Father Struck it Rich

Father Struck it Rich is the memoir of Evalyn Walsh McLean, daughter of the mining millionaire Thomas Walsh. Our description opens with her father's discovery of fabulous wealth at the Camp Bird Mine near Ouray, Colorado. It says that no one except Walsh thought to check the mines for gold at a time when the San Juan Mountains were silver country, and that when he learned the results of his secret assays he whispered to Evalyn, "Daughter, I've...". The description cuts off there.

Outside sources fill in the setting. Legends of America says Walsh found rich gold ore in 1896 on one of several old claims he was buying in the Imogene Basin above Ouray, when most miners had left the area after the 1893 silver panic. It says he kept the find secret for the rest of that year while buying more claims, and that the mine was named for the ravens that raided miners' camps. Wikipedia's article on Walsh says he returned home in 1896 and announced that he had struck it rich, which gave the memoir its title.

Wikipedia says McLean wrote the memoir with Boyden Sparkes and that Little, Brown and Company issued it in 1936, so the book is a reprint of a 1930s original. Our catalogue lists this edition at 232 pages, and our record gives the book no subject headings. Sources disagree on the date of this Western Reflections edition, so we leave it out.

This memoir speaks to readers of Ouray and San Juan mining history and of the Walsh family.