The record-union., 1897-08-02
ONE OF "BAGDAD'S JOKERS. "
AN EARLY-DAY CHARACTER OF
TRINITY COUNTY.
George Crosson, a Pioneer of the
Fifties, Here on a Visit From
Missouri.

Away back in the early fifties Dave
Gordon, then editor of the Trinity
journal" now of Yreka, published a
number of disconnected yarns which
passed current under the suggestive
head Of ''Jokers of Bagdad," and from
that time ON the memory of Bagdad
and the men who worked the mines
there has lived and passed from legend
into history.
The ''jokers of Bagdad" were not inn
aginary people, by any means, and the
practical jokes they sprung on one
another were actual facts, and not, as
has been suggested, the vaporings of
the fertile brain of Dave" Gordon.
In 1852. George Crosson, who claimed
Ohio as his birthplace, arrived at Bag
dad, and his is among the names made
famous by Editor Gordon But in
1859, joker George Crosson, having ac-
cumulated several thousand dollars-a
comfortable fortune in those days-bade
farewell to the placers of Trinity Coun-
ty and invested his earnings in some
of the rich bottom lands of Illinois and
Missouri
Shortly afterWard news was received
in Bagdad that Crosson had played a
joke on a Dutchman in Cincinnati and
got shot for his pains. But even death
could not separate the name of CrOs-
son from the minds of the people in
and about Bagdad, and the new genera
ton, at that time unthought of, still
tell stories of the tricks played by him
ON unsuSpecting tenderfeet and others
George CrOSson was in Sacramento
yesterday. He is an old man now, but
the gOOd-natured lines about his eyes
and mouth mark him still as one of
Bagdads now famous jOkers. He was
seen in his room by a 'Record-Union"
representative yesterday, and recalled
much that was but is not.
''On the 18th day of May of the pres
ent year." said Mr.. Crosson, Il Wis
tied Bagdad after an absence of thirty
seven years, but everything was
changed. In 1859 every bar contained
it's village and every village it's busy,
active mass of humanity. The villages
are all gone now, and where once was
life and hustle there is now only rocks
and brush and heaps Of gravel.
Very few men who lived at Bagdad,"
continued Mr.. Crosson, when L was
there are alive to-day, and all those
VINO survive were as surprised 10 see
me as though 1 had been a ghost. They
believed me dead"
After leaving California the first time
Mr.. CrOsson spent a number of years in
the quartz districts of Colorado and
became convinced that the vein which
fed the placers on Camp Creek, Trim
ity County, is situated on one of the
mountains above it. Last winter he
laid the theory before a Missouri capi-
talist, who became interested, and it
ended by Mr. CrOssen being sent out
here to make locations on the hill. When
he arrived, however, he found the en-
tire mountain covered with mining
claims and a number of mines paying
large dividends.
He, however, relocated an old claim
and began work in the abandoned shaft.
He struck a. tunnel farther into the hill,
and after going ten feet struck the rich
ledge which had cropped on top and
been lost by a break in the formation.
He has supervised the business in the
interest of the capitalist who sent him,
and states that when he left 300 tons
of rich ore was lying upon the dumps
Mr.. Crosson starts for his home in
Jerico, Mo-, to-day.