The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-12-22
THE ROMANCE OF NEVADA
(B. F. Montgomery in Deseret News.)


away. Finding some gold several Of
them .vm,tsni. Thus wS- settlement
horn in the Silver State, born in the
heart Of a land absolutely isolated from
all other communities; on one hand by
a chain of high mountains, impossible
more thar four months of the year;
and on the other hand almost equally
as impossible for lack of. water in n
desert stretch of many days travel.
While the jewellers of the east were
secure in their water supply, secure in
their older civilization, secure in their
markets for factory products, a mere
handful of men was laying the corner
stones of a state in the Union which
should very soon, of its sheer financial
superiority, take its place as an equal
amid them, and place its star upon their
emblem of achievement. Soon there
was Johntown, Gold Hill and Sixmile
Canon. In a country like that there
was demand for men of the type Of
Henry M. Stanley, of African fame.
And America, ready to supply any man
for any work, supplied the mining
pioneer of Nevada. He did not care
how far food had to come, for there
were men equally as fearless as him
self to bring it in; he did not care for a
fancy dwelling provided he was NOT
cold at night; he did not pine for
amusement, for success was his life s
dream, and his days were full of vigor-
Gus, primitive toll, with his horny
hands and his keen brain for simple
tools. At Gold Hill one writer tells US,
they lived in the open when the wealth
er was good, and when it showed, they
lived in caves and dugouts in the sides
of the hills about the canon, hibernat-
ing like the bears, until a thaw. When
the days were good and the water
came down from the mountain streams
they strobe off at daybreak and dug
holes in the earth and washed out their
gold in wooden "rockers."
When they returned at night they
cooked their W food and slept the
sleep of the just. If one among them
was unfit to remain, he was told to 60;
if one of their number was so great >
fool as to open an attack upon his
neighbor, the price of his folly was SUD
den death, and like the waste earth
from their rockers his useless clay
was cast upon the hillside. The price
of success in the primitive community
was constant exercise of primitive vir-
tue and prehistoric vigor. Those who
possessed it were ever masters of the
situation. In these camps lived James
Fennimore, a man who loved whisky,
but a man withal-and one Henry Com
stock, a man of infinite self esteem.
They had heard the cry of California 3
gold, and to it's hiding place, like De
Soto in search of youths eternal foun-
tain, hither they had come to search for
power amid the mountains fastness
and solitude. What they did all un-
knowingly, is a tale in all mems
mouths today when Nevada is spoken
of in any part of the globe.
With the news of the rich silver dis
coveries in Nevada coming to the ears
of the man at the rocker over in the
Golden State, was one of America 5
great melodramatic struggles for
primacy of individual man enacted.
They dropped their rockers and took
upon their backs food for the journey
over the Sierras to the new land. In
one village in California they set forth
in the darkness of early dawn upon
foot. This was the true romance of
the west. We, in modern times, creep
up the mountains over the steel rails
and glide down the far side into the
valley below, recline in easy chairs AMI
admire falling water and giant pines
and irs-not so with him who was 10
carve Nevada from the mountainside
and present her full grown to the rest
of the nation. Footsore and weary,
sleeping by night upon the snow and
stumbling by day over dashing streams
and up almost impossible sleeps, with
his eyes straining to see who was
ahead of him and turning jealously to
see if the man behind was gaining
upon him, cursing the man with the
horse, the primitive man defied Nature
to check his progress toward the enl
he had set out to reach. When they
reached Virginia and poured in upon
the little settlement, they rushed out
and located claims everywhere. Claims,
claims, claims. On the mountain, in the
valley, in the hidden silent places far
away from the camp, stood men with
the fire of fearlessness in their eyes
al 4ho lono 90 ,oaka.r s,-,- - -