Someone Else's Jack: True Stories of Grit, Gumption and Gambles that Transformed America

If only a believer would scratch my back, someone else's jack is all I lack. I can hit pay dirt with someone else's stash, maybe a dear spinster or crass gambler with cash?

Someone Else's Jack is the third installment in Don's three-volume San Juans treasure hunt. Developing a bonanza silver mine would require not only high-grade ore, it would require attracting someone else's jack (money, that is). If complex geology was not worrisome enough, epic societal changes complicating America's twentieth-century expansion surely were. An exploding immigrant population, often-violent labor disputes, World War I, the deadliest pandemic in modern history, America's greatest depression and highest rate of inflation -- revolutionary technologies that were more appealing investments than silver mines -- overshadowed both mining prospects and the quest for more cash. Seen through the eyes of ordinary men and women who managed to live extraordinary lives through these extraordinary times, Someone Else's Jack offers the reader fresh insight into the daily hardships, victories, and suspense of hard rock mining in the remote San Juans. An added bonus is fresh insight into what became known as "American exceptionalism."