The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-10-14
WHERE HE WAS HAPPY.
Millionaire Smith Loves to Look at
the Habitat1on of His Poverty.

Visitors at Arbor Villa. the splendid
new residence Of F. NJ. Smith on the
heights above East Oakland. have been
holding up their hands in establishment
Of late at the queer little unPainted
cabin that has come to take it's perma-
nent abiding place in the Smith grounds.
The cabin is a little one-roOmed affair
6Xl5 feet. and was the residence of L.
M Smith at Jeels' Marsh in Nevada IN
1873. Mr.. Smith is one of the few men
VINO are not ashamed of the ladder by
which they did ascend" and he has
brought this cabin all the way from Ne
Vada because he loves it and is rather
proud Of his small beginning.
This was the house built by Mr.. Smith
after his great discovery of the borax
IN Jeels' marsh, which gave him the
first impetus on the road which leads
TO Mathematician. The lumber was
brought from Virginia, New, and the
long mule journey tc Jeels' made it cost
nearly ~ cents pound before it reached
It's destination. Consequently the little
house was very nearly priceless, and had
cost considerably above its face value.
Mr. Smith wanted to be comfortable,
ard ne was willing to pay a considerable
price for 1t, although his tastes were
simple.
Even to have q board house in that
remote country was cons -dered a luxury.
Log cabins and adobes answered for
most TINS cabin had a door with real
hinges, window. a roof of shakes and
l.
the lower end of it. The spaces between
the plankS were weather boarded. and
there were really a few holes larger than
Il silver dollar, Mr. Smith says. One end
CT the cabin was occupied by the bunk,
which was nailed firmly 10 the wall
Stumps answered for seats and com
pleted the first furnishings of the CABIN.
Mr.. Smith built most of it himself, SO
that he knows every board personally.
A few years after this house was built
Mr.. Smith married and took his wife to
1--we a the b0rdX fIelVs. Then he built
another house with three rooms, and the
old cabin went to new tenants. The first
thing they did was to build an extensive
addition.
The house as set up in the grounds of
ArDor Villa. is without the addition. II
IS as Mr.; Smith occupied it, and the
identical boards have been used in its
reconstruction. The shingles are new, bit
the ding, the door and windows are tins
same The boards look Singularly nav
for all their twenty-five years Of ser
vice in wind and snow on the Nevada
plains. When they arrived at the Smith
place the skeptical gardener said
They've palmed off some other houss CT
you. Those boards are not twenty years
old"
They do not look their age. They are
almost as white as when they were new
except that there is a gray. pallor over
them, which the careless m ght not no
tee. but is Ike the shadow of a dead
face. Time has touched them gently, but
f you scratch them with your nail brit
tie bits splinter eff. 1t is so soaked n
saltpeter that it WI never decay. Fol
tWenty-three summers the strong aka
line dust of the desert has blown upor
It, and the winter rains have washed il
until it is permeated to its utmost hbel
with the solution. That is why 1t has So
CALAMITY resisted decay. 1t remains t,
be seen if it will resist as well the fog:
of the bay reg:on.-From the San Fran
! cisco Chronicle.