The Cripple Creek Gold Camp

Come with me to the gold camp,
where headframes pierced the sky
and men chased glittering veins
underground with picks and shovels.

Dreams of riches brought my great-grandfather
from England to the Elkton mine.
He knew the darkness of tunnels,
the veins that flared like lightning through rock.
And he knew this was where he belonged.

Below ground, bells clanged,
drills rattled, explosions shook the walls,
ore cars kept their iron rhythm,
a refrain that filled both day and night.

Trains hauled rock to the mills,
tailings piled in spreading mounds,
while molten gold was poured from ore.

Come with me to the gold camp—
its echoes still thread through my blood,
the dust, the rails, the rocks
name the place I belong.

By Steven Wade Veatch