The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-07-06
DEAD CITIES.
Many American Towns, Once Popu-
Ious, Are Now Abandoned


Not in the old world alone is to be
found the silent Amyclae" over which
VirgiTs two words have kept scholars
puzzling for nearly 1000 years. In this
think so new. there are scores of dead
cities" Nor are they prehistoric.
Many of them rose, fiourished, declin-
ed and died within the memory of liv-
ing men. And most of them the spade
of the excavator will never dig up.
They have vanished completely. In
the Era are published some rambling
notes of a score of these dead cities.
towns, and when the mines, producing
a crop that cannot be renewed, were
exhausted they died. Some of them,
such as Bannock and Virginia City, in
Now there are fewer than 100 in Vir-
ginia City. Then there was Bodie,
Cal, which less than fifteen years ago
had 5000 people, and whose mines had
dends The mines failed the town was
deserted, and few years ago fire
swept the site bare.
But the failure of mines does not
towns. Springfield, Kan. was once
large enough to build a $4,000 school
house, and to put in water works. At
last accounts there were 200 houses and
the hydrants were hidden in the
prairie grass. At Saratoga a $4,000
theater finds none to tread it's boards
save the wandering tramp. At Fargo
Springs the $4,000 school house bell
rings when the wind is strong, but no
children come. These, dead Kansas
towns are the fading monuments of an
error of observation as to the normal |
rainfall of the western part of the
state. Ancient Troy was found to be |
buried in it's own rubbish. That also |
was the fate of Yam Hill. In the lat
ter sos it was a prosperous gold camp.
The placers there were exhausted, but
new ones were found farther I'D the
stream. The impatient gold seekers
deserted the old town and built a new
1ne. The earth and gravel from the
new placers were washed down upon
he old town and covered its buildings
Vow only the gable OF a large livery
n ar,na fv.nr hA coil 70 -h
where Yam Hill was. Perhaps when
dacaulay's New Zealander comes to
ketch the ruins of London bridge an
colleague may dig up Yam
Hill and draw all sorts of conclusions
S to the civilization of prehistoric
america.
Nor are these dead towns to be
ound in the mining and semi-arid re-
ions only. At the junction. of the
avannah and Broad rivers in Georgia
re now only fields of grain and graz
lg sheep. Yet there once stood Peters
urE;. a regularly laid out and prosper
us town of the DAYS before the rail-
oa6s came. Now there is not a single
ouse upon the site and the wheat
rows where was the public square. o
he railroad unmade Petersburg. as it t
fter first making them.
When we speak of dead cities" we e
sually think of towns overwhelmed by 6
ome CONFUSION of nature. such as
ompeii and St Pierre. Yet these are =
few. The vastly great u
: number of these silent Amyclaes, a
lese Troys which were. were swept
way because their builders misjudged u
ldustrial conditions. or because new ?,
Dnditions arose and trade routes
hanged. Men made them and men d
them. a few of them live s.
the pages Of romancer or poet. The b
anius of Bret Harte preserves the T,
emory that on the bare brow of
-hite Plain mountain there was once :
city Of $1,000 people, full of human c
opes and fears. loves and hates. For Il
mate is the city that like Troy finds L
poet TO sing her story, or that like
Inyclae finds a poet even TO mention 3,
er. As for the others, the unsung,
heir lives were a watch or q. vision, II
etween a sleep and a sleep. P
Chicago Inter-Ocean. Of