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

porated in 1867. The hotels were crowd
eu ana the excitement increased Moth
ing was talked Of but lodges, stocks and
town lots. For lot so by so on any
OF the principal streets from 81, 500 to
1900 was paid. A small store on
street rented for 5000 month. A stock
poard was organized with daily sales of
Excelsior and other local mining stocks
About this time the population of the
town had reached 5000 and was rapidly
increasing. Quartz mills with seventy
two stamps were in operation, and
blasts were going off in thirty or forty
tunnels and shafts all the time. But,
strange as it seems to one who looks
at the matter nowadays, not a cent had
been taken out of the mines, while
thousands had been put in. Still, no
one was discouraged, and the stamps
continued crushing ore. Finally the
chief mine, the Excelsior. was cleaned
up, and the news carried to the wait
ing, anxious crowd that the run was
unsuccessful BY no known process
could the gold be extracted from the
ore. Almost a panic resulted. Houses
were left with the contents exposed to
the storms of an approaching winter;
stores with their shelves packed with
merchandise remained undisturbed un-
ii lthey were robbed and burned. 1t IS
curious sight to see what remains of
this once flourishing city, where more
than $2,000,000 was expended on mines
and buildings. A mass of quarried stone
on which number of iron doors and
shutters lie in confusion is all that re-
mains of the stone store of Smith q
Perkins. A very large three-story
building built on a granite rock is still
standing. On hill overlooking the
town are three good residences, the
1t-lN1,
house cost $4,000 and was purchased
twenty years ago for SIS. On every
hand and ruins of frame buildings
whole blocks having been destroyed by
fire.
After the tourist on the Canadian Pa
cific railroad has passed through the
scenic wonders of the Rocky mountains
and the Selkirk range and has hung
for hours above the precipices in the
Fraser river canon, the train suddenly
shoots out into a level space in the
river valley and brings up at a sta
ton called Yale. Yale in inhab only
by handful of white men and several
hundred Chinese and Flathead Indians,
whom the traveller sees upon the plat
form with baskets of tempting fruit
The hamlet is as lonely as one can i'm
agine, but thirty-five years ago there
was a regularly incorporated and thriv-
10000 people at Yale. 1t was the big
town of British Columbia, and $4,000
would not go far in making an invest
ment there. Now one could proabiy buy
the whole city for 1000. The assessed
valuation there reached S3,300.000. That
was when the Fraser river placers were
at their best. The late Henry George
lived at Yale for some months, and
John w. Mackay was there for long
time.
The visitor who leaves the railroad
train and walks about the ruins of
Yale will find abundant suggestions of
it's past glories. There are the bank
buildings, where Englishmen did bus
mess of thousands of dollars daily. now
open, floorless and almost roofiess.
Strangely enough, one saloon has been
kept almost intact all these years at
Yale. 1t has few broken windows, but
it's front doors are still on their
hinges. The lettering on the window,
"Whiskey and Wines yet remains.
Tons and tons of iron wheelsNcables and
broken and rusted machinery, all
brought ITO the Pacific coast from Eng
land, around the Horn, lie in the earth
and snow. A little gold is found in the
river banks and among the sands near
the shore. AS the train leaves town
tourists often see few Chinese dig
ging in the sand on the left side of the
river. The Chinese are satisfied if they
make an average of 50 a day. They
monopolize the left shore, but on the
right bank, where the site of the for
mer city lies is a German, Edward
Stout, who has been panning gold dust
there for several years. Gold washing
is possible only during few months
in the year. The Chinese work only
from July until November. At most
other periods of the year the water is
too high to admit of digging in the
sands where gold is found.
Arizona has several interesting ruins
of once booming mining communities.
Tombstone is the most famous min
ing camp ever known in the southwest,
but it is not a deserted town yet, even
if it has shrunk from $4,000 to 700 popu-
lation since the great days of 1880 and
1881. Tombstone once had daily news
papers, street car lines dozens of gam
bling houses, a half dozen dance halls,
a $4,000 theater, the finest hosting
works and stamp mills ever known in
the Southwest, and three banks, each of
which was capitalized at $4,000. For
year or two, until it burned down in
1881, it had 100000 hotel, where the
rates were from S. to $50 a day. Mar
row business property lots used to sell
for $4,000 each. When the lodges pet
cred out in 1881 the town soon melted
away The people who have remained
there are interested in cattle. The $4,000
lots can now be bought for $50 each. and
one can buy for 5000 or $500 houses
which were erected nineteen years ago
for $4,000 and $4,000.
Out on the line of the railroad from
Prescott ITO Congress, in Arizona Ter
ritory, are the remains of the town of
Brown, a place of 5000 in 1876 The
town has been torn down largely in the
last dozen years for the fireWood there
is in it, but a weather beaten, ram
shackle structure still manages to stand
here and there to testify to the impor-
lance of Brown, where the Yavapai Gold
company's lodges We're yielding well.
The graveyard on the sunbaked hill
sides is the only thing there that has
not changed since the population rush
ed to Signal, another deserted mining
town of 1000 people, in 1879.
Paris of To-day-the handsomest pre-
MUM book ever offered-now ready for
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