ERIKA SIMMS
EDITOR & WRITER
Erika Simms was born in Anchorage, Alaska, where she grew up hiking and camping with her family in the vast wilderness of the Chugach Mountains and national parks across the state. When she was seven, her family relocated to the Pacific Northwest and their outdoor adventures continued. Erika attended the University of Washington, launched her career in the tech industry, and met her Colorado native husband, who eventually convinced her to trade rain for sunshine. She relocated with him to Colorado in 2010 and fell in love with the state’s vibrant culture and natural landscapes.
How a 1906 dynamite explosion in the Three Jacks mine tunnel near Cripple Creek exposed a sinister plot of greed, grave robbing, and fraud.
A wild-tempered desperado known as Edward “Looney” terrorized Colorado in the mid-1800s. The prizefighter outwitted death more times than he should have until a mysterious avenger settled the score in an Erie saloon.
The unusual circumstances behind a chance encounter between a janitor, a newspaper reporter, a postmaster, and officials from the Denver Mint in the winter of 1912.
How a one-legged burglar with a working man’s grit used a trick prosthetic to slip through the wheels of justice in boomtown Leadville.
Colorado frontiersmen danced with death in mountain lion territory. Their harrowing tales of stealthy ambushes and midnight attacks are enough to make anyone shudder.
An 1880s cave exploration near Crested Butte uncovered a forgotten stash of stolen gold, antique revolvers, and the skeletal remains of the outlaws who left it all behind.