Sam Strong: Cripple Creek’s Notorious Millionaire

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One hundred years ago, on August 22, 1901, the sound of gunfire shattered the cool morning air of Cripple Creek, Colorado. The Newport Saloon fell silent. Its roulette wheel ceased to click, and the clang of the slot machines stopped. Behind the cigar case stood Grant Crumley, part owner of the saloon. In his hand, he gripped a smoking sawed-off shotgun. Millionaire mine owner Sam Strong lay at his feet.

Blood pooled where Strong fell. The right side of his scalp and skull torn loose by the shotgun pellets, he lay unconscious and mortally wounded. His father-in-law, John Neville, rushed across the street to a phone and called Dr. F.J. Crane, who was also the mayor. Strong was taken to his in-laws’ house, and Marshal Bruce Brass took Crumley to jail. From his cell, Crumley requested a cigar, some whiskey and his attorney, J. Reid Crowell. He said little else.

Sam Strong died two hours later. In the August 23 issue of the Colorado Springs Evening Mail, Mayor Crane ran a decree on the front page. He publicly denounced Strong and all other gamblers for the common practice of carrying concealed weapons, saying: ‘I believe that in a community so well governed as Cripple Creek, where warrants are worth 100 cents on the dollar, any person who carries a gun or other dangerous weapon concealed on his person is either a coward, a bully or an outlaw.’ Crane ordered that all gambling houses in Cripple Creek be closed and that ‘all persons carrying concealed weapons quit said practice.’

Nearly 8,000 people came to Lampman’s funeral parlor to view Strong’s body. The big man’s head wound was hidden by his dark hair, but his thick mustache did little to conceal the small marks made by the scatter shot. The shooting was the talk of the town, and two stories emerged. Strong’s father-in-law and gambling buddies told anyone willing to listen that Strong and Crumley had teased each other and argued throughout the night. While Strong drew his gun a couple of times, he’d been convinced to put it back. They insisted that the gun lay nestled in Strong’s coat pocket when Crumley pulled the riot gun’s trigger.

Friends and employees of Crumley took the stance that Strong had threatened Crumley repeatedly throughout the night. They told how Strong knew Crumley was armed and still had advanced toward him. In their minds and words, Crumley shot in self-defense. The jury agreed, acquitting Crumley on November 7, 1901. The matter disappeared from the local papers.

Was Crumley truly protecting himself from a bear of a man bent on bodily harm? Or was Crumley part of a plan to get rid of Sam Strong, a plan that capitalized on the 37-year-old millionaire’s predictable behavior to make him an easy victim?

Sam Strong was born on January 11, 1864, the seventh of Adley and Drucilla (Curry) Strong’s nine children. Adley Strong, a blacksmith with the Ohio 7th Light Infantry during the Civil War, contracted typhoid fever at Tennessee Landing, Pa., an illness that plagued him the rest of his life. Sam came into the world less than a year after Adley’s medical discharge.

Hardships were nothing new to Adley and Drucilla. They had eloped, and her father refused to speak to them. Their first two children had died before age 5. Adley’s illness seemed just one more trial to endure. Before the war, Drucilla made sure her boys got a good education, and two of them went on to college–eldest son George got a mechanical engineering degree, and William studied architecture.

Things changed drastically in the Strong household, though, when Drucilla contracted tuberculosis. Eldest daughter Samantha, now married, returned home to fill the role of caretaker for her mother. On January 12, 1874, the day after Sam’s 10th birthday, Drucilla died. Throughout Ohio’s Vinton and Meigs counties, families struggled against disease, weather and low property values. The Strong family barely got by. Samantha also developed TB. Three years later, she died.

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