Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1902-05-01
BACK FROM THE EAST
Hon. Lou Smith Talks OF Idaho on the
Atlantic Coast.
MUCH INTEREST FELT IN OUR MINES
Lots of Immigration and Cap
ital Are Surely Coming
This Way,

Hon. Louis Smith arrived from
a trip to Pittsbnrg, Washington,
Annapolis and Philadelphia last
Saturday and succeeded in dispos-
ing of the Rand and Treadwell
groups of claims in Thunder Noun
tain, in which he is interested, to
Pittsburg people. There are ten
claims in these groups, and the
purchase price runs into six figures
of which n good percentage was
paid in cash. Mr.. Smith says the
Pittsburg people are very much en-
thusiastic over their prospects of
making millions out of Thunder
Mountain, and during his stay in
the Smoky city the Sunnyside and
Holcomb groups were disposed Of
for 1876 900. The Sunnyside group
went for Sl25, 900 cash and the
Holcomb group for $3.50, 900. with
a cash pay ment of $25, 900.
He further reports that vast sums
of Pittsburg capital are to be in
vested in collateral enterprises,
one of them being the expenditure
of half q million dollars in equip
ping an electric light and power
plant on the Middle Fork of Salmon
river by the Dewey and Sunnyside
interests, who have consolidated
for this purpose, with the, intention
of operating their mines and mills
by electricity, and incidentally of
furnishing light and power to the
towns and other mines that NAV
require it.
He saw Col. Dewey while there,
and says he has recovered from his
severe sickness of the past winter.
A course of treatment at the Ar
kansas hot springs has so benefited
him that he is now on active duty
and is doing the state of Idaho a
world of good by his push and en-
terprise. The Dewey company
have ordered 1O0-stamp mill
equipment for the Dewey mines,
aud the outfit weighs over a million
pounds. Il is about ready for ship
ment and viii hr sent through to
Idaho in II solid train of 40 cars.
The cars will be plaza rded, the
train constituting fine advertise
ment for the new district. The
freighting of this big mill will be a
big undertaking. There are three
boilers, weighing 10000 pounds
each, while the fly wheel weighs
IA 900 pounds. The latter was
cast in two pieces. The outfit is
expected to arrive at Boise about
the middle of May, and it will be
hauled as far as possible and re-
loaded after a wagon road has been
constructed.
Mr.. Smith expressed himself as
greatly surprised and pleased at
the treatment he received from the
Pittsburg people. He says they
are as open-handed and hospitable
as our western people, and the best
is none too good for them to be-
stow on anybody from Idaho. They
regard the northwest as the coming
country, and look upon Idaho as
the state where the great fortunes
Of the next decade are to be'made,
and they propose to be strictly in
it and are making their invest
ments accordingly. Not only Thun-
der Mountain. but every gold camp
in the state will be benefited by the
Thunder Mountain excitement, for
Mr.. Smith says it is generally rec
ognized as fact throughout the
east that the operations of the
trusts, syndicates and combines
will in the near future wipe out
the great middle class in the United
States, and that our population
will speedily resolve itself into the
two great classes of employer
and employee. This is foreseen
and predicted with such confidence
that the men who are not multi
millionaires are already laying
their plans to put their capital into
enterprises where there is less dan
| ger of its being destroyed or other
wise rendered worthless by or
through trust manipulations, and
gold mining is now favorite form
of investment for these people as
being the one enterprise from which
there is no danger of trust control.
Consequently, he anticipates an
immense investment of eastern
money in all forms of gold mining
in the west, particularly in Idaho.
Other millions will, of course, be
invested in. other enterprises in
this state, and during the coming
summer the resources which we
have to offer people with capital
will be looked into by Pittsburg
people, some of whom are coming
to Grangeville by Mr.. Smiths in
vitation.
"Idaho is pretty well advertised
in the middle west" said Mr..
Smith, "but it is comparatively an
unknown country east Of the Allie
ghanies, and it is a section which
our people ought to look after more
closely, for the people there are
more inclined to speculate than
those of the middle west, and as a