The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-21
HOW 1T GOT THE NAME.
OF HANGTOWN-THRE STORIES AND HISTORIAN

Hidden in the fire-clad hills and rav- ines of Fl Dorado county, at the base
 of the first grand rise of the Sierras there is a little town. Round topped
 hills wall it securely in, as if protect
 ing it from the outside world and up
 over them and across the dark green
 sea of treetops, through the clear
 mountain air, the white created Sier-
 ras raise their rugged heights. Placer
 vile, they call it. Erstwhile a mining
 camp, and formerly of great import
 ance as a town, it now leads the quiet
 existence of the governmental seat of l a mountain county, which has been left
 a trifie to one side side of the exhaus- tion of it's gold deposits and the de-
 mands of commercial life. It gives no indications to-day of the prominence which one was it's own, and of the
 strenuous life' it led once as a mining camp. There is now little about it that would attract the attention of the un-
 informed stranger to its previous his
 tory or suggest to him anything of
 the days when the place was the third
 largest town in California. It is charm
 ingly picturesque, with it's irregular
 streets following the contour of the
 land and lending it a quiet air of un-
 conventionality and convenience that is
 not soon forgotten.
 Though the place is not widely known
 as "Placervile" there are few people
 in this country to-day who have not
 at least heard of 1t as "Hangtown"
 Certainly there is none in California to whom the place is unfamiliar. There is
 not one, however, who without pre-
 vious information would recognize in the Placerville of to-day the Hang town" of fifty years ago. To most peo- pie the mention of the name brings memories either personal of otherwise, of the most romantic period of Western history, when the men of the East sought their fortunes in "El Dorado of '49." There was a time when Placer vile was mass of board and cloth houses and when "Emigrant Ravine Road" was constantly filed with the teams of incoming pioneers and freight CTS; when Shirt tail Bend" now de- serted, was busy mining center; when gold could be easily taken from Mother Earth and fortunes made in a td were OLltH SQudHutf6u III rll IlUuT, when Judge Lynch's court was the highest legal tribunal, and before that bar, slwft and sure justice was meted out to public offenders. To those who saw this fourishng camp in it's early days, wild and careles of It's future, there will always come a memory when Placerville is mentioned of those times when money was plenty. the excitement of the gold fever was raging. and old 'Hangtown' was in its prime.
 The name is probably one of the most famous of all those words which, coin | sd and applied as nicknames, have be- come an interesting part of our west | arn geography. It has been used for effect on "tenderfeet" and would-be ! portaryers of western life have made 1t | part of their principal stock in trade IS sounding typically and lawlessly | western. It is perhaps cruel to disil usionize those people who, have a more f 1r less hay idea of old Hangtown as f he secene of daily murders and blood [ shed and all other immoralities which [ Ire attributed to the ultra mining amp. The place was. of course, not t model in those respects, and came by ts name honestly enough. But 1t was 10 worse than any other camp of any at that time. Perhaps the 'eputation which its name gained for t had something to do with the fact hat no extraordinary number of rimes occurred there. Nevertheless the act remains that a few were commit ed early iii the history of the town, md that these and others were speed ly punished and to this fact is at ributed the origin of the most unique
 IS we'll as one of the most famous, western names
 There have been, of course, many heories as to the origin of the name 'Hangtown," as is perfectly natural in he case of unwrltten history such as his. but there are three stories, more r les authentic, which purport to con- ain the true history of how it happen d. They all sound reasonable, and it 5 probable that all three are founded n the same fact The camp origina ted n 1s4S as "Old Diggings," and by this anne it was known until January, 1S49' nd. according to the first story. in that 1onth the event occurred which infor- 1ally christened the place Hang { own"
 One night three men were playing ( oker in a saloon, probably tent or ( ut, when one of the party went l roke" That in itself was probably { ot extraordinary, but what followed { -as enough out of the common to af ect the little camp to no slight degree. ( he proprietor of the place had fallen I sleep in the room. and as it was I nown that he had some dust in his r ossesion, it occurred to the gentleman c ho had lost that a glorious opportun- i y of replenishing purses was at hand. r +eedless to say the proposition found r lvor in the eyes of the others. The a eeper was aroused and requested over q
 gunbarrel to "ante!" A favor asked such terms was not to be refused. r nd he responded with alacrity. The f threats of sure death If q e "blew" were dsregarded by the ictim however, and he blew as !, as he had "anted" on the pre- o ous evening. The camp was wild and a anted justice done. No time was z asted, and the robbers were arrested f ,fore they had time to escape, court | as convened, and fogging and exile O ere chosen as sentence In keeping a ith the enormity of the crime. n The promptness with which the whole rocedure was gone through with fight have served as a warning to 9