Letter by Slim Wolfe
Leadville – April 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Fond Leadville memories
Editors:
Thanks for your comments [in the March edition] on the loss of Leadville as a mining town. I have fond memories of my days as a Leadhead, when Leadville was about to Climax (1980), and the irreverent power of the working class was a joy to behold.
Where else were yuppie tourists harassed out of restaurants, where else was the bank blown up for New Year’s, repeatedly?
Leadville served as a Colorado port-of-entry to a lot of hairy vagabonds like myself who had run out of decent jobs elsewhere. Leadville, it was said, had the highest per-capita income and alcoholism in the state. Too bad they can’t find a vein of computer chips down on the 1500 level.
Suicide by exposure to mine hazards probably beats the hell out of suicide by exposure to retail-clerk boredom.
If the ghost of Edward Abbey happens to blow a few holes in Christo’s plastic wrap, we’ll know where the stuff got stolen.
Slim Wolfe, Villa Grove
