Christopher Wanliss is an American, who has become a millionaire through what he calls “bulldoze investing”. He currently owns properties all over the world that are extremely valuable, yet do not require any digging or panning. Christopher Wanliss came into the real estate game by way of inheritance. He had simply bought his dream house at auction and was quite excited about the fact that he now had his parcel of land. The house was exactly what he always dreamed it would be and so much more.
One day, however, he was walking along his parcel of land one day and suddenly had a change of heart. It seemed like the unthinkable, but then again, it wasn’t so unthinkable. On another day he went out again, but this time, instead of going for a drive, he decided to take some time and look around. What he found was that there were several other people who had purchased their new property “on the edge” of town, in the same area as Wanliss’. They were all staying in brand new, luxurious houses, all with attractive views of the Strip.
As it turned out, the other individuals who had bought their houses on the edge of town were none other than Christopher Wanliss, the millionaire who had sold his first property, and the real estate agent that sold him his second. At first, Christopher was mystified as to why two people who never really spent any time together, would suddenly decide to make a purchase in Las Vegas, which is typically where they wanted to spend their money. He didn’t even have a clue as to what had happened between them before, but now he knew who these people were, and what had prompted them to go out of their way to buy their new houses on the edge of town.
After discovering that this group of individuals truly did want to purchase some property outside of Las Vegas, he set out to discover why they were choosing such an area. He returned to the office of his real estate agent, confronted Thomasine, and asked for permission to take a few steps into the mine fields surrounding the town. Thomasine saw the potential problem for Christopher but didn’t have the heart to tell him that the prospect of walking through the dark, inhospitable mines and staring up at thousands of feet of collapsing walls was probably not a very pleasant experience. So, instead of asking permission to enter the tunnels, he and his associate decided to walk the twenty-one miles back to the Strip using their flashlight. They had been walking for close to an hour when a curious-looking man that seemed to be out of breath came up to them and asked if they would like to try walking the “wall.”
Walking the wall required a lot of strength, as the further you went, the further back you got, until you finally came to a point where you could see the light from the surface. There was something about this flashlight that was instantly recognizable. The people that owned these mine fields were not trying to keep their workers from entering or stealing the gold that was waiting below. They were simply trying to create as much light as they could so that they could see their work better. And they were very successful at it too; there was no way anyone could sneak past them with just a flashlight.
After experiencing this strange and enlightening encounter with all these abandoned gold mines, Christopher Wanliss felt that he needed to document everything that he saw and heard. So, he bought a motorcycle, headed towards California to visit his old college friend, Rudall. When they arrived, though, they were not expecting to see a forty-five-year-old man with cancer. They quickly noticed that the man’s eyes were bulging from behind his glasses, that his voice had gotten deeper, and that he wobbled slightly when he spoke. But nothing seemed to bother him; in fact, when they took him to his apartment for lunch, he barely recognized himself.
The professor mentioned that this sort of thing had happened many times in his career, and that he had been sure that it was a case of amnesia. But Christopher Wanliss had no use for that theory. He and Rudall soon discovered that all the previous workers that had worked in the tunnel were dead. No bodies were ever found, but a strange metallic substance had been found in one of the mines, and this substance turned out to be the main cause of the illnesses that had plagued the workers for so long. The mystery of what killed all of those men deep inside the tunnels still puzzles modern researchers to this day.
Christopher Wanliss saw the opportunity in this mine to really understand gold mining better than anyone else had. His reputation as a journalist had made him a wanted man, so he grabbed on to the opportunity with both hands. Eventually he and Rudall made it out of the mines unscathed, but the stories they had written would forever be remembered as the basis for legends and tales to this day. Christopher Wanliss’s death would only cement his legend, but the work he did in the gold mine of Rudall’s was just as important.
