THE FREE COINAGE GOLD MINING COMPANY, Cripple Creek, Colorado, Sam Strong signed bank check, 1900, revenue imprint RN-X7

Check significance:  Sam Strong signature.

Sam Strong was a friend and, occasionally, a business associate of Winfield Scott

Stratton — Cripple Creek’s most benevolent, as well as eccentric gold baron.  Strong was

also associated with Sam Altman, one of the discoverers of the Free Coinage Mine and

the Town of Altman, Colorado, once the highest incorporated town in Colorado.  Strong

was involved with several mining companies, but it was his holdings in the Strong Gold

Mining Company on Battle Mountain that made him wealthy.  Problem was, Sam

Strong liked to gamble and that’s what got him into lethal trouble.  He often owed

gambling establishments on Bennett and Myers avenues, in the City of Cripple Creek,

various large sums of money.  And it was his argument with barkeepper, J. Grant

Crumley, over a gambling debt that saw Crumley pull a shotgun and blast away a

portion of Strong’s head (August 22, 1901).  Crumley was acquitted of murder due to

the fact that Sam Strong had pulled a gun on Crumley first.  [Ref: CRIPPLE CREEK

GOLD, by Brian Levine, Page 88]

Check also signed by John B. Neville, Strong’s father-in-law.

COLORADO ARTIFACTUAL