Nevada\u27s Dead Towns. A New Country Thickly Strewn with Ruins of Mining Towns-How Capital has been Squandered. Roving Tendencies of Miners-Wonderful Energy of Mining Men. (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.)

NEVADA\u27S DEAD TOWNS &. New Country Thickly Strewn with Ruins of Mining Towns—How Capital Has been Squandered. [SFICIU C0RX5SF0NDENCH OF THE Nevada is one.of the very youngest and wildest of the States, nevertheless it isatready atrewn with ruins, that seem as gray and. silent and timeworn as if the civilization to which they belonged had perished centuries ago. Yet atrange to say, all these ruins are results of ..mining efforts made within the last few-years. Wander where you may throughout the length and treadth of this mountain-barred wilderness, you everywhere come upon these dead mining towns, with their tall chimney, stacks, Btanding forlorn amid broken walls and furnaces, and machinery half buried ,in sand, the very names ot many of them already forgotten. amid the excitements of later discoveries, andT.\u27p sow known only through tradition—tradition. \ jj ten years old. While exploring the mountain ranges of the State during a considerable por-i tioa of three summers, I think that I have seen:- at least five of these deserted towns and villages for every one in ordinary life. Some of\u27 them were probably only camps built by bands f prospectors, ana inhabited for a few months or years, -while some - specially interesting canyon was heing explored, and. then carelessly abandoned for more promising fields. But saany were real towns, regularly laid out and incorporated, containing well-built hotels, churches, school-houses, postomces and jails, as well as the mills on whicu they all depended; and whose well graded streets were filled with lawyer, doctors, brokers, hangmen, and real estate agents,, etc., the whole population numbering several thousand. A few years ago the population of Hamilton is said to have been nearly 8,000; that of Treasure Hill, 6,000; of Shermantown, 7,000; of , -Swansea, 3,000. All of these .were incpr-f- : porated towns with mayor, council, fire de-j partments and daily newepapers. Hamilton! : has now about one hundred inhabitants, most) r of whom are merely waiting in dreary inac-1 tion for something to turn up. Treasure Hill j has about half as many. Shermantdwn family, and Swansea none. While on ..Other hand the.graveyards are far too full. ,. In one canyon of the Toiyabe range, near U Austin, I found no less than fire dead towns j without a single inhabitant. The streets and blocks of real estate graded on.the hillsides are rapidly falling back into the wilderness. Sage brushes are growing up around the forges 1 While traveling southward from Austin, Sown Big Smcfcy Valley, I noticed a remarka- - bly tall and imposing column, rising like a lone pine out of the sagebrush on the edge ot a dry Sulch. This proved ,ta be a smokestack of solid masonry, seeming1 strangely out of place in the desert,as if it had. been transported en- .iire from the heart of some noisy manufacturing town and left here by mistake. I learned afterwards thaUt belonged to a set of furnaces that were built by a New York company to Mielt ore th*t never was found. The tools of the worlyrien are still lying in place beside the. iumaces, as if dropped in some sudden Indian or earthquake panic and never afterwards handled. These imposing ruins, together with the esoli?e town, lying a quarter of a mile to the northward, present a most vivid picture of wasted effort. Coyotes now wander unmo- luted ihrouah the brushy streets, and of all the bu-y throng that so lavishly- spent th \u27 time and money here only one remains—ale }. uachf lor with one suspender. , MiaiEg discoveries and progress, retrc . sreasion and.decay, seem to have been - *- . sEore.elosely against each other here \u27 any other portion, of the globe..\u27 Som_ the band of ad ventursus prospectors who cime Urom theexttaa,ted.placers-oi California would discover some rich ore-how much or little mattered, not at first. These specimens- fell among excited seekers after wealth like sparks an gunpowder and in a few days the wilderness was disturbed with the noisy clan ot .misers and buUders. A little town wonld\u27tW spring ap, and before anything like a careful survey of any particular lode could be made, a company would be formed, and expensive mills irailt. Then, after all the machinery was reaiv for the ores, perhaps little,- or none at all. was to be found. Meaa while another discovervis , reported, and the young town is abandoned as: I, completely as a camp made for a single night; \and so on, until some really valuable lode is Sfound, such as those of Eureka, Austin, Virginia, etc., which formed the substantial groundwork for a thousand other excitements. j WHY ABANDONED—RECKLESSNESS OF MISERS. Passing through the dead town of Sehell- burn last month I asked one of the few lingering inhabitants why the town was built. For tke mine3, he replied. And . where are the . mines ! On the mountains back here. And -why were- they abandoned, we askad. Are is they exhausted ? Ch, no ; he replied. id They are not exhausted ; on the contrary i j they have never been worked at all, for unfortunately, just as we were about ready to open them, the Cherry Creek miaes were discovered across the vallev in the Eagan ran°-e, and everybody rushed off .there, taking what they oculd with them—houses, machinery and- a\u27L But we are hoping that somebody with money and speculation will come and revive us yet. j NEVADA MINING EXCITEMENTS. j/The dead mining excitements of, Nevada jj were far more intense and destructive in. their j jaction thin those of California, because the \u27jprizes at stake were.igreater,- while more skill |was required to gain them. The long trains of ; /sold seekers making their way to California i &ad.aniple time and means to recover from j their first attacks,.of mining fever while crawl- Mng laboriously across the plains, and on their I arrival o* any portion of the Sierra gold belt, Athey at once began to make money. No mat- j iter in what gnlch or canyon they worked, some , iraeasure of success was sure, however unskillful, /they might be. And though while making ten I | dollars a day they might be agitated by hopes i sf making twenty, or, cf striking their picks I- against hundred or Caomsand-dollar nuggets, ji men of ordinary nerve could still work on with ; comparative steadiness, and remain rational. \u27] But in the case of the Nevada ! often snpnt. hirrwlf in won n! „ often spent himself in years of weary searcL 5 without gaining a dollar, traveling hundreds of miles from.mountain to mountain, burdened yita wasting hopes of discovering some hidden wtm worth millions, enduring hardships of the iaostdestructivekind, driving innumerable tun- hiels into the hillsides, while his assayed speci- 5 inens again and again prove worthless.-; Per- iaps one in a hundred of these brave pro5p.ee- tors would \u27.\u27strike it rich while ninety-nine -died jflone in the mountains or sank out of sight in the corners of saloons. \ ( The healthlul ministry of wealth is blesa\u27tjd— t and surely it is a fine thing that so many are ! eager to find the gold and silver that lies hid in \u27 the veins of the mountains. But in the search f the seekers too often become insane, and strike . ; Jtbout blindly fn the dark like raving madmen. \u27 \u27 f this iijjmense sum having been obtained iyithin 250 feet of the surface, the greater por- V-lipn within 140 feet. Other ore masses were U.-acarcely less maivelousty rich, giving rise to l -one of the most violent excitements that ever -\u27Recurred in the history of mining. All kinds of people, shoemakers, tailors, farmers, ; etc., as well as miners, left their own .,\u27iirfent work and fell in. a perfect storm jifs-of. energy upon the . White Pine hills, covering the. ground like grasshoppers, and seeming determined by the very violence of their\u27efforts to turn every stone to silver. -But with feVexceptions, these-mining storms pass :away aiout. as suddenly as they rise, leaving aniy ruins to tell of the tremendous energy expended, as heaps of giant baalders in the valleys tell of the.spent power of the mountain j zest, is the orderly- deliberation into which- j miners settle in developing a truly valnable mine. At Eureka we were kindly led through the treasure chambers of the Richmond and I Eureka Consolidated, our guides leisurely lead- ; ing the. .way from level to level, calling atten- . tion to the precious ore. masses which the workmen were slowly breaking to pieces with their . picks, like, navies wearing away the day in a- a-aiiroad cutting; while down at the smelting i -works the bars of bullion were handled with aless eager haste than the farmer shows in gathering his sheaves. \u27...\u27 f VTOBDEBEtil. ENERGY OF MINING MEN. J Thelwealth. Nevada has already given to the- -world is indeed wonderful, but the only grand \u27 marvel is the energy expended - in its development. The amount of prospecting done in the j face of so many dangers and sacrifices, the ia- \u27 muWesable tunnels and shafts bored into the j mountains, the mills that have begri built— these-would seem to- require a race of giants. But, in full view- of the snbstanf achieved, the pure waste manifest in\u3c the rrsins : ODe meets never fail to produce a saddening, -effect. The dim old ruins of Europe, so eagerly -sought after by travelers, have something pleasing about them, whatever their\u27 historical associations;, for they at least tend Some- beauty to the landscape. Their picturesque |. towers - and arches seem to be kindly adopted by nature, and planted with wild flowers -and wreathed with ivy: while their rugged angles are soothed and freshened and embossed with green mosses, ;fresh life and decay mingling in pleasing measures,.and the whole vanishing softly like a ripe, tranquil day fading into night; So, also, a\u27mong-ihe older ruinB of fire J5 as t there is a fitness felt. They have served their time, and like the weatherbeaten mountains are wasting harmoniously. The same is in some degr* true ol ithe dead mining towns of California. But those of-Nwsnra,- waste -in the-Arvvvildt like tlie bones of cattle thalrnave dieaToTi , Many: of them do not represent any good\u27ac- k\ egmplishment, and have no right to be. They ?,:ajre monnments of fraud and ignorance—sjns S -agajSyfiifiiuie. IndrinBand-taanelTHj- the frocks may perhaps, be regarded as the prayers \u27 bl tUS\u27prospector, offered for the wealth he so arn&tfy-craves. But like prayers of any kind ,;;ao.t iiijh-aaanony with natoie, they are_tui- J-*nswere\u27di-. ;. \u27 But fSr -all, effort however misapplied, j is better than, stagnation. Better toil blindly,- beating eyerstpne in turn for grains of gold, -whether theyseontain any or not, than lie waste- in apathetic decay. The feye* period is fortunately passing away. The prospector is no longer the raving, wan- -dering ghoul f ten years ago, rushing in random lawlessness among the hill3, hungry and lootsore but cool and skillful, well supplied with&Tery-Eete:ssary, and clad iz mind. Capitalists too, and the public la gen- I eral, have b&ome wiser, and do not take-fire ~. so readily from mining sparks-; while at the jsame time a vast amount of real work is being done, and the ratio between growth and decay is constantly becoming better. John Mr/ra. k a- :\u27fe{\u27 ei I pendei on f- leys te 0f j\\u27r:;:\u27~ t with this destructive un-https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1051/thumbnail.jp