Books in the Mister Moffat series

Mister Moffats Hill tells the story of railroading over Rollins Pass, the highest road in North America. The time is 1903-1906 and Colorado is the setting. A historical novel, it describes the lives of people and actual occurrences. Courage, greed, passion, and grit are shown by the characters, fictional and historical. The local business climate, is also part of the story. A mining scheme of dubious quality is promoted and exposed along the way. Both the railroad and the mine scheme are fact. Real and fictional characters bring the stories to life.

For America, the twenties were boom times. New ideas and inventions cascaded almost daily. Anything was possible.There were challenges. Running trains over the highest route in North America, Rollins Pass, was costly and difficult. The effort had bankrupted several railroads. David Moffat dreamed of building a tunnel under the continental divide in 1902. By the twenties, it was badly needed. Charity Hovus, Cam Braun, Dale Smertz, and their cohorts planned and built the tunnel. They encountered unprecedented geological and hydrological problems; new techniques and inventions helped complete the job. Alongside the construction work, some of them assemble and sell creative and unregulated financial products.During this time, Americans' wealth increased. Making money became an obsession for many. There was mining: minerals were taken from the earth to make things. And there was mining: money taken from investors to make a killing.This is the story of how Coloradans came together to successfully finance and build a major project. And some of the era's unexpected outcomes.