Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-07-06
DEADWOOD LETTER.

DEADWOOD LETTER.
The Difficulties Which Beset the Develop
anent of the Black HiHs-Ho,o Business
Is Ouerdone--The Price of Drinks Re-
duced-- Enterprise of the Ne,cspapers--
Celebrating the Fourth.
Correspondence of the Globe.]
DEADwooD, June 2lst.-Hard times and
dull is the experience of every body in the
Hills. Business is worse than stagnant-
suscitation is the conundrum that agitates
the masses. The causes that have produced
this dire and unexpected result, are not many
in fact may be enumerated
upon two of your five digits
and, christened, are bad weather and
imitation. The first has been so frequently
and fully reported to you by your CORE
spondent, that he is weary of the subject
and presumes your readers are>also sur
feited. Suffice it that yesterday was the
first pleasant day of the season, and the first
without rain for the past two months. Dur
ing that period roads have become bad,
worse, execrable and indescribably bad in
which latter condition they now are. Gulch
conditioned that weeks of hard labor and
the expenditure of much money is necessary
before the first clean up can be made. True
seven hundred stamps are pounding away
upon ore of excellent quality, and great yell
low retorts are visible as the product thereof,
in every bank window, to provoke wonder
why such great distress prevails with SO
much apparent wealth. but when we under
stand that the machinery by which the dust
is segregated was all bought on time, and
that paper securities held by the manufac-
t..rers, is rapidly maturing and must be met,
we have a solution to the mystery. Nine
teen-twentieths of all gold extracted is
shipped East, to the deprivation of wages
earned and needed by employees and their
creditors. A terrific struggle for freedom
from Indebtedness now involves every mill
owner in the Hills, all of whom freely con
fess that until that desideratum is achieved
they and theirs must suffer from embarass-
ment and all the ills that debtors are heir
to. but that once foot-loose, out Of the
tolls, unqualified prosperity will follow. To
the above specined class there is one excep-
ton, and desire to note it because had it
been otherwise the effect upon the Hills and.
indirectly, upon the entire Northwest, would
have been calamitous in the extreme. / am
aware that the Californians in this district
are subjects for suspicion; have been &C
cused of all sorts of things, and stand aloof
from the great mining community as class
little better, stronger in money and ex-
perience than their neighbors, but for all
this there is some justification. They may
be arrogant, purse proud and dictatorial.
but these traits (Which l do not admit) have
no weight with the ':honest MINER" who
well remembers that after having braved the
dangers from Indians and starvation: after
defylng the government, and toiling day
after day for months and years he at last
unearthed rich deposit, but which was to
him, in his impoverished condition, per-
fectly valueless. Then he returned to his
Eastern friends, exhibited his specimens,
and implored assistance in the development
of bis property. What was the reply?
Ridicule, and CHARGES of false pretenses.
Failing in his mission the miner turned to
wards the golden shores CT the Pacific where
nasty conclusions are not formed, and where
enterprises Of great pith and moment are
never presented in vain. The result?
Parrish, Dane, Crossman, Barland, Bonnie
Hearst and many others started for the Hills
where they encountered a geological forma-
non SO different from any within their ken
that skepticism at once p assessed them.
Their theory that gold existed according &c
rule and certain prescribed laws, would lie
upset by admitting the prese ace OF gold il
such condition as here resented, but ths
TJ,rr l,rnu st
ore bristling with bright yellow gold, and
displaying it to the experts gained degree
of credence for their claim. Still the Cali,
tornians were not satisfied but required
greater Developments, and as the poor pros
pector lacked means for that purpose, the
Californians rendered contribution after
contribution until $4,000 had been expend-
ed N thoroughly opening the ground. This
was no frutless work for it disclosed mass
of ore SO great and Of such astonishing rich
ness that old theories were dismissed as fall
iacious, and the frank admission rendered,
that the Black Hills was the most wonder
tul quartz country in christendom. Nor
were these idle words, for within month
thereafter the property passed into the
hands of the earnest Californians, while the
miner, he who for so long time had been
the son of toll and acquainted with hunger
and rags, wandered over the Hills, one hun
dred thousand dollars jingling in his pocket
rs he sought for other diggings. Ask the
Mallaries, the Baileys, the Flaherties. and
many others who have had like experience
with capitalists from the Pacific slope, who
have been the real, earnest. material friends
of the Hills, and they will designate, without
any hesitation, the present owners of the
DE Smet, Justice, Belcher,
Star, Terra, and many other mines. They
will go still farther and insist that these per-
sons have been the salvation of the country
using the phrase in it's most liberal sense),
and that but for them, Arastas, and the more
crude mechanism known as pulverizers, Gf
works of any kind would now be employed
upon this quartz instead of the improved
machinery that now dots every hillside and
enlivens every gulch. But for them the mil
lions of dollars that have been thrown into
circulation through the purchase of property
and machinery, would now lie idle in vaults,
and that trade of all kinds that has so ben
Gifted the entire country would not have
received the impetus it did. These are
enthusiastic words, but they are just and
merited.
INITIATION OF TRADE.
The other principal cause of business de-
preston, as I have said, is the imitation of
trade, and in studying this in all its lights
and shadows we find much to interest and
to bswilder. Take Daadwool for instance
with it's three business streets-Main. Lee
and Sherman-having an aggregate length
of about two miles. Either side of these
thoroughfares are lined with business houses
exclusively, or to be more definite, about one
thousand in all. A number sufficient for a
city of the size of st. Paul. And yet the
population of Deadwood proper will not ex
coed five thousand. The expense of con-