And what is it that they're going and looking for?

The people who are drawn to the Phoenix gold mine.

What are they hoping to find in there?

They're looking for the Tommy Knockers.

These are these sort of weird kind of mountain trolley, gobliny, elfin, leprerecon-ish creatures.

They dwell in the mountains, in the mines, and they are maybe friendly.

They're maybe not friendly, but they are this, like, folk legend or urban legend that

miners pass from one to another.

And the Idaho Springs mine, the Phoenix mine happens to be next to the Tommy Knocker

Brewery and Pub, where they've kind of crystallized this in the form of a restaurant that

sort of proudly proclaims his heritage.

And that's how you get a roadside tourist attraction on the map.

I'm not goinguris, and this is Atlas Supskira,

celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, a friend of the show, Colin Dickie, is on.

Colin, of course, is an expert on all things, monster, ghost, paranormal, but also things about

sort of the strange bubbling of American culture, of how these things come about, why they

exist and where they come from. So today, uh, we are talking with the tummy-kniters. And you're going to be

with us every Thursday this October, right? This is doing like four of these. Heck yeah.

We're going to get as many monsters and ghosts and other weird things as we can while the

getting is good. What is the original conception of the Tommy Knockers?

It's a weird legend.

...