The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-03-12

lipulS, bullilllSo NtIG tIGClGu III a night; a wild, furious, reckless fever set in; thousands of dollars were | squandered on the most trivial things, | and men lost all realization of the worth of money, which circulated like so much waste paper. By the middle of September there were nine hundred | buildings in Pithole, q, railroad had been surveyed to connect it with the
 outside world, and besides wells which
 were being pumped, the immediate Vii cnity boasted of seventeen flowing wells, the total yield amounting to about six thousand barrels per day. But the enormously increased output there and elsewhere had cut market
 rates down to four dollars per barrel. | Still the excitement grew Capitalists | in a score of communities subscribed | large sums to form companies and pur- chase territory. Business men, clerks,
 mechanics, physicians and lawyers in-
 vested in oil stocks, and domastic ser wants and laboring men withdrew from
 savings banks their few hard-earned dollars to buy a share or two in one of hundreds of concerns which had a real
 or an imaginary connection with Pit hole.
 During September, 1865, daily news
 paper was projected, and on the 25th of
 that month was published the first is
 sue of the Pnthole Record, 'the com positors standing ankle-deep in mud as
 they set the type," according to an old
 resident of the region. From the first
 number of the Record 1t is seen that
 Pithole then could boast of lawyers
 physicians, dentists, two insurance
 agencies, merchants dealing in grocer ies, hardware, dry goods, drugs, liquor
 crockery and clothing; and watch
 makers, sheet and iron workers, five saloons and restaurants, and thirteen
 hotels one of which, the Danforth House, cost seventy thousand dollars;
 two express companies and two banks were transacting business, and the
 Western Union and the United States
 Telegraph companies each had an of flee in the city. During October, Mo-
 vember and December, 1865, there were one hundred and sixty thousand letters mailed at the Pithole post-offfce, and
 quite as many were received. From it's first issue on September 25, 1865, until
 February IS, 1866, the Record con-
 tained lists of twenty thousand adver- , tised letters, one-third of which were sent to the dead-letter office Brown
 hillsides partly covered by underbrush,
 and familiar to less than a score of persons in all probability, had become
 in five months a rushing, bustling,
 noisy city, with fire department
 peace officers, gamblers, adventuresses
 by the score and theaters wherein fla | .,Jo +x~ .,,tII i,y,1 syocy
 wearing flannel shirts and diamond
 collar buttons. Tle nearest railroad station then was at Miller Farm, four
 miles distant, and teamsters charged
 one hundred dollars for transporting
 small engine between the points. fif-
 teen dollars for carrying a half-ton of
 coal and ten dollars for trunk.
 Of course the excitement was not
 confined within the boundaries of Pit hole, and speculators prospected for oil throughout the surrounding region. One company of New York capitalists sent an agent there who offered an old farmer living quarter of a mile north of the city more than four hundred thousand dollars for his two acres. The man was ignorant and very poor, but he refused the sum.
 Whats the matter?" demanded the agent Isn't that enough money for you?"
 'Yaas," the farmer replied 'but you
 see this is tn only home I've got; and if sell it won't have no place to live at"
 The agent then went a mile to the southward of Pithole and offered an- other farmer seven hundred thousand dollars for his two hundred and fifty acres.
 "A round million is my figure" said this farmer, "and I'll not take a cent less"
 Workers invested their money else- where Afterward both these farms were tested, and on neither was found a paying well.
 Leading citizens organized an organ ization called the Swordsmen's club Tt was part of the clubs policy to
 keep the fun going" says an old
 member "so we got together one night and subscribed enough money to build a Methodist church, and it was
 mighty good one too, let me tell you
 Strange to say, this structure has out lasted all of the others. l forgot whether religious services were ever held in it, but the framework is still standing in more or less ruined condi- ton. It's a queer thing, too, that one of the old-t timers made rich at Pithole was canny Scotchman who knew when to quit; and after seizing the for tune that fell into his arms he started for New York, and took passage for home on the first ship he could get, carrying his money with him. Doubt less he was a good Methodist, for he never forgot the place, and when he died, not long ago, his will contained a bequest to be used in purchasing bell and a pulpit Bible for the Pithole church.. The legacy was returned for obvious reasons-no Pithole existed, no people lived there but the family of one farmer; there was no church so- ciety, and the church building was fall ing to pieces"
 The era of Pithole was of short dura tion Oil suddenly gave out devas- tating fire swept the place, and the thousands of residents fled like a pack of wolves for other fields wherein to hunt for fortunes. A few years ago Thomas Holmden's farm was sold for taxes, and brought less than one hun