Tombstone epitaph., 1888-01-14
A SPECIMEN LIB.
A Well-Told Tale Which Lacks the First Es-
 sential Particular of the Truth.


 following romance regarding mining property and state of affairs that never existed in this camp, except in the fertile brain of the writer:
 In view of the ups and downs of min ing stocks in St. Louis during the pas' few months, the history of a stock deal in San Francisco and Arizona in 1880 may be of interest. The Morning Star mine was located in the Tombstone district, about two miles from the town. George Hearst, now United States senator, ex- amined the property and gave it as his opinion that the indications were good for ore and plenty oft. The mine at that time was owned by couple of Tomb. stone men, and on the strength of MT. Hearst's opinion sold it to San Fran cisco syndicate for $25,ooo. The prop erty was stocked for $I.ooo,ooo by the new owners, 100000 shares at par value of $I each. A good deal of the stock was sold at SO cents share, and good deal of It found its way, per the compliments of the syndicate, 10 the Tombstone and Tucson newspaper off, ces. The Morning Star enjoyed huge boom. Every day the Tombstone EPT- TAPH and Nugget, and Tucson Star and Citizen whooped it up, and thecorrespon- dents of the San Francisco papers at Tombstone could not say enough in its praise. The stock rose to par value, and about 3oo,ooo shares were sold by the syndicate at that figure. And yet the dump at the mine was huge pile of hard gray rock. There were few little stredks of ore cut by the shaft at depth of eighty feet, and drifts were driven to trace them. Twelve men were employ. ed to work the mine-two shifts of six men each-under the formanship of Tim Kelly, an old and experienced Comstock- CT. Eight months after the stocking of the mine, and the commencement of the boom there was less than ton of ore on the dump, and the stock had fallen to 10 cents. It was pronounced fizzle. The newspapers pummeled the stock and called the syndicate bilks. The editors had been grossly deceived. In the EPI- TAPH office the certificate for 1000 shares of the stock was put in the ore specimen case in the editorial room. Tim Kelly and the miners emploped in the mine had invested all their surplus cash in the stock at the beginning of the boom, and were among the sorest of the stockholders. One Friday evening Kelly received dispatch from San Francisco to cease working the following evening. It is hardly necessary to say that the mlners did not do much work next day. They had a hole drilled, however, and they concluded that they would put in a stick of powder and blast it. They did so, and 10, the long looked for body of ore was exposed. The miners were call- ed and they held meeting in the drift, They resolved to keep very quiet, pool their resources and send Tim Kelly to San Francisco to buy up all the stock he could quietly, while another man was delegated to gobble up all the stock that could be found floating around Tomb stone. The stock could be had for song at the time. It was worth only the paper on which the certificates were printed. The miners went to work quietly, took few confdants into their scheme. formed a little syndicate of their own and in a week had coralled nearly 100000 shares of the stock. In the meantime the origi- nal syndicate in San Francisco sent mining engineer to Tombstone to ex- anime and report on the mine. Kelly tel egraphed his departure, and the men at the mine cleared away every vestige of ore, built pile of rock and dirt against the breast, and drifted oblequely to the right. This the engineer examined when he entered the mine, and never saw the ore body. He made very discourag- ing report-saw indications, but nothing else. When Kelly returned he invited all the newspaper men in Tombstone to visit the mine; he exposed the ore body to their wondering gaze, and the next morning the papers were full of it. In 2 week the stock had jumped to ST. 50 and the miners sold out rich. A month later the ore body had agaln peered out and the stock again went to zero. There were fifty tons of extremely rich ore taken out of the mine, and that was all. Morn ing Star stock certificates are still on ex
 hibtion in the specimen cases in Tomb stone, and the big grey dump is pointed out to visitors as all thet is left of one of the biggest fizzles in the annals of Ari- zona mining.
 After six weeks sojourn with the Tombstoners, Miss Peto, sister of oul popular druggist, Mir. H. J. Pe,o, Jeff yesterday for her home in Canada The many friends made by the young lad,