The Indianapolis journal., 1896-09-06
LIFE IN MINING CAMPS
QUEER SIGHTS THAT MAY BE WIT
MESSED AFTER THE sun RETIRES.
Gambling HeiIs and Dance HalIs-A
Chautauqua Where the Model of
Jerusalem Is a Roulette Table.
copyrighted. 1896. by Frank G. carpenter)

gfons are the only live part of the United
States to-day. Business is dull in the cities.
The factory fires in many parts of the
country are dead The farmers are grum-
bling at hard times and the laborers are
either out of work or almost ready to strike
for more wages. This is not so in the
Rockies. New prospects are being opened
and the output of gold from the Cripple
Creek district is averaging about a million
dollars a month There are 10000 men now
living and working within radius of six
miles of this town, and what five years
ago was a cattle ranch has become one of
the busiest parts of the United States
Miners now receive from SO to $3.50 day.
and the mines are worked by day and by
night.
You hear little talk of politics and little
growing about the business depression
Every one is crazy for gold, and the chief
subjects of conversation are the outputs of
the mines or the new strikes which are
promised on the hills all about you.
I wish 1 could show you this Cripple
Creek region. 1t lies, you know. just back
of Pixies Peak. and. as the crow flies. with
in less han 100 miles of Denver. 1t is two
miles straight up in the air above the peo-
pie who live on the edge of the sea, and its
great gold treasures lie as it were, on the
very roof of the United States. You are
very close to the sky. The air is so clear
that you can see many miles 1t is dry and
pure and full of ozone. You seem to be
breathing champagne, and you go on and
on climbing the hills hour after hour until
the night comes, when you find all at once
that the stimulating atmosphere has worked
your system to more than its full and you
are ready to drop. Cripple Creek itself lies
in a nest in these hills. The country sur
wilder than parts of Pennsylvania. New
York and Ohio, and in others it is COM
posed of mountains which rise gradually
upward until the snowy caps of the fur
thermost peaks almost reach the clear blue
sky.
GOLDEN STREETS.
The whole region surrounding the town
contains gold. From it, in 1891, was shipped
100000 worth of ore. In 1892 the ship
ments jumped to $600000; in 1898 to 81, ,500,-
900, and last year to more than IS, 600, 000
The output this year promises to be at
least one-third larger than that of 1895. and
the hills everv side are honey
combed with holes. You could not chase a
fox over any one of the old grazing fields
without breaking your horses legs. Here
and there you see great shafts standing
out against the blue sky with piles of rock
beside them. These are working mines,
and those big frame buildings which frown
down upon you from the hills are more
productive of gold than was Aladdin's pa
lace when it contained the wonderful lamp.
The hills are covered with rocks, nearly all
of which contain small proportion of gold
and the very streets of the town are un-
derlaid with low-grade ore. Cripple Creek
is built upon the rocks, and the stony
streets over which you walk are, am told,
IN
processes of reducing low-grade gold con-
tinue to improve, the town may some time
have to be moved for the gold upon which
it stands. A friend of mine took me be-
hind a building in the heart of the city the
other day, and in the wall of the excava-
tion showed me a strata of light color rum
ming through the darker rock
That" said he, contains gold, and 1t
would pay to mine it. You follow the
vein and see how it crops out here IN the
alley beyond
That same afternoon I met Mr.. Frances,
the editor of the Cripple Creek Mining
Journal. He took me through the little
pine building in which his paper is gotten
out and then showed me in his back yard a
shaft, about which there was a pile of dirt
THAT shaft said he, marks prospect
which our newspaper company owns. Some
may be very rich lower down.
CRIPPLE CREEK AND THE FIRE.
The town of Cripple Creek is a wonder
1t is less than five years old, but it con-
tains 1900 people It was burned down
three months ago, but it is now fast being
rebuilt. Some parts of it are being SUBJ
stantiaIly constructed, and the people are
evidently here to stay. To-day it lis a
hodge-podge of a town. It has all kinds of
buildings, made of all sorts of materials
thrown together in all sorts of shapes. The
town lies on the sides of the hills. 1t is
laid out along wide streets which are filled
with dust in the summer and which in the
winter become almost rivers of mud. Some
of the shops in the business section are
more like store boxes than houses You
can stand on the sidewalk and almost
reach over the roofs. Others are substan-
tial two-story brick buildings, and an exca-
vation is being made for a hotel
which will cost $4,000 to build The cellar
has to be dug out with blasting powder
and every foot of the rock is drilled and
blown out with dynamite. There is gold in
the granite that is thrown out, it is true
but 1T is Of too low a grade to pay for
smelling it. A little further on rock has
been blasted out for a mining exchange
and good buildings are going up in every
part of the town. All of the main streets
have wide board walks, which are filled
with men from daylight until midnight
and along which you may see many people
moving during the wee small hours of the
morning. What cosmopolitan crowd it is
that walks these streets. There are French
men, Germans, English and Americans:
cowboys from the West and tenderfeet
from the East, moving along to and fro.
trying TO keep out of the dust. There are
men in velveteens. with laced boots coming
up to their knees, and there are men in
homespun who tramp past you in cowhdes
There is the plug hat of the Wall street
broker the bicycle cap of the clerk and the
sombrero of the bad man from Texas
mixed in and out with the mass Every one
moves fast. There is some pushing and
showing, but you are surprised at the good
order everywhere kept. Now and then YOU
hear man swear but there is no shooting
no yelling and abundant good nature. This
is the mining camp of 1896 and not that of
1S49.
HOMES OF CRIPPLE CREEK
Back from the business streets YOU see
the homes of Cripple Creek The hills about
the stores for a radius CT half a mile on
each side dotted with nuts cabins and
frame houses of all descriptions Some are
a4ahI