Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1905-07-28
THE coMsTock LODE.
Big Bonanza Has Done More for the
World Than Any other Find.

There never was such a time OF wild
deeds and frenzied folly and inspired Wis
dom as there was in the days Of the big
bonanza on the Comstock, says the Dem
yer Post.
And no wonder.
Think one minute Of what the Comstock
lode has done for the world John Mackay
went to Nevada poor miner with his
pick on his shoulders and nothing but the
sweet brogue on the tip of his tongue,
and pair Of stout arms, between him and
hunger
A man named Fair, a Scotchman he
was, with pair of shrewd blue eyes and
a mat Of black hair that made him look
like an outlaw, came to the camp without
a dollar and boarded with the widow
Rooney up the gulch, and very poor board
he found there, too, they say, while he
was waiting to make a strike, 80 as to
pay his little debts.
Two stout young Irlshmen, one called
Flood and one named OBrien, had a lit
tie claim up the gulch which they used
to talk about sometimes when they could
get any one to listen, and George Hearst,
good-natured giant with a CLEAN of
sharp humor in his gray-blue eyes, work.
ed In the hills with the rest Of them and
said very little to anybody.
And John Mackay it is who took his
Comstock gold and tied the continents to-
gether with a strand Of talking wire, and
the daughters of James Fair and the
widow Rooney, whom he married, are the
leaders Of fashion in the gay resorts Of
the world and who would think, to look
at Mrs. Willie Vanderbilt or at Mrs. Her
man Oelrichs. that every dollar that has
strewn the paths under their feet with
roses and showered them with golden for
tune, was dug out of the gray ground Of
old Nevada?
Little Jennie Flood, who used to hang
over the back gate OF her fathers humble
cottage up there in Virginia City, could
sign her check for 100000 today and
never miss the money when the check had
been cashed
The son of George Hearst took the
money his father found in the ground up
there in the Cactus state and built him
chain of papers that stretched from
ocean to ocean and are quoted and copied
in every civilized country on the globe.
1t was the Comstock lode that drove the
buffalo back from the plains, herded the
gray wolves and sent them snarling to the
hills for shelter. And Ii was the Com
stock lode that broke the pride and the
stern enmity OF the red men and turned
them into American citizens, just as II
was the Comstock lode that built the
Mackay- Bennett cable, for did not the
Comstock build the railroad?
Who could have spun the gigantic spider
web we call the overland across the con-
tinent If it had not been for the Com
stock lode?
Have you ever climbed the sweet rise
Of smiling ground that leads from the
silver edge of the Pacific up to the Sutro
Heights in San Francisco?
Have you ever stood there In that gar
den. one of the most beautiful pleasure
grounds In the world. and watched the
white dancers of the surf throwing UT
their arms in their strange, melodic
measure down there below the cliffs?
The Comstock has done something for
you. too, for Sutro Heights would never
have been II Adolph Sutro. a poor Jew
with nothing but his brain and his in
| domitable will had not built the Sutrc
tunnel up there on the Comstock and
snatched the gold out OF the penurious
earth before the greedy water could get
at II.
The Comstock lode built cities, made
states and subdued the savage heart OF
wild continent.