Gold! Boom town to ghost town, from over 80,000 people to 1,000. Gone are the days of women flirting with the men running the trains, hoping they'll toss her some coal for her woodstove. No more are the days of men traipsing to the bar after another harrowing shift mining gold hundreds, or thousands, of feet underground while those who remained above wondered and worried what was happening far below their feet. Told in their own words, these are the stories of the "topside," and those who lived in The World's Greatest Gold Camp during the time of its decline. No one was exempt from the tragedy and elation of a life where the influence of gold cast an all encompassing shadow. None escaped the harsh lifestyle that accompanied living at high elevation in the Colorado mountains. This book preserves treasured history from the American West and the hard, but loved, way of life as remembered by those who lived it. A complimentary book to Hardrock Man - Whispers of the Cripple Creek District Underground, which details first-hand accounts of mining underground. Hardrock Man is published by Western Reflections Publishing.