The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-26

without water, and the cost OF milling
1t was then the lowest known. There
was a stampede to Bodie from every.
| part of the Pacific slope. Prospectprs
and capitalists rushed thither believing
1T would be a second Virginia City. The
population was 5000 by March 1880.
The city had mayor. councilmen, mar
shals and all other municipal officers.
1t boasted of its fire department and
its fine schools Tens of thousands of
dollars went into buildings, and, leav-
ing out Virginia City, Sacramento and
San Francisco, there were as elaborate
saloons in Bodie as anywhere on the
coast. Some merchants there carried
stocks worth more than $4,000. The
stamp mills and the hosting works
were busy day and night for weeks at
a time. Four dance halls and seven
faro banks were run in Bodie in the
summer of 1881. Shootings occurred al
most nightly and murders al least once
a week. One hundred and twenty gam
blers used to be the average of the
town. One hotel keeper made 1000
in one year. The Bodie mines paid enor-
mously for time. The Standard Gold
company is said to have paid $14 600, 900
in dividends in four years, and the Bodie
Milling company paid about SIS ,00o. 900
to its stockholders. The fame of Bodie
grew and the song about the rollcking
Bad Man from Bodie" was sung ev-
erywhere in America,
There began to be hints in 1884 that
the Bodie mines were petering out, but
the new issues of mining stock were
fioated. In 1885 the lodges did come to
an end. There was a panic and a STAN
pede from Bodie. The losses of the
| holders of stock in the Bodie mines
were great in many instances. In 1887
there were only 100 people left amid
the desolation, and year later all but
SIX persons had gone. A fire in 1890
swept away about all that was left of
the former greatness of the little city.
Thirty years ago Pierce City, Idaho,
was as much in the mouths of Ameri-
cans as Cripple Creek is to-day Pres
ident Grants Secretary of War, Cen
eral Bellnap. invested thousands of
dollars there. Vice President Schuyler
Colfax was criticised for selling Pierce
City stocks in congress. The town be-
gan in 1865, when gold was discovered
on Gro Elmo Creek. Two years had
scarcely passed after the discovery
when 10000 restless souls were swarm
ing along the creek, and the rich dig
gings soon made. Orc Elmo, one of the
famous camps of the golden west.
About $l,0OO,0O0 was spent at Pierce
City in 1s67-6S in buildings and i'm
| provements Eight mines were in op-
GRAFTON and the payroll was $4,000 a
week.
Two years later the Boise basin cleo
trified the mining world with its riches,
and with it's rise began the decline of
ORC Elmo. Men with blankets on their
backs started over the hills to the new
Ell Dorado. Twenty-eight years have
passed and not a sign is left to indicate
where once the booming camp of Orc
Elmo stood, while Pierce City is simply
a shadow of what was once the glory
of Idaho. The remains of Pierce City
stand on a little bench overlooking Orc
Elmo creek. A row Of log houses and
shacks made of whip-sawed lumber
stands on either side of the single
street. The birds nest in the once fine
hotels and the floors have rotted away
from the Offices where the mining com
panies once dealt in thousands. The
population consists of six white men,
about thirty Cinnamon and four Cnin-
csc women. The oldest mines are work
ed and reworked by the Mongolians,
who manage to make from SO cents to
81 day. There is some good ground
still held by white men, but there is
little work going on except by China
men. No less than $4,000, 900 in gold has
been taken from the camp.
Many gray haired New Workers can
recall the glories of Millerton in Cali
fornia, which once gave promise of be-
coming a city of 100000 people Moses
Grinnell and w. H. Aspinwall are said
to have invested $4,000 each in Miller
ton. Even so astute a man as d. o.
Mills, then of Sacramento, had great
faith in Millerton, and invested many
thousand dollars there. The town was
the county seat of the then immense
county of Fresno. In 1856 gold was
found in the foothills near the San
Joaquin river and the town that sprang
up took it's name from General Miller,
who had commanded a military post
there. In a few months the population
of MillertoWn was 1890. The New
Workers believed that the water power
in the San Joaquin river would make
it the great manufacturing town of the
Pacific coast, and that the mines would
add to the prosperity of the town. More
than 100000 of New York money was
spent in Millerton in 1857 and 1855
Flour and other mills were built streets
were laid out, plazas were staked off,
water power was developed, expensive
hotels and school houses were erected,
and 300 teams were busy for weeks in
hauling lumber and other building ma
terial to the new city of the interior
of California. The churches were built
at cost of $4,000 each, and the stores
are said to have been worthy of cities
of 10000 population. Two newspapers
were issued there in 1859, and the town
was booming on the money the New
York capitalists spent there.
Suddenly the ledge of gold ore pinch
ed out. and after several small fort
unes had been spent in trying to find
it again, the mines were abandoned.
The mining population FASTENED at once
to new fields, but the business and
professional men stayed for a while
longer. The mills were never started,
the capitalists would make no more in
vestments, and Millerton died. The
wooden buildings were torn down and
carted away in the course of the next
twenty years, and the stone and brick
buildings crumbled into ruins. The shell
of the court house, which cost 100000
in 1858, still remains, and so do the
walls of the hotel. A huge iron safe,
which was transported around the Horn
from New York. and then hauled from
San Francisco across the state of CAL
ifornia to Millerton, has by this time
rusted away in mud hole where it was
left thirty years ago. The site of the
costly fountain in the public park is
marked by a few pieces. of chiselled