Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1903-12-23

and who is worth
JAMES NJ "AiooN' $1,SOO,OOO, his pos
sessions consisting in copper mines,
cattle aid lands.
Orc Blanco is about the last COM
munity in the country where one
would look for the residence Of a
millionaire. 1t is a mere huddle Of
onestory frame and adobe structures
digniied by the name Of houses. They
are built on the sunbaked earth and
there is not q wooden floor in the
hamlet Two little stores, each with
saloon adjunct, and a blacksmith
shop, make up the business section
Of the town. The sparse population
is four-ifths Mexican, and the COM
munity is not at all American in any
Of it's ways. Yet Black Jim Robin
son, as he is known all over the re-
gion because of his marked swarthi-
ness, has made his home in Orc Blan-
co for thirty years and probably will
never live anywhere else. He Is from
Poughkeepsle, n. Y, and was on his
way with an oX-team wagon to the
Pacific coast by the Santa Fe trail
when the possibilities of making
money in cattle came to him. Forth
with he abandoned the emigrant train
to California, and has been living in
Arizona ever since. He was blessed
with a wonderful constitution and
nerves of iron. He has been through
Indian campaigns that would have
killed most men, and has had fights
for his life and property with Next
can vacqueros and with outlaws that
would make hair-raising narratives.
All the financial ups and downs Of
frontier life have been his.
Chief Luxury Is Ping Tobacco.
For twenty years Robinson has been
having an average net annual income
Of $4,000, while he and his family
have been living on less than $500 Of
it each year. He has Mexican wife,
whom he married thirty years ago.
There are four young men and five
girls in the family, but only three Of
them remain at home. All the others
have married into Mexican families
and gone out to live in Shanties and
mudhouses among the cattle along the
border, just like the sons and daugh-
tiers Of the poorest cowpunchers and
sheep herders in the region. The home
Of this millionaire from New York
would be dear at $3.50. All the furni-
trre and household effects in it could
be replaced for $500. The floors are of
hard-packed adobe, the windows and
-bo hoo
tern, and a drop Of paint was never
applied inside or out. The old couple
dress in the same coarse, rude garb as
Of old. The old man wears overalls
and a 'shickory" shirt all the time, ex-
cept occasionally when buyer for a
Chicago or a Kansas City packing
house journeys from Nogales railroad
station, thirty miles across the hot,
dusty plain, to talk over $4,000 or
$4,000 cattle transaction in the kitch-
en- of the old house. Then Mr.. Robin
son may put on a threadbare and
faded coat that he bought twenty
years ago in Tucson. There is not a
book in the house but Cattleman's
Guide and volume of recipes for cur
ing horse and cattle diseases. This
millionaire's family never takes a
newspaper, buys no furniture, never
tastes such things as ice cream, candy,
fish or fancy groceries. The old man
saw q banana for the first time a year
ago, when he was in Nogales. His
only luxury is plug tobacco
Sleeps on the Floor.
Another millionaire who lives in
what may be termed squalor is John
M. Watson, Of Globe, in ella County.
He owns half interest in the Durham
mine along with a syndicate Of New
Workers, and his dividends from the
property come from the company's
office in New York every ninety days.
They vary from $4,000 to $4,000 four
times year. Besides, he owns
smaller mine in Yuma County, for
which he has at present standing
offer OF 100000, which yields several
thousand dollars profit every month.
The rise Of Watson to wealth was
as unusual as it was sudden. Five
years ago he would gladly have sold
all his mining interests in Arizona for
a few Thousand dollars and have for
r-,::...-...z, -z,-.....-:.-zl ever quit work. He