The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-26
WESTERN SILENT CITIES.
Strange Sights Presented by Deserted
Mining Camps

A special correspondent of the New
YORK sun at Pomona, Cal, SAYS: The
deserted mining towns of the West are
about the loneliest places one can. find,
Ihefe are several scores of such towns
in California, a dozen in Idaho and
montana, half dozen in Colorado and
as many in New Mexico and Arizona.
Some Of the abandoned towns have had
populations of $4,000, while many had
more than 1000 each. A large propor-
ton of these communities once had
full complement of municipal officers
and municipal departments and assess
ed valuations of several millions of dol
lars To-day they are as forlorn and
deserted as Palmyra in the desert.
some towns that had 5000 and 10000
people during the early 70's are occu-
pied by scant dozen people.
While the desolation of ain abandoned
mining town impresses the stranger IT,
altects an oid-time miner as nothing
else can The lore of camp-fres and
mining camps in every part of the
mountainous West abounds in stories
of how the life of this miner or that
prospector was altered, how some one
else committed suicide, and how an
other was overcome with grief owing
TO visit to one of the crumbling, for
saken mining towns. A few of these cit-
les are along the routes of travel, and
their struggling streets, now grown
over with sage brush and rank weeds
and fanked by cheap wooden buildings
and cabins. may be seen from the car
windows, but nearly all the deserted
towns are away up in the mountain
valleys ana canons, many miles from
the beaten paths of tourists. Some Of
these forlorn towns are among the pine
forests OF the upper mountain sides,
where a stream of water and the devel-
NJ q I-oFtI ,F, = H.
building of big village and the prom
Use of city there, when the mother
lode should be found. These towns
were founded on the mines. They grew
and prospered while the mines paid.
The ledge came to an end and the min
ers and all the attendant population
moved elsewhere and the relics of the
community are left.
The obliteration of mining communi-
ties has probably been more general in
the present generation in Nevada than
IN any other state. The population of
that state has decreased more than SO
per cent. in the last two decades. In
the eastern part of Nevada there were
five towns, each of more than 1000 peo-
pie in 1876. that have less than six in
hibltants left now Then there were
such fiourshing camps as Ratings, Ma
sontoWn, Germany, Pine Tree, that have
totally disappeared except for a few
ullapldated miners cabins and tOtter-
ing store buildings and saloons In
Germany hotel that cost $4,000 is a
monument of the days when every
room was occupied at So a head every
night and the bar and gambling rooms
downstairs yielded a net revenue of
$500 and $3.50 weekly. In Southern Ne
Vada, about 20 miles from Phoebe, may
be seen the remains of Emerson It
was a wonderful little city in 1870 and
1871, when the gold and silver lodges
were yielding ore worth from 5000 to
$500 ton. Boston capital poured into
it. AT one time there were $500 peo-
pie in the place, and they came in four
weeks. A brother of John Morrissey of
New York was the boss of the town.
and he paid $500 rent week to run his
games in the only wooden building in
the place. Stamp mills, hotels, saloons
and stores We're subsequently built in
Emerson. 1t would have become a town
of 10000 people but for the wonderful
mines at Virginia City, New But the
lodges petered out. The town melted
away and not a human being has lived
there for ten years. The houses have
cracked, withered and shrunk under the
heat of the alkali plain in summer and
the snow and blasts of winter.
Then there was the famous mining
city of Bodie. Only dozen isolated
cabins, the stone foundations of great
structures and heaps of rusted anu
worthless mining machinery remain
to mark the site of what was the live
Hest mining town in America twenty
years ago. Bodie was in Mono county,
Cal. Aftersthe collapse of the Com