A recent game of “Jeopardy!” — game No. 25 for super-champion Jamie Ding — tested players’ knowledge of the Four Corners states, including a clue about a ghost town in Utah.
A Utah ghost town gets a ‘Jeopardy!’ shoutout
Ding, a law student from New Jersey who just won his 28th “Jeopardy!” game, landed on a $600 clue about a Utah ghost town during a game last week.
The clue: “Ghost towns in Utah and New Mexico are both called this, also a nickname they don’t love in The City by the Bay.”
Ding buzzed in with the correct response — “What is Frisco?”
Frisco, located 15 miles from Milford in Beaver County, was a mining town that stemmed from the discovery of silver in Utah’s San Francisco Mountains in 1875, as the Deseret News previously reported.
At its peak, nearly 6,000 people lived in the town — which had more than 20 saloons, brothels and gambling halls. The prosperity came to a halt due to a catastrophic cave-in of the area’s most productive mine, and by 1920, the town was abandoned, per Deseret News.
Highlights of the area still on display include the town cemetery and beehive-shaped stone kilns that are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Will Jamie Ding break Ken Jennings’ record?
As has become a common occurrence throughout his run, Ding ended up winning the game by a landslide.
On Tuesday, he won his 28th game and has earned a total of $774,601.
Those stats place him at No. 5 for both most consecutive games won and highest winnings in regular season play. He’s also now in the top 10 for all-time winnings on the show.
Early on in his run, during his third game, Ding correctly answered 45 clues — tying a record with Ken Jennings for most correct responses in a game.
Ding is also steadily inching his way toward Jennings’ staggering record of 74 consecutive wins — a record that remains untouched 22 years later. Jennings also remains No. 1 for highest winnings in regular season play ($2.52 million) per the “Jeopardy!” Leaderboard of Legends.
During a recent “Jeopardy!” taping, Jennings told the studio audience he “would be very excited” if Ding beat his record of 74 wins.
“I’m of course perfectly impartial every game, but I actually believe that my record can be beaten,” he said in a clip shared on the official “Jeopardy!” Instagram. “I just hope I am hosting when it happens.”