The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-28

worth of shining yellow metal were wash
ed out in the days of placer mining The
great strikes did not come. however un-
til placer work was displaced by the scien-
tifc mining of quartz from great depths
and the crushing of the ore IN the modern
stamp mills Before that it was believed
that oil the gold in Last Chance gulch had
been found by means of the rocker and
the pan, but more than once the yellow
metal has been discovered since then in
considerable quantities when excavations
have been made for streets, sewers and
gas mains.
More than once. too, has it been tele-
graphed away that the find OF gold has
been so great as TO mako it probable that
streets and buildings would be destroyed
in order to take advantage OF the finds,
but these items have been the product OF
the imagination, either of men who were
new 10 Helena or were willing 10 falsify
facts in order 10 make sensation or
'.space" Once when a sewer Was being
laid on Main street and the earth thrown
out of the trench looked like pay dir,
tho washing showed half q dollars worth
of color in one painful, and an old timer
gravely measured and staked off n claim
in the very heart Of the town. His action
was really joke, but some people here
even were fooled by it. and throughout
the east il was generally believed that
thousands of dollars worth of buildings
were To be removed to make room foe the
pick and shovel and rocker. There was
nothing in il, in fact and tar and feathers
might be the portion of any who should
seriously consider such n thing.
Today Helena is an orderly town. in
habited by well disposed people, but in
its early days it was noted for its shooting
scrapes, its dance halls, its gambling hells,
and, after time, its hangings. These
were conducted by the regulators, who
sprang up in Helena, as in other western
towns, when matters got to be so bad as
10 be unbearable. Many thrilling stories
are told of those early days, and here Is
one Of the first hanging.
The executed man was one Jim DAILY,
and his taking OF occurred in 1869, when
Helena was still mining camp at Last
Chance gulch. A band of road agents had
done great deal of damage, and one
night there was pitched battle between
them and the regulators.
Several of the agents were hurt. bat
only one, Jim Daily, was caught. He was
shot through both thighs and fell from his
horse, so badly wounded that IL was feared
that he would bleed TO death before he
could be executed. Against his bitter pro
tests the wounds were bound up 10 stop
the flow of blood, so that he might not
cheat the moose. and in due time, after he
had once savagely torn the bandages away,
he was strung up. Death did not come
from strangulation, however, for spec
tator. as soon as Days writhing person
had been suspended between heaven and
earth, drew a bead on il and shot the road
agent between the eyes, killing him in
stantly There was talk Of lynching the
man who shot, but La drew himself up
and said:
IF yer committee objects TO what L
done, why I'm here, and you kin take re
But Jim Daily was brave man, II he was
n thief, and | couldn't stand il TO SEE him
die like a dog.
The speakers way Of putting hts views
saved him from any disagrecablc conse-
quences Of his impuisive act.
CHARLES APPLEBEE-