Arizona silver belt., 1894-12-01
CRIpPlE GREEK.
How the Famous Mining Town
 Sprenp Into Existence.
For Many Years tho Rich Gold Fields Wore Used as a Cattle BRnch-The Discovery of Drunken
 Blacksmith

| The site of Cripple Creek was for.ten ] years COW pasture of two long liiabed old Kentuckians of the names of l}obn and "Bill" WomaX, who took up sec i tion of land here under the desert land | act about ls76, h the early days of gold excitement in Colorado, wien taoplo crossed the plains with "T1lle's | Peak or Bust painted on their wagons some little gold was washed out here, | but not enough to encourage anyone to stay So the prospectors passed on | into the mountains and left the land for the Wolnax brothers to feed their cattle or
 Thcy didn't dream, says the Chicago Record, that gold was there, and be- coming tired of the place about seven years ago sold it to Bennett & Myers. a firm of real estate agents in Denver who had loaned them money There were 100 or 800 cattle on the place, and several hundred miles of fencing, which inclosed about 50,o0O acres of government land For all this Bennett x Myers paid S20,00O, and when they got che title they orgari2od the Pilie's l Poaii cattle company, with capital of Sl,090GO0 Hut before they rot things ready Co put thc stock on thc market President Cleveland issued his prucla- nation ordering the cattlemen to tear down all the fences they had erected upon public land. That practically de- prived tbe new company Of Q, 09oacres of pastnrage and knocked the profits out ofrancAing in Colorado.
 Tn February, ls9l Bennett & Myers got a letter from thcir foreman at the ranch, saying that gold had been dis covered there, and the prospectors were digging holes all over the place, which made it dangerous for the eat tic, several cows had already fallen into these excavations and broken their legs and he asked for instructions. They wrote back to him to run the miners off the place, but he replied that they were already several hundred ia number ard 1t was folly to think of disturbing them. He followed his let ter to Denver a few days afterand gave his employers description of affairs, So fhcg went up t9 make cn inspection, which resulted iu the transfer cf the cattle to less vaiuuhc p0Sturc and the plating of town site on eighty acres of the pasture That sold off ike hot cal es, and the town of Cripple Creek was born.
 The man who discovered gold was drunken blacksmith of Colorado Springs of the name of Dick Wooten. who had been hanging around the ranch for months at d time. and of course found it b. accident He at once advertised the tact among all the prospectors and miDing men in that part of the country. and they came up in sGatms to serape over the beds of the streams and rake out the grass roots. 4 man by thc name of Irisbee wus the arSt to discover gold quartz a few wucls after Wcotcn's find In less than sis months there were a thousand prospectors ct work in the valley. and now more than 1000 miners are em- ployed in the hundreds of mines that lie on that ranch alone. They have taken out more than s7 ,003, ,O0J or s. ] O1J,0g1 in gold The yield for the first year was about sj0o,ooo In Isg3 it rcachel el5J1oJ0 and in 1893 &. .40O.- | coo The miners strikc last spring put 1 things back eno"pous'y but, ndtvitl- | standing between four and five months ] that were acsually wasted, the yield !. this year will average 5100, ,0J0 month. | or a totGt of S3.a0O,003. During this 1 month they expect to reach the si,O1J,- ! coo mark, and nczt year the output will { be doubled.
 uu&l recently very few of the miners ! had been working with improved l machinery. Cripple Creek has been cmphatieally poor mans camp; that | is, the owners of most of the mines l were men wtthcat capital to develop ther end they were compelled to put | ter along with the most primitive | apparatu, until they had made enough /. to bay modern machinery.
 The Independence mine. which is re. [ gardca as the most valuable in the | Cripple Creek district, is good illus ! trat.on It was Gicogered aud te owned | by man raincd W s, or Bill strat- . ton, carpenter at Colorado Springs, ' vino came up tothc camp to spend the . Fourth of July in 1892 Wandering 3vcr what is known as Battle raouu- tain near tbc site of the present town f Victor be said in j5calar wuy to his companion that he was going to throw his hal down the hill and locate a claim where it fell He drove his stake, filed lis papers, and worked his asscs mcnt' according to law, and after awhile he struck q vein of gold f that Is said t0 be richer than any other that has been discovered here. He had no money and was very shy of ! partners, b Deuyc. syndicate offered kim Sl,0oo,oo1 for the property, and at first he thought they were joking. Little hy little, as he got out the ore. he was able to make improvements, and upon tho reputation of his mlne he succeeded in persuading q Chicago firm to furnish him s50,oao plant that runs by electricity, and is said to be the best | in the Cripple Creek camps. He gave notes in payment, and within twenty day after his machinery started was able to take them up with his profits. The nine is now paying S00,00o a month net, the bankers here say, and there are millions of dollars in the ore in sight
 They call Bill Stratton "the king of Battle mountain
 The Horse Came Back.