The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-05-05
The Era Of Permanent Prosperity
Has Set in.
THE TENDERFEET HAVE LEFT.
Graphic Description of the Road From
Ensenada to Santa Clara-Canvass
Boarding Houses and Stores.

Oiard mining ulSJrlCU, dDOUG WHICH 81 Hdn
conflicting reports have been circulate
within the last three months. The rush
over, the ''tenderfeet'' have departed, an
the more substantial class of miners VIII
remained to develop the quartz lodes ar
abundantly satisfied with the returns. Tn
sprinkling of placer gold in the gulches, il
big nuggets washed out by natures pro
cess, simply indicated what might be fOunC
in the strong store houses whence thel
came. There is no doubt about the exceed
ing richness of these mountains. of Bal;
| California, but to make them ylelC
their treasures will require time
and money; and with their enormous eX
tent it will be a work not only for to-day
next week, next year-bUt to be carried OF
by our children's children in other cen
turtles. Some of
THE BEST PAYING MINES
in Mexico to-day are those that have beer
! in operation since the earliest days of the
conquest, more than $50 years ago.
| There are two or three different routes
to Santa Clara so incOnceivably bad, that
which ever you choose you will wish yoU
had taken another-part of the way leading
straight up the faces of pateleSs hills
where it seems impossible for man or beast
to find foothold, or over huge, loose bOul-
| ders, piled in pell-mell, and washed by
tropic torrents during a portion of the
year.
If one has backbone enough to endure
hard riding and courage enough TO go on
horseback around the outer ledge OF the
top of the Washington monument than
which feat some of these mountain
along the brink of tremendous precipices) -,
he may find the journey not unpleasant,
whether made in the saddle, the clumsy,
old-fashioned Concord coach, that now
makes irregular trips between San Diego
and the gold fields. or by the more common
mode of transit from Ensenada in wagon
allowing not less than three days in
transit each way, stopping nights at CON
venient ranches and camping under the
open sky, and walking up the steepest
heights.
When the first craze was on, hundreds
of gold-fever victims-too poortO own even
sore backed burros, and perhaps too honest
to steal them-walked incredible distances,
carrying their scanty outfits upon their
backs. For weeks the woods were full of
these enterprising pedestrians, at the
mercy of the blazing sun by day and the
chilly dews of night-half starved and
suffering, but plucky to the last am
happy to record that many of these were
amply rewarded, by CHANGING to strike it
rich;'' as the miners say in the
sHoRT-LIvED PLACERs,
To the tune of from $50 to 500 per diem
until the surface gold was all picked up.
But there were hundreds of sadder cases-of
men who gave up lucrative positions to
come here and meet with bitter disappoint-
ment; of fathers who sold their homes and
beggared their families; of sickness and
death from exposure; of hunger and heart
ache and despair; and there would have
been actual starvation had not those who
were better supplied maintained the impe-
cunious and helped them to get away from
this grave of their hopes as quickly as pos
sible.
Where the typical miner comes from no
man can tell. As Stracosh says of the
opera chorus, he is mot born like other
people, but made for the emergency" The
moment new excitement breaks out he
seems to spring from the earth, like the
tabled crop-from the dragons teeth, fully
equipped for the fray, and his
name is legion. During the first
weeks of the rush a constant procession of
them might have been met tramping
toward Santa Clara-each with ''specula-
tom in his wild gray eye, and a dirty pack
upon his back, shirt of brindle flannel eX-
posing stretch of hairy throat, no-colored
breeches tucked inside of cowhide boots,
pistols and bowie knife in belt and SLOUGH
ing sombrero whose ''better day 81 were at
some long-forgOtten period. These are the
men of experience and their presence in
new mining section is as sure sign of its
richness as flock of black-birds on a field
indicate the grain beneath But the
chronic miner is also the imam of Destiny
and his fate is to be forever moving onto
the end of time, unsatistied and impecuni-
Gus.
A portion of the way between Ensenada
and the gold fields of Santa Clara, leads
through narrow valleys, fair as poets
dream, carpeted with surprising variety
of wild flowers, where great oX-eyed daisies
wave their golden blossoms above the head
Of a man on horseback. In this terra per-
feet perfect land,) of the mission fathers,
there is
SOFT, DELICIOUS AIR,
and dainty sunshine throughout all the nor
thern season of ice and snow. When l
travelled through them in March and the
early days of April-before the streams
were dried and the time for intense heat
to begin-the skies were blue as those of
Naples, the Beautiful and earth reioiced
in all the beauty and freshness of perfect
summer. Wheat, breast thigh, nodded full
headed in the gentle breeze, tasseQed corn
waved green on sunny slopes, and in many
places the rancheros were digging potatoes
bigger than their own brawny fists.
Arrived at the ultima thule, in the heart
of the Santa Clara, one finds an animated
scene, $500 feet above the sea, in the most
desolate gorge imaginable, shut it on all
sides by grim and frowning mountains.
Along an elevated plateau, 600 feet wide
and bordered by higher hills, thousand
white tents are scattered like gigantic
snow-flakes A river runs through it dur
ing part of the year, furnishing an en-
overplus of water soon after
the rainy season, but dwindling away to
nothing as summer advances, Up and
down the creek bed for mile or two, the
canvass town extends, and at night the
stars are dimmed by blazing camp fires.
Notwithstanding the reports in some
northern papers concerning alleged dis
turbances here between MeXicans and
the interference of federal
troops and prospects of bloodshed, the
greatest harmony has prevailed from the
first Within the memory of the Oldest
forty-niner no more orderly, jolly and
friendly class of miners has ever collected
together. At one time the narrow gulch
held more than three thousand men, col
lected from California, Arizona, Nevada,
Idaho and Colorado, from camps which
have become proverbial for their turbulent,
rough and desperate characters and for
gambling, and every other
in the widest scrambling for
surface gold, when SO many clashlng in
terests and hopes were excited to the high
est pitch, the interposition of the authori-
ties was never required. Most of the
Mexicans who came to Santa Clara brought
their families with them, as did many OF
the Americans. There are
CANVAS BOARDING HOUSES,
and ''stores," weekly news