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 canvas

tents. 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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