The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-11
those who pirate about it. it is nothing
but a fad.
THAT GRAND ENcAMPMENT
TALE
THAT

Several days ago there was sent from
Rawlins Wyo., to the Chicago Times
Herald, and a number of other papers
in various parts of the country, a dis
patch telling of wonderful discovery
Of gold at Grand Encampment, Wyo.
This account contained such statements
as these:
Mining experts who have looked over
the ground believe that development
viii uncover an entire mountain OF
gold, which will relegate all other gold
districts to insigniflcance.
Wyoming has suddenly hlazed up as
the possible. even probable, richest
country in the world
1t was q honey combed rock, scarcely
larger in diameter than the wheel of
an ordinary farm wagon, that has pre-
cipitated a gold boom, started gold
camp and made the residents of Wyo-
ming gold mad. A white quartz surface
float in PurgatOry Gulch unheeded
there, perhaps, for centuries, has been
found to hold within it's fiint-lilSe walls
a golden treasure amounting to $24,5S4,
or SO, 512 in round numbers. for each
ton of its weight.
A strange thing about this marvel
ously rich camp is that the Wyoming
papers have had nothing TO say about
it. The Cheyenne Header of Mon
day last, had an interview with Mr.. c..
NJ. George, a mining expert of Illinois
and Colorado. Mr.. George is thoroughly
acquainted with the Grand Encamp-
ment country, and was going there to
investigate the reported discovery. He
had seen this Chicago Times Herald
article, and in relation to it, said:
If one-tenth part of this article is
reliable, Grand Encampment is surely
one of the richest gold districts in the
west, and there should be 10000 people
there in the next year, but evidently
some newspaper man has lost himself
in imagination, and has exceeded the
bounds Of truth. | want to say to you
in this regard, that no worse a thing
could happen to any new locality that
is striving for recognition from cap
italists, or is attempting to attract
proSDectOrS, than to go to extremes in
the presentation of the actual condi-
tons existing in the country. The eX-
aggerated report, when gotten up like
this one, might influence a few invest
ors to investigate, and may be the
means of impoverishing some impulSive
working man who was moved to action
by the startling news, but the final re-
suit is very disastrous No business
man invests on such q report, and the
expense of an investigation which
proves the same false, disgusts the vic
tim with the locality, and after that il
requires much more than a newspaper
report to attract his attention. | have
no doubt but that there are good pros
| poets up there, but this thing of count
] ing chickens before they are matched
is wrong principle.
All the probabilities are that thi:
| Grand Encampment story is fake
pure and simple, and that the papers
which published it were imposed upon
| and that they, in turn, imposed upol
their readers. There are those who will
get up just such fakes, having NJ
foundation whatever for their wild an
/ sensational stories.
A few weeks ago a story very simila
to this Wyoming one was sent out from
Washington state, and for a few day
there We're accounts in the papers o
the great rush of people to the new gol
fields, and of the wondrous finds the
were making. and then no more wa
heard about them. These stories O
discoveries of wonderful gold fields ar
very largely on a par with the storie
of airships. The country from whic
they emanate is very much injured b
them. because of the disrepute int
which they bring it. while its real mer
its are hidden under a cloud of false
hoods.
This Grand Encampment story is ia
better calculated to injure Wyomin
than to benefit her. On the face of il
it shows that it is too good to be true.