The Valley of Lost Hope is a lost 1915 American silent Western drama film directed by and starring Romaine Fielding. Produced by Lubin Manufacturing Company and written by Shannon Fife, the film portrayed the rise and destruction of a gold-mining "boomtown" created by a phony real-estate business. Other cast members included Peter Lang, Mildred Gregory, and B. K. Roberts in principal roles. The production was filmed on location in Philipsburg in central Pennsylvania and at Lubin's backlot and studio facilities in Betzwood, located approximately 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Plot

This lost film's storyline was set in the Western region of the United States in the late nineteenth century. Production reports and reviews published in trade publications and newspapers in the final weeks of 1914 and during 1915, describe it portraying the schemes of a "get-rich-quick" confidence man named James Ewing (Peter Lang). He, assisted by two promoters, poses as a real estate broker who circulates false reports of rich gold deposits in a barren, deserted valley. To enhance his lies, Ewing places small amounts of gold on the land that he and his associates had purchased, "salting" some rocks on the property with flecks of the precious metal. He then lures people to buy parcels of the worthless land at inflated prices. Many men and women are duped by Ewing's sales pitches, and a "boomtown" rises in the valley as more speculators and gold prospectors rush into the area, along with saloonkeepers, gamblers, grocers, and other merchants who hope to profit off the outbreak of gold fever.