining claims for silver and gold (Mo, Be, Ur, etc. etc. etc. for sure but not as passionate and emotional as for Ag and Au…).
Jim was a prospector. He was staking claims, prospecting and accessing historically mined sites nearly all his life in the north Taylor Park area, south of Aspen. His path parallels that of any turn-of-the-century miner looking for their fortune in the glimmer of a rock face, like a Charles Dickens novel:
“James Chester Blanning Jr. was the son of a West Point graduate and the oldest of three boys. His father was captured on Bataan by the Japanese, held captive for four years, and ultimately died on a prison ship in the waning days of World War II. His mother, Virginia “Sistie” Blanning, brought Jim and his younger brothers, Bill and Dick, to Aspen after the war ended. For a time, the young widow and her sons lived in the Hotel Jerome.”
I’ve met guys like him before – guys I like. In Victor, Colorado there was Pos (pronounced “Poz”). People tolerated Pos in the local bar, “Someplace Else” for a short while. He had been 86’d from the more feral bar, “Zeke’s Place” for what I can only guess were his hopping-mad tantrums.
‘What is it with prospectors and their tantrums?’ I wonder, (‘Um, in Pos’ case it was alcohol… and demons.’)
Pos used to hunt me down in the streets of Victor to share with me a great discovery he had made, a telluride specimen the size of his thumb nail, a map of underground workings that got closed off before they reached their goal. Mostly, though, Pos needed money to stake mining claims that were coming due or were on the market because of taxes in arrears. He didn’t ask very often. Once he even paid me back. I always gave Pos money – whatever I had in my wallet — sometimes as much as $50. This was my version of grub staking a risky project. I knew Pos was a man of his word, despite the demons in his head. If he ever hit it rich, I knew he would take care of me. Pos was my first relationship with a living prospector possessed by the ghosts of prospectors long gone but not dead.
I loved Pos and have no idea what happened to him after his family removed him from the town in order to address his rather kookoo emotional state. I loved Baby Doe Tabor , too. I can see myself in the ghost of her legacy. Baby Doe was a gal out of no where who knew no boundaries to her dreams. She defied social etiquette to become one of the most wealthy and influential women in the western hemisphere (including Europe) for a very short period of time before the floor fell out of her Silver Empire. People portray this spirited woman in historic literature as a crazy old recluse living alone in the squalor of a tiny tin-roofed shack to her dying days: a vagabond. Baby Doe in her prime was something to behold, like “a wild horse that cain’t be rode”. Baby Doe invented the story of undying passion and devotion to a mining claim.
Same sad story with Bob Womack, founder of the Cripple Creek Mining District. Bob Womack staked the first mining claim in the district: the El Paso Lode, known today as the Gold King Mine. Then, he sold it for a mere $500 before the year was out – a $5 million dollar gross underestimate of it’s eventual worth and that’s at a value derived from a gold price of $20 an ounce back then!
The townspeople of Cripple Creek bestowed the title, “Father of the World’s Greatest Gold Camp,” upon Bob Womack but they attributed his incompetence as a businessman to drunkenness — the latter of which, was an easy assumption to make in consideration of the district’s rampant abuse of firewater. However, most every one back in those days was a drunk. It was an enigma to be sober. His sister Eliza and the multi-millionaire Winfield S. Stratton knew Bob Womack for his true worth. They knew Bob Womack was a simple cowboy and a good person.
I can imagine the unfortunate, late, Jim Blanning may have been a guy like these other historic figures: a little bit kookoo, a little bit scary, but a lot of passion for mining. He was fighting city hall for access to his claims, one step forward, two steps back. There is not much more infuriating than to be involved in a legal battle over land status and easement issues to push a person over the brink of sanity. From personal experience, I can tell you that easement battles bring the worst of human nature to a boiling point. I have personally been on the end of a shotgun barrel over access issues.
People who knew Jim mourn him. They would like his story told.
”It’s in Colorado history, just the names have changed,” I tell them.
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