Idaho & Alaska: Gold Fever and the Men Who Killed for It

Billy Wimbish - was born around 1859. A Black man who made his life in the Alaska Interior, Wimbish earned respect among the miners of the Fairbanks district. In 1906, he served as lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against mine owner D.H. Cascaden on Cleary Creek. Judge James Wickersham ruled in the miners' favor, finding Cascaden liable for all wages owed. That legal victory, won in Alaska Territory as a Black man against a white mine owner, defined the kind of man Wimbish was.

Lloyd Magruder - was born in 1825 in Maryland, descended from a Scottish ancestor who arrived as a prisoner of war in 1653. He served in the Mexican War, rising from private to second lieutenant. After a stint in California politics representing Sacramento in the State Assembly, Magruder moved to Lewiston, Idaho Territory, in July 1862. He built a mercantile store and a pack train operation in a frontier capital still called "Ragtown" for its canvastents. He had a wife named Caroline and three children.

Idaho and Alaska. 1863 and 1910. Two murders separated by forty-seven years and two thousand miles, connected by gold and the calculation that it was worth more than a man. In Idaho, a merchant named Lloyd Magruder loaded a fortune onto pack mules and trusted the wrong men. In Alaska, a miner named Billy Wimbish disappeared from his claim, and the system did not look for him. Both cases were solved not by authorities but by friends who refused to stop searching. This is the story of gold fever and what it cost.

Season 40: Two hundred and fifty years of American history. Fifty states. Fifty crimes. Two per episode, paired by what connects them.

This episode contains discussions of murder, violence, and the destruction of human remains. Crisis resources are listed at the end of these notes.

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