Blackwater Gulch Background

By Jonathan Peace

Every town has a story, and every story has a beginning.

Old Man Cooter was both to the once quiet town of Blackwater Gulch. Sat under the shadow of Marble Mountain, his cabin was a ramshackle thing. It shook under a strong wind, groaning with each shake but like its owner it had stood against time and the elements. Just five miles out of town, Old Man Cooter had claimed there was gold both in the deep, fast flowing azure blue of the river after which the town was named, as well as in the caverns deep beneath Marble Mountain.

And he had been right. The gold was found, and the killing began. Back then the little settlement was known simply as Victory Falls. Named after the azure blue of the river that ran down from Marble Mountain and out through the cliffs and canyons, giving life to the pine woods, Victory Falls was a haven for those that sought a new life.

It was only when Cooter came back from the mountain with the yellow rock that people began to flock to the shanty town. Almost overnight, gambling dens, brothels and storehouses sprang up as more and more people flocked from around the world to Victory Falls for their own greedy reasons. Gunslingers came to find a name, husslers to make more money. Hooligans and thugs,  Outlaws and Fortune Seekers. The good were soon outnumbered by the bad.

The elite reside in Uptown, looking down from on high while below, in Downtown people fight for the scraps thrown to them.

Years of mining have also affected the landscape. Just as the good people became tainted by the dregs of morality, so the waters of Victory Falls became infected by dirt and oil and so Blackwater Gulch was borne.

With greed comes violence. With violence comes death, and death certainly walks the streets and back-alleys of Blackwater Gulch. There isn’t a day goes by that doesn’t end with a body in a box and a widows tears on the ground.

Law is afraid to walk Blackwater Gulch…

… are you?