The Leavenworth weekly times. [volume] (Leavenworth, Kan.) 1870-1880, 1875-08-19
JIM KANNoN's FL DORADO
lie Induces Some Illinois Suckers to Join
Him OF q Wild Goose Chase

Last Spring party Of prospectors came
, to Denver from Illinois. They numbered
over sixty, and announced their destination
AZ Arizona. They were quite reticent, and
when reported by some OF the city papers
as bound for the Black Hills, took 10 !; -ins
| 10 cvnti~iict il. They bought oxen, horses,
wagons, and very complete outfit, includ-
ing six months provisions. They were I'M
der the leadership of jim Ramon, some
| what known throughout Colorado and Wy
oming a. an '1oid mountaineer" When
! they got ready TO start Jim announced that
his road to Arizona lay through Wyoming
and North Park so, in order to get south,
they started off north. They went up by
Fort Collins, through Laramie plains 10
Rawlings Springs, and from the latter
point turned south to Yampah, or Bear
River, passing West OF the Elk Creek
mines When they got to the Indian res
ervation they We're stopped, and Ramon
told them the only road to his Arizona El
Dorado lay through the Indian territory.
4 big DISCUS; had been growing on the
si1ty-odd Illinois suckers for about two
months, and when their leader acknowl-
ell ged that he had reached the end of his
rope, they hustled him out OF camp with
nothing but gun and the clothes he had
on. Some intimate that he may be stop
ping near there yet. He had studiously
led them all around the mining camps, so
they had not seen even "color," or piece
of "blossom rock" Kannon gone they
pulled out for Middle Park, having first
sold a large quantity of -four on Bear river,
at four dollars per sack, and other supplies
at corresponding prices.
They brought up at Hot Sulphur Springs
about the Goth of July, and went into camp
badly demoralized, and a majority Of them
cussing for about ten days, they sold off and
divided up the stuff on hand and separated.
Sixteen stopped in the park, and the bal
Denver and Kansas City. Those who re-
manned in the Park have gone energetical-
ly TO work are already opening one PROM
Using silver mine, and most or all Of them
will become permanent settlers.
Since the "bust-up" they talk freely
about how they were taken i'm. Jim
Ramon appeared in their part of Illinois
last winter rs an Indian doctor. He was
very moral and strictly temperate; was
particular to remember the Sabbath day
and keep it holy" neither drank, swore,
chewed tobacco, or played cards In fact
he was very proper criterion to go by.
On this kind of "lay" he won the conf
dence OF the honest Illinoisans down to the
very bed rock. Some sold their property
for what they could get and Others mort
gagged everything they had to raise the
necessary funds to join the expedition. He
told them that in northwestern Arizona he
had discovered silver vein that he had
traced forty rifles, and that the Comstock
was baby compared TO il in size, extent
and richness that in the same neighbor-
hood he had vast acres Of the richest gold
placer diggings the world ever saw. This
was the bait that caught the suckers.
Once on the road they said old Jim be-
came the worst character and the biggest
sot they ever saw; he was drunk all the
time blasphemous and obsce"e, and how
they lived with him so long in this, his
normal condition, is the browning mystery
Of thi, very strange adventure.
Jim Ramon was "bull-whacker" for
Majors, Russell Il Waddell in 1856, during
the Johnstonc campaign in Utah, or the
Mormon war. There is where he gradu
ated. He has no standing or reputation
among the mountaineers, or with others
who know him. How he could have play
ed the moral and Temperance dodge for sew
eral months Is strange indeed. 1t must
have gone against the grain.
The disbandcd company sold some OF
their property in the park for one fourth
what it cost in Denve-, last spring, and
among those who went back, were some As
disguised and demoralized cases rs left Col
oradO in the famous stampede OF So
DenJr NelrS