During the 1890s, a newspaper in Aspen, Colorado, shared the curious account of a tenacious mining dog named Calamity, who captured the hearts of the men working the nearby Smuggler Mine after narrowly escaping countless calamitous encounters.
Boasting a pedigree of one-tenth Scottish terrier and nine-tenths everything else, the mixed-breed mutt spent his days trotting about the Smuggler Mine, serving as a “boon companion” to the miners. His given name was Fido, a popular choice for dogs at the time, thanks to its association with Abraham Lincoln’s dog Fido. But after watching the hound miraculously survive one harrowing incident after another, the miners took to calling him Calamity.
Calamity’s first triumph over fate came in 1892 while he was sniffing around the railway tracks leading out of the mineshaft for the Smuggler Mine. Unbeknownst to the unsuspecting pup, a mine cart loaded with heavy ore was coming to the surface from deep inside the mine. When the cart dumped its considerable haul, Calamity was standing beneath it. The dog was buried completely in the unprocessed ore but managed to dig his way out with minor bruises.
Calamity’s next near-death experience came the following year while wandering across the Aspen Branch Bridge, a railroad bridge built by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad to tap into the silver mines around Aspen. A switcher locomotive crossing the bridge knocked Calamity over the edge and into the Roaring Fork River below. That should have been the last of the unlucky pup, but Calamity survived the fall, floated a mile downriver, and limped his way back to town.
Soon after his unplanned swim in the Roaring Fork, Calamity tangled with fate yet again while crossing the Castle Creek Bridge, built for wagons to transport people and ore to and from the silver mines. A mule-drawn passenger wagon that didn’t see the mutt ambling down the rough wooden planks kicked him off the bridge and into the creek below. Fortunately for Calamity, the splash broke his fall and he paddled to shore unharmed. Undaunted, the dog crossed the bridge again, only to get run over by an ore wagon. He survived that incident too.
A few months later, Calamity made the hazardous mistake of feasting on a varied assortment of rat poison, quicklime, and the toxic pigment Paris Green. The mutt grew deathly ill from his noxious meal, but pulled through after a little “energetic doctoring” from the miner who found him in his sickened state.
Once Calamity’s insides healed, he celebrated his newfound health by falling 65 feet down the mineshaft of the Smuggler Mine. Everyone thought Calamity was a goner this time and his body wasn’t even looked for. But after three days imprisonment at the bottom of the shaft, Calamity crawled painfully into the mine elevator and came to the surface with a broken rib. To the miners’ amazement, three days of rest and rations were all it took to make the indestructible hound new again.
As Calamity’s daring escapes piled up, the miners from the Smuggler Mine swore his presence brought them good luck. They named the pup their mascot and made him a special collar to commemorate his many lives.
