The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-03-24
BUTTE NEWS.
PLAYS QUEER FRANKS
Holmes Gulch the Headquarters
for Lightning.
1T TOOK THE ROOF AWAY
One Man Killed-Horses and Cattle Have
Suffered-A Bolt Missed Two
Men and Killed
Z Dog.
IT TOOK THE ROOF AWAY

Lou Johnson, a well known resident
of Helena, is in the city and may con-
clude to locate here. He has lived in
Lewis and Clarke county for more than
20 years, and has worked in the placer
mines of Grizzly, Dry, Indian, Silver,
Mitchell and Holmes gulches. The last
work he did was in a tributary Of
Holmes gulch, above the old Voolfolk
claim, last summer. He said yesterday
that most of these gulches were ie-
serted except here and there Cinnamon
managed to make a few cents a day by
their primitive system of placer mining.
Talk about lightning" he said.
Holmes gulch is the banner place for
hard lightning and thunder. I believe
that is the worst place in the whole
i state during the electrical season. AS
far as I know but one man has been
killed there and this occurred about 20
years ago. John Harrington, one of the
best known and most popular men in
the county, was killed one day while he
was cooking his dinner on a stove in
his cabin near the mine he was WORK
ing. The bolt was attracted by the
. stove pipe. 1t was supposed that john
was in the act of frying bacon when the
electrical current followed the handle of
the frying pan he held in his hand,
passing through his body.
Il have spent several summers in
that gulch and in Indian gulch and
Clark's creek, not far distant, and in
all of those places lightning seems 10
make it's headquarters. Horses and
cattle have been killed there. but 1
have no record of any other man being
struck although I have been told that
t "a man named Mcdonald was killed in
upper Holmes gulch the year the plac-
ers We're discovered Last summer
lightning tore the greater part of the
roof from my cabin while l and my
partner, Jim Hale, We're asleep Neither
of us We're hurt, but we might as well
have been hit, for we supposed for Il
minute that we We're dead. Jim asked
me if I was dead, and I replied that I
was. He said that he was, too. We
hurried into our clothes and repaired
the roof, SO as to keep out the deluge
that was falling from the skies. 1t was
a terrific Storm Our dog that was
sleeping just inside the door was dead.
IT was a close call for u.s. We pulled
out of that gulch the following day and
pitched camp in Clark's creek. Two
days after we camped in that creek,
picketed close to our tent. We moved
up to the head of Dry gulch a week
p later. and there log cabin that we in
= tended to live in we found to be shat
tered by bolt of lightning.
We Wen. up to the old Winscott
mill, and there a man told us that
lightning had killed a calf that day
and stunned a wood-hauler's team of
horses. We left that part of the coun-
fry for RI in the
papers about 81 team of horses belong
ing to a butcher having been killed on
the Clancy road where it crosses
Holmes gulch. That part of the coun-
try won't attract me again even if it be
found that gold exists there in great
quantities.
Il was never in Butte before, and my
first visit has shown me that this is
the only city in Montana. If I don't
find something on this side of the range
besides lightning 1t will be because
there is nothing here"