The Georgetown news., 1856-01-24
For the Georgetown News.
SPANISH FLAT, 22d JAN, 1856


give accounts from different mining locali-
ties in this county, we wish you to take
look with US at this neighborhood, and at
our town, which derives its name from the
large number of Chileans, Mexicans and
other Spanish-speaking people, who have
located here ever since l849, with more
than common preference for the extensive
ravine and hill diggings by which we are
surrounded.
From Georgetown we are only six miles
and half distant, and differ with it in al
titude according to DIR. Trask) but 40 feet.
If you will pay us visit, (if possible in
buggy,) we will drive round with you, and
show you more than dozen thriving towns
and flats in our vicinity, none of them more
than a mile or two distant, and we think
you would agree with US in one respect,
namely, that our diggings, though we never
brag much on them, are not to be sneezed
at. We will name to you only; Kelsey,
Louisville, Columbia, American Flat, Flea
town, Elizaville, Yankee, Chicken, Stag,
Barley and Union Flats, all which possess
diggings of the very best kind.
The fact of all these diggings having been
worked for years, yielding now better re-
turns than ever, and of new and rich leads
being daily discovered, proves strongly that
our county is second to none in California,
and that she deserves, rather than the name
of "El-dorado," which literally translated
means, "the guided" that, as well sounding
one, of "El-deoro," "the golden"
There is but one and general complaint
which you would hear from the miners; it
is about the scarcity Of acater. They say,
they have good diggings, enough of paying
ground to last for years to come, the certi-
tude of making ten dollars and more day
to every hand, but "no hay aguar'
They will show you, how the water
brought here by the P. C. & R. G. Ditch
is totally insufficient in quantity; that it is
doled out to few only, in the smallest of
inches, at one dollar an inch, and no regular
supp ly even to those few. Soon would you
convince yourself, how much they need a
good ditch, not only with plenty of water,
but one that would, and easily could, bring
this water at an elevation some eighty feet
higher than the former, and thus make
available vast quantity of the richest
ground, waiting only to be sluiced off to
yield the solid coarse Jumps of gold, cEarac-
teristic Of this section of placers.
There is not a miner in q hundred, and
you may see many hundreds, that would not
be willing to go to qcork and dig such
ditch from your town along the ridge to
Kelsey, if a company will have it surveyed
and construct the necessary fuming. The
miners will ask no better condition than to
be paid for their work in water-scrip, and
few weeks would suffice to bring such an
enterprise, of immense advantage to both
parties, to successful termination.
If it were not for this serious want, in
which our numerous acquaintance all
agree, we might speak satisfactorily of the
prosperity of this section of the county
Our people are good pretty honest and in
dustrious, improving from day to day. We
would describe to you the great change,
which has converted our round-tent's gam
bling tables, our bar-rooms, ten-pin allevs
and fandango houses, into nice dwellings,
school-houses, hotels, billiard saloons, &C..
if we did not think a similar metamorpbosis
has been witnessed in Georgetown.
The musical taste of our people is up to
high pitch; may it only continue to stay
there, and not be abandoned upon the ap-
pearance of camp-meeting, dancing school,
or other fashionable amusements, which, we
know, will take an impulsive community by
storm. just now young and old, boys and
girls, mothers and children, all are busy
studying the do re mi as, and holding on
to the staff of music land that of life tooD
Our temperance folks are getting on
swimmingly; they are making plenty of
converts, hold weekly meetings in their own
building, have spicy little newspaper of
their own, and join in the general cry of
the miners for "water, water, water!n
Something more in my next.
Yours, ---.