I went to Goldfield Arizona the other day. Which used to be full of gold. There are still some mines up ther, but they are privately owned. You can see a picture of me here.

There is a lot of gold mining in Goldfield, Arizona, which inspired many men to go gold mining during the 1800`s. Right next to the town in the Superstition Mountains, where the Lost Duchman`s Gold Mine is supposedly hidden. That has to be one of the most famous gold mine legends of the American wild West.

With the ratio of men to women at 1,800:1, there was bound to be a lot of prostitution going on. The average age of a man was 35- so young to die. It was a legal profession back in the day, but I can`t imagine working there. I am currently reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, and he really puts a light on what drives a woman to become a prostitute. They really are people. Fantine, a main character in the book, became a prostitute after she was fired from her job, and could no longer support her beautiful, fatherless, child Cosette. Fantine loved the father of her child with all her heart, and “she treated him like she would a husband.” He was not as devoted to her however, and left her with child and without support.

Also in this ex-town was the birth of THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC. Which, by the way, is a very good newspaper. Back in the day it was known as the Arizona Republican…they still stick to their conservative roots, even though they get most of their articles from the Associated Press. AP is the organizatin that I want to work for.

Phoenix at the time was a small town of about 2,000 at the time, while this town was home to 5,000. Goldfield was rightly the biggest town in Arizona, and made the state capitol. Phoenix was actually called Pumpkinville. As in the orange squash pumpkin. That`s a pretty dumb name and I`m glad that they changed it. Pumpkinville Police Department? OOOhhh, I`m really going to be scared to commit a crime there! What are they going to do, shoot a pumpkin at me?