How Colorado’s prize gold nugget ended up mislabeled as dinosaur bones in a bank vault

Wikimedia Commons/James St. John

Tom’s Baby: Colorado’s Vanishing 13.5-Pound Gold Nugget

In 1887, miners Tom Groves and Harry Lytton struck gold in Breckenridge—literally. They blasted into a pocket 90 feet below ground and found a massive 13.

5-pound gold nugget. Fearing theft, Groves wrapped it in a blanket and held it like a baby on their walk to town, thus giving it a name: “Tom’s Baby.

” After a brief parade through town, the nugget went to Denver but strangely vanished for 85 years…

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