Legends of the Old West - WHISKEY Ep. 2 | Virginia City: “The Big Bonanza”
Episode Date: December 16, 2020The early discoveries of gold and silver near Virginia City, Nevada were big, but the second boom was legendary. The Comstock Lode produced more valuable ore in its heyday than any other place on Eart...h. Hear stories of the four “Bonanza Kings” who became some of the richest men in the world, and more tales of the unique saloon culture in the hottest boomtown in America. In collaboration with the Whiskey Lore podcast from Travel Fuels Life. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Virginia City was in a bit of a decline.
For the past six years or so, from 1859 to 1865,
the mines performed wonderfully for their owners.
They produced tens of millions
of dollars of gold and silver. But most of those mines were surface operations,
and by about 1865, the production started to fall. Many prospectors assumed the mines were played out,
or they didn't have the interest or resources to dig deep tunnels in the earth to pursue the veins any further.
Most of the original miners sold their claims and moved away.
But as they migrated out, a ruthless businessman moved in.
He didn't actually move in himself, he used an even more ruthless man as his agent to
gain control over virtually everything in the area.
As the two men and their supporters monopolized many of the industries around Virginia City,
a rival faction slowly rose in opposition.
This new group didn't form specifically to challenge the first group.
That's basically what happened.
Four Irishmen invested in a struggling mining operation.
They fought off attacks by the monopoly for two years until their fortunes literally changed.
They found the real motherlode, the richest vein of silver anyone had ever seen.
When the full scope of the deposit was explored, the value in dollars was staggering.
It not only changed the fortunes of the men who were directly involved, but also the American nation itself.
For a brief period of time, Virginia City, Nevada was the richest place on earth.
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From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West.
I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is part two of a two-part series on the history and whiskey of Virginia City.
Once again, you'll hear some stories of history from me and some stories of whiskey from my friend Drew Hanisch, the Whiskey Lore Podcast.
This is Episode 2, The Big Bonanza.
Our tour guide for Episode 1, Mark Twain, departed Virginia City for California in 1864 or 1865.
He had a roving spirit and he wanted to see more of the West.
And by 1865, the mines were slowly declining in profitable production,
so it looked like the boom in Virginia City might be done.
At about the same time Mark Twain was leaving,
William Ralston was arriving, figuratively.
He was a shady lawyer and financier in San Francisco. And he didn't physically spend much time in Virginia City,
but he basically ran the show through his agent, William Sharon.
William Ralston got his big start in San Francisco when he used a series of schemes to gobble up land and businesses
in the region. Those things gave him wealth and status, which earned him allies in politics and
big industries in Northern California. It was the same blueprint to accumulate power that's been
used since the beginning of time. When the discovery of gold by Peter O'Reilly and Patrick
McLaughlin helped launch the gold rush in Nevada in 1859, William Ralston started acquiring mines and businesses as fast as
he could, by any means necessary.
In 1864, Ralston started the Bank of California through a series of complicated alliances
and betrayals, and he brought William Sharon on board to be his bank representative in
Virginia City. Sharon was a corrupt financier, and he was now deeply bitter about losing his
fortune in Nevada. He was the perfect agent for Ralston. Their favorite trick to acquire a mine
was to give it a loan through the Bank of California, and then make the repayment schedule impossible to meet
so they could foreclose on the mine
and gain ownership with very little hassle.
Through the second half of the 1860s and the early 1870s,
they bought or acquired everything they could.
Mines, mills, forests that were used for lumber
to construct a growing city,
the waterworks that supplied the city with fresh water, and transportation companies.
A railroad didn't arrive until the early 1870s,
so during the first boom, the only way to get things to and from the town at the base of Mount Davidson was by wagon train.
It was an immense amount of work to haul supplies to the boomtown, and to haul the gold and silver out of town. By 1872, Ralston and Sharon controlled nearly
every major mine and company in the Comstock, which included the Consolidated Virginia Company.
Sharon was thrilled when four Irishmen wanted to buy a controlling interest in the company.
The consolidated Virginia operation had struggled for all five years of its existence.
Sharon called the company a bankrupt piece of property, and he thought this new investment would be two wins for the price of one.
He would make easy money from these amateurs, and he would push four more competitors out of the race.
And he could not have been more wrong.
John McKay was the first of the four Irishmen to arrive in Virginia City after the Comstock Rush started in 1859.
He and his partner had been prospecting in California when they
learned of the discovery. They made the trek over the Sierra Nevada mountains and soon started
toiling in the mines of the Comstock. Eventually, McKay got lucky. He took out a loan and bought a
small mine that looked like it was worthless. But right before his loan came due, he found a rich deposit. The mine paid out
more than a million dollars over the next few years, and it made McKay rich. And now that he
was rich, he wanted more. Around the same time McKay was having success, James Fair was the
superintendent of the famous Ophir mine in the Comstock.
He'd had success as a miner in California, and he was the true expert in the soon-to-be partnership.
McKay and Fair teamed up in 1868 and then joined forces with two San Francisco stockbrokers,
James Flood and William O'Brien, who'd made small fortunes betting on the Virginia City mines.
The four Irishmen bought a controlling interest in the consolidated Virginia company for $100,000.
The company had already wasted more than a million dollars trying to find gold or silver,
and William Sharon was only too happy to take their money.
For more than a year, the four men poured money into the
failing operation. They dug tunnels that produced nothing until the fall of 1873. McKay and Fair
were actually on the ground in Virginia City, and on one lucky day, they noticed a thin vein of
silver in one of their tunnels. They pushed their workers to dig deeper. They
traced the vein as it disappeared and then reappeared. When the tunnel was 1,200 feet deep,
the men must have been giddy at what they were seeing. When the tunnel was 1,500 feet deep,
it's hard to imagine their reaction. The vein of silver that had started so thin it was hard to track through the earth
was now 50 feet wide. It was one of, if not the, richest deposit ever discovered.
They had found the heart of the Comstock load, the true mother load. McKay and Fair quickly wired
Flood and O'Brien in San Francisco. The miners told the money men to buy as much stock
in the Consolidated Virginia Company as they possibly could. The four Irishmen, three of whom
were born in the old country and one of whom was born in New York to Irish parents, watched as
their lost cause of a mine poured forth more money than they dreamed possible. John McKay, James Fair,
James Flood, and William O'Brien became four of the richest men on the planet. They were
known as the Big Four and the Bonanza Kings, and their discovery launched the second boom
in Virginia City, the silver rush called the Big Bonanza.
The consolidated Virginia mines went from deeply in debt to paying out more than a million
dollars per month.
That's more than $20 million per month in today's money.
Over the next 10 years, that operation alone paid out $65 million in gold and silver.
All told, it's estimated that the collective mines of the Comstock, which included
the Ophir and George Hearst's Gould and Currie mine, and many others, produced between $300
million and $400 million worth of gold and silver. That would be well over $10 billion in today's
currency. The money that was put into circulation helped pull the United States out of an economic disaster.
A financial crisis began in 1873,
the same year as the Big Bonanza.
It crippled the American economy for four years,
and it caused the downfall and destruction of William Ralston.
William Ralston. Ralston had monopolized much of the business in Virginia City through his Bank of California
and its agent, William Sharon.
That all ended in 1873.
Two years later, in 1875, the financial crisis finally hit the Bank of California.
While the four Irishmen grew wealthy beyond belief, Ralston's years of shady business practices came back to haunt him.
On August 26, 1875, a run began on the Bank of California in San Francisco. Depositors were scared of losing all their money in the financial crisis,
and they rushed to the bank to withdraw it all in cash.
At 2.35 p.m., the bank's cash was gone, and it was forced to close its doors.
The bank's board of directors called Ralston to the building to account for the catastrophe.
It turned out that he owed the bank more than $5 million, and the bank needed it now. And of course,
he didn't have it. The board forced Ralston to resign. The next day, Ralston went for his daily
swim in San Francisco Bay, and he never came back. His body was found floating in the bay an hour after he
entered. William Sharon, Ralston's cutthroat agent in the Comstock, had used his money and power to
get himself elected to the U.S. Senate by the time Ralston died. Sharon organized a lavish funeral
in San Francisco and then spent two months rehabilitating Ralston's image and the image of
the bank. In late October, the bank reopened with great fanfare, and in the process, Sharon found a
way to take ownership of all of Ralston's major properties. Sharon must have hated watching the
Bonanza Kings find fortune in the Comstock, but he came out on top in California.
Meanwhile, the four Irishmen, Fair, Flood, McKay, and O'Brien, lived lavish lifestyles in San
Francisco and used their fabulous wealth to invest in just about every type of business in existence.
John McKay went into the communications industry, and his company was the first to lay cables across the Atlantic Ocean.
He made yet another fortune, the third of his life.
Three of the four gave generously to numerous causes and charities.
When the Great Fire of 1875 leveled Virginia City, an event you'll hear much more about in the second half of this episode,
Virginia City, an event you'll hear much more about in the second half of this episode.
John McKay put up much of the money to rebuild the Catholic Church and many other buildings.
But the most fun story of charitable giving comes from William O'Brien. And since Drew was about to tell you some great stories about the historic saloons in Virginia City, it's fitting that we
end the first half of the episode on a story set in a saloon.
William O'Brien and James Flood were the stockbrokers of the Bonanza Kings,
and they spent most of their lives in San Francisco. Before O'Brien died in 1879,
he liked to spend his afternoons in McGovern's Tavern on Kearney Street.
He played poker endlessly and chatted with friends. And
while he did so, a stack of silver dollars sat next to him on the table. It was common knowledge
that if a regular customer fell on hard times and needed some help, he could take a silver dollar to
get by. When the dollars began to run low, O'Brien would hand a $20 gold piece to the bartender and tell him to replenish the supply.
And now here's Drew to bring the story all the way up to present day.
You'll hear about one of the first saloons owned and operated by an African-American entrepreneur.
The Great Fire of 1875 that might have been caused by a woman named Crazy Kate.
The decline after the Big
Bonanza finally ended, and a whole lot more.
As big as it was, the Comstock Load was not the first Big Bonanza in the Old West.
Stock Lode was not the first big bonanza in the Old West. Just 11 years earlier, Sutter's Mill would launch the Great California Gold Rush, ushering the area quickly into statehood and
bringing hundreds and thousands of people to America's Pacific coast in search of wealth
beyond their wildest dreams. Late to the game were three brothers from Bisharu, Germany.
John, Henry, and Joseph Piper arrived in San Francisco in 1850,
and it was the eldest brother, John, who took up the responsibility for providing for the family in this brand new world.
He opened up a fruit and vegetable stand near Portsmouth Square to help the family get their feet on the ground.
It wouldn't be until the late summer of 1860
before the lure of riches would take the brothers away
from their adopted home in San Francisco
to the foot of the eastern slope of Mount Davidson.
When they arrived, they found themselves way behind
those 10,000 other prospectors who
had already made claims in Gold Hill and Virginia City.
The Pipers probably didn't realize at the time, but the silver of the Comstock load
was not something that you could easily pan.
It would take heavy machinery and innovation, and there were already some 17,000 claims
ahead of them.
But being the industrious entrepreneur that he was, John quickly realized that if the
family was going to succeed in Virginia City, it wasn't going to come from the mines, but
instead from supporting the miners.
And it makes one wonder if John Piper's example may have been the inspiration
for Mark Twain's famous quote, during the gold rush, it's a good time to be in the picks and
shovels business. John knew that the best way to loosen the dollars from those miners' hands
was to provide them with a hot meal, a cold beer, and a place for after-hours camaraderie.
So Piper laid down his money for a plot of land on B Street in the burgeoning commercial
district and he built a saloon.
The old corner bar ended up turning quite a profit for John and his business partner
brother Henry.
Even with more than 40 saloons as established competition by 1861,
the brothers' business flourished. They themselves became quite the men about town.
As successful saloon keepers with a stellar reputation, it wouldn't be long before Henry
would find himself earning a place in Nevada's new territorial government
as an assemblyman.
And John would serve as an alderman and then as the mayor of Virginia City before finally
going on to becoming a state senator.
And their skills at loosening a portion of those $4 a day union wages from the miners'
hands?
Well, that would pad their pockets enough that they'd be
able to purchase an entire block in the northwest corner of B and Union Streets.
It wouldn't be long before Virginia City would feature over 100 saloons for its more
than 15,000 inhabitants.
While that may seem like an inordinate amount of drinking establishments, one of
the main reasons for so many saloons was due to the Comstock's notoriously bad water supply.
Any good water that came from local wells was being diverted to mining activities. With
miners dying by the day from bad drinking water, a mug of beer or a shot of whiskey or gin
became a critical substitute.
With the immense amount of wealth that was coming out of the ground and the miners'
steady wages, there was a change happening in the Comstock.
Miners began bringing their families to Virginia City.
The stretch between Silver City and Virginia City
was soon filling up with permanent housing.
With wives and children around,
the men suddenly needed to diversify their leisure activities.
And out of this need came the Howard Street Theater.
Boasting a thousand seats, it provided a venue for plays, music, and poetry.
It was followed by the Melodian in early 1861, and then Top Life's and several others in
1862. And then the ultimate in upscale entertainment was finally realized when Tom McGuire built the city's first opera house.
The opening was such a glorious event that even Mark Twain left his new assignment in San Francisco to attend the premiere.
The inaugural show just happened to feature one of the best actors of the day,
Edwin Booth, the brother of the soon-to-be presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
Having found success during the rougher years of the Comstock, John Piper was well aware that those
days were heading into the past, that the only way to survive in the evolving atmosphere
was to make his mark in the entertainment arena.
So he and his brother Henry purchased McGuire's Opera House.
They helped it become the most famous Victorian-era theater in Nevada.
Under the Piper's guidance,
the theater featured crowd-pleasing lectures from
the likes of Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony, as well as dog shows, comedy troupes, and
theatrical plays, including performances by America's most famous actor Frank Mayo playing
Davy Crockett. Even Italian opera troops would cross the Atlantic and Pacific
and perform at Piper's Opera House.
But to the residents of the Comstock,
you wouldn't find anything to compete with a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Tickets to that play would be an unheard of $1.50 per performance.
It never stopped the show from selling out.
And what was truly unique about the Comstock
was that everyone was welcome.
In an era that saw the Irish being scowled
during America's anti-immigration movement,
Irish productions and poetry sessions
were held frequently at the Piper.
John Piper would go on to become one of the most influential theater owners in the West
and ran numerous theaters in Reno, Truckee, Carson City, and San Francisco.
He even maintained his own traveling troupe.
His brother Henry would become what is called a box herder.
His brother Henry would become what is called a box herder.
His job was to handle the drunk women and minors who would be whooping it up at the Piper performances.
As the money poured in, the brothers would invest again in another saloon,
this one called the Figaro, which was placed at the corner of C and Union streets. Having survived the
downturn in the economy during the late 1860s and early 1870s, the brothers were
ready for Virginia City's second act as the big bonanza was about to throw silly
amounts of money into C Street saloons and entertainment venues.
Just a block down the hill from the future Figaro,
William A.G. Brown was using his funds from his first successful Virginia City saloon to move from the outskirts of town to a more centralized location near the corner of D
Streets and Union. It was here that he would create one of the most upscale saloons in the city,
naming it the Boston Saloon as a nod to his hometown in Massachusetts.
During the archaeological dig in 1997, it was the discovery of the Boston Saloon remnants under the parking lot of the Bucket of Blood Saloon that became one of the most exciting finds of the venture.
During the excavation, there were some amazing artifacts that were found.
Artifacts that you wouldn't expect to find in a
western mining town saloon. French champagne bottles, a bottle of Gordon's London dry gin,
imported European water bottles, a newly patented gas light system, a trendy tin ceiling,
system, the trendy tin ceiling, stemware, ladies dress beads, oyster shells, and bones that signified the serving of high quality meats.
They even found an empty bottle of Tabasco sauce, a product that would only be introduced
to the market just a few years earlier.
The archaeologists knew that all of these artifacts dated back directly to the Big
Bonanza. You may be asking yourself how they knew this. It's mainly because the Boston shut its
doors in 1874 when Mr. Brown decided to retire, and then the building burned down a few months later.
But the most extraordinary thing about this particular saloon is what it said
about Virginia City. You see, William Brown was not only a successful entrepreneur, he was a black
man. If you're a listener of the Whiskey Lore podcast, well, you're well aware of our episode
about James Bond and Frank Sinatra, where I talk
about how in the 1950s, Las Vegas was segregated, forcing Sammy Davis Jr. to be placed in the
back room of a restaurant away from the white customers.
But Nevada in those early years was much freer and more diverse.
In fact, it held such a strong anti-slavery sentiment that Abraham Lincoln
rushed to have them admitted as a state before the 1864 election to help him win enough electoral
votes in anti-slave states. In fact, it was so last minute that the 16,500-word state constitution
had to be sent by telegram over two full days of tapping out Morse code.
So why was the mix of ethnicities working so well in Virginia City?
Well, if you think about it, black, Irish, Europeans, and white Americans all had to work day in and day out, shoulder to shoulder in those mines.
Union wages or not, it was a dangerous life.
Race was likely much less important than knowing that the guy next to you had your back.
William Brown's first business, after arriving from Massachusetts in 1862 was running a
shoeshine stand. Not long after he used the money from that venture to open up
his first saloon, the Boston on B Street, with the hopes of catering to the tastes of
other black men. Just like the Pipers, he realized that families and diversity
were the future, so he made his way from the
edge of town to the busy commercial district.
His clientele was predominantly African American, but all races were welcome, and they co-mingled.
They did have poker and other games at the Boston, but it was apparently never a rowdy
scene.
and other games at the Boston, but it was apparently never a rowdy scene. In fact, the only incident ever reported in the Territorial Enterprise was the discharging
of a gun in August of 1866.
The story goes as follows.
A gunshot pierced the smoky air in the small Boomtown saloon. It came from the poker table where all but
one of the players sprang to their feet. One of the players writhed on the floor as blood
spilled from his leg. But the shot was an accident caused by a pistol falling from someone's
lap and discharging when it hit the floor. Though his leg was sore for a while, the victim survived.
And while this single story may not have been the only incident at the Boston,
the lack of stories shows that this place had a reputation for civility.
In fact, Mark Twain even made specific remarks to that effect.
The other item of note is that even though the place was upscale, the Old West habit
of keeping your pistol nearby was still a necessity.
It wasn't unusual for someone to jump from behind a building and force a gun to your
head as you were coming home from a night on the town in Virginia City.
Now, William's decision to get out of the saloon business is a curious one. Perhaps his goal all along was to make just enough money to be able to buy his own land and settle down.
That is just what he did. As it turns out, not a moment too soon.
The devastating news shot all across the Sierras and down to the Pacific coast.
In its October 28th edition, the Sacramento Daily Union told the grisly tale of what happened to Virginia City.
According to the story, a woman of ill repute named Kate Shea, or Crazy Kate,
had apparently left a candle burning in the night, as was her nature to do.
Within minutes of a neighbor spotting a strange glow emanating from her A Street house, the boarding house went up like a tinderbox.
And nature spurred on this disastrous scene by supplying bursts of wind that were firing
down from the peaks of Mount Davidson.
It didn't take long for the flames to engulf a large number of wooden structures along
the way.
Within minutes, it moved down from A Street to B Street.
Panicked store owners broke their own windows
and implored people to take whatever they could
because there was no way they could save their shops.
Flames rose hundreds of feet in the air.
The air was thick with the sounds of screams and explosions.
As each new building caught ablaze, the ground was set to shake from those explosions.
Over two-thirds of the city was leveled.
Nearly 200 stores were lost and over 3,000 people became homeless within hours of the
inception of this dreadful event. The Virginia City community was at a total loss.
No one knew how long this cleanup or revival of the city was going to take.
But one thing was for sure, with the continuing boom of profitable ore coming out from the mines,
nobody was contemplating leaving Virginia City.
Some of those explosions that were heard on that terrible day were likely the countless
saloons filled with their own form of lighter fluid.
The abandoned Boston and the Figaro were both lost, as was the Piper Opera House on D Street. Only the brick and stone structures seemed
to remain intact.
And while Mr. Brown had the good fortune of escaping the disaster through perfect timing,
others weren't so lucky. And the Washoe Club was one of them. Just three months earlier,
the newly minted club that was built for the town's elite had just put the final touches on their fancy B Street headquarters.
The Washoe's membership included a who's who of the Comstock load, as well as actor Edwin Booth and General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant.
Rebuilding would take time.
Rebuilding would take time. The money was raised, and it wouldn't be long before the Territorial Enterprise was boasting that the new Washoe Club was even grander than the old.
Although in full disclosure, the owner of the enterprise, Mr. R.M. Daggett, was actually one of the charter members of the club.
The Washoe survived the booms and busts of Virginia City, and a visit to the Washoe Millionaires
Club today will yield not only a chance to catch a glimpse of the opulence of yesteryear,
the two secret doors in the back will tell a tale of other extracurriculars that the
wives of these money men might not have approved of.
As for the other saloons that were present before the Great Fire of 1875,
well, the majority of the names and reputations have unfortunately disappeared into history.
Only a few of them carried over and flourished again.
The Delta Saloon was the first one to be rebuilt.
The bucket of blood followed shortly after.
The Irish, who comprised about one-third of the town's population,
opened several of their own saloons after the fire,
and some of them were excavated during the Great Dig of 1997 including O'Brien's and Costello's one of the rougher areas was the Barbary
coast where the shooting gallery was just what you would think it was place
to fire off your guns and let loose with some drink some gambling and likely you
might find a few ladies of the night.
As for the Pipers, well, they were pretty lucky. The brick structure that had the safe that housed
their family fortune, that was spared. Not long after, they would rebuild the opera house and
the old corner bar. However, the opera house would unfortunately burn one more time in the 1880s before it
was moved permanently to its current location at B Street and Union Street next to the still
functioning bar.
The rebuilt Opera House would see a whole new generation of performers like Buffalo
Bill, William Jennings Bryan, John Philip Sousa,
and Al Jolson.
As for other people's money, some of it was spared.
Even though the Bank of California had succumbed to the flames, the vault survived.
And today, that location houses the Ponderosa Saloon, where you can not only view the old
vault itself, but also see a recreation of the mine shafts of yesteryear.
The Comstock load slowly dwindled in the remaining years of the 1870s, and while it remained
a viable source of silver, it was no longer a lucrative one.
By the end of the century, William Brown and the Pipers had passed away.
The 1920s would see the opera house shuttered and condemned.
Virginia City and its small residential community would live amongst the ghosts of Comstock's past.
It wouldn't be until the fictional Cartwright family of Ben, Little Joe,
Hoss, and Adam hit NBC primetime with a show called Bonanza before a curiosity about Virginia's city would renew.
Although even that couldn't save the old shooting gallery, which was knocked down in 1967.
But today, Virginia City is a bustling tourist town,
sometimes playing up the old West stereotypes,
but always embracing remnants of her mining exploits, along with her cosmopolitan past and place in literary
history.
You no longer have to worry about the quality of whiskey you might encounter when you visit
a place like the Red Dog, Washoe, or Old Corner Bar.
And you're likely not to bump into any card games unless you head to the Mark Twain Casino.
But the Piper's Opera House is still operating. It did have a long
road back, spending some of its life as a museum, but today it's a fully functioning performing arts
center. Virginia City was a fascinating place for Chris and I to start our journey of stories about
whiskey in the old west. It might just be the most misunderstood boomtown of the
era definitely was much more multi-layered than i ever expected well i hope you enjoyed our
presentation and make sure that you keep up with the legends of the old west and whiskey lore
podcasts as we head down more dusty trails and find more of the best stories and saloons in the Old West.
Thanks for listening to this two-part series on the history and whiskey of Virginia City.
The collaboration with Drew and Whiskey Lore
has been a fun experiment.
We're still refining the process,
but we'll be back with more of these combos down the road.
Next time on Legends of the Old West,
it'll be a bonus episode to finish off the year.
It's my annual interview with New York Times
best-selling author Craig Johnson
about his newest novel in the Walt Longmire mystery series.
That's next week.
And then the week after that, members of our Black Barrel Plus premium listening program
will receive the entire series on Texas Ranger Frank Hamer and an exclusive bonus episode.
Sign up now through our website or the link in the show notes of this episode.
These stories were researched and written by Drew Hanisch and myself.
Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison.
I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer.
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