The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-30
SUDDEN, WEALTH QUICK
RNEJ MONA THE SC0IRGE OF
NEVADA GOLD HUNTERS.
An Average Of Eighty Deaths . Nsnth nc
GOidneid Men Who ia 10 he'd rsupers
and wake ID Worth Tens 81 Theussnds
-GsaIhering Pace of A~dNeDturCTs.

rtble little fellow Who Glems 10 nave Teen
appointed by the SPIRITS Of the Desert TO
keep ward and watch over the golden
treasure buried in the barrsn hills Of bleak
Nevada. he IL the Pneumoooccus. The
treasure hunters are slowly hesting him,
but the little demon - exacting a heavy
payment FOR the gold they take away.
Pneumonia IL the scourge Of Goldfieh.
Deaths in the mining camp run from %
20 100 a month. Can IL IN average Of ~
and you haye a yearly death rate Of Q per
cent. A very large majority of these deaths
are due 70 pneumonia, a few To typhoid.
The OUTSIDE world hears httle OF IL ave
when some well known man rassss away,
such az ex-Goy. Hunt Of Idaho. who sue
cumbed here 20 the scourge Of the camp.
Most OF the victims are homeless and friend
less adveItIrers. No fuss IL made over
them. They are simply taken out and
buried In the most GOtforsaken cemetery
IN all the world.
In most 81 the victims life goes out Like
n snufed ~canuls. 80 swiftly death rides
on the wings Of the ~Pneumococcus hat
they call it black pneumonia down here.
But its only obi fashioned pneumonia
working the more swiftly that it has such
fertile soil in which to plant Its seeds. IL
A intensive farming, Death the farmer.
The hardships Of this c~oalless, over
crowded mining camp weaken constitu-
tIons 70 that wher disease comes il meets
little resistance. In four saloons late last
night The SUN correspondent counted
sixty-eight men asleep on the floor. some
we're drunk and some were merely ex-
hausted with toll and had no other place
where they could sleep.
Out Of the Kindness Of their hearts the
bartender lst them sleep where they lay.
Occasionally a man with a mop would
approach one Of the sleepers and poke him
into semi wakefUlnc~s.
Hey, Bill he would say, roll over till
j mop beneath ye.
The sleeper would obey orders, return
ing 20 sumter the next instant, while the
NOR continued IT. work under the next
man and the Whirr Of the roulette ball., the
popping OF many corks and the volleys OF
profanity in many tongues blended for the
slumberer's lullaby. IL is men Of this sort
that are dying like sheep In Goldheld.
They are Shipping two or three OF them
out on every train, others they bury In
nameIess graves; the hospital Is full and the
undertaken cheerful.
The newcomer wonders why there IN a
graveyard so near the middle OF the town.
This il the story OF how il happened, related
by one Of the oldest inhabitants of the
0oIdfeld settlement:
when | fret blew in here nobody hsd
ever cashed in. A few days later some
fellow croaked. He'd 10 money, 10 friends.
no name that anybody knew OF.
so a few OF us thought it was up to us
30 plant him. l was on the committee TO
pick out a cemetery site. We found a place
out on the desert about a mile from town.
Then we gave a man s. 10 dig the grave.
Jake Thurman was the fellow we picked
for the job. Jake was drunk and broke.
He hated 10 let his jag die, 50 a hvespot
looked big to him.
Il took him out and showed him the place
and Jake came back TO get a shovel and a
pick. On the way bac he comes on a hole,
0 by 8 foot, that some prospector had made
and bein' some tired he figures hat this il
just al slightly a place for a grave as the one
we picked out. So he digs it right there
In that prospector's excavation.
when we come to bury the stranger We
sees Jake has made a break, but we was too
busy 70 bother about it,. So we plants him
right there.
Course, the next one was put right next
20 him and so il grew up into a fine young
Cemetery. Pretty soon we gets 2OO bodies
PLANTED there.
80 we calls a hal, and starts another
temetery further out. But Jake 10 re-
sponsible for the first one"
But it's little Goldheld cares for the man
Who falls. They are rushing in every day
90 take his place. There's gold out there
Ia the desert and the lucky ones will get it,.
IL you live. you live; il you die, you die.
says fatalistic Goldtield.
IL a man were TO recount all the tales
he hears down here OF men who 60 TO bed
paupers and wake worth tens of thousands
he would be set down a. the possessor Of a
singularly active Imagination. But a great
many Of these yarns are true and capable
OF demonstration. For example:
Walter Williams and Charles ID. Taylor,
the men who located the Red Top and the
Jumbo mines, were 80 strapped a few months
z that when they sat down in a Goldfeld
saloon to play slough they had to use beans
for chips and the bank mad to cash in to
furnish them their supper. Now Taylor
10 worth toward half a million and has gone
BACK 10 nova NcOtld 70 see the Olu IOlks,
Tor the first time in ten years.
Henry Weber, who has just sold his In
terest in the Great Bend Extension for
u ,25O, 600. came into TOnopah not long ago
on the soft side Of a freight car truck. From
Tonopah he walked to Goldfeld.
He's now Interested in the Wonder dis
trict, and has just ordered an automobile,
specially designed to make sixty miles an
hour over the desert. so that he can daily
make the $40 mile round trip between Won
der and Goldfeld.
Last spring three travelworn and almost
starving men found their way into the
mining camp at Fairview. They had just
ten cents. and they wanted a job az badly
Ms it was ever wanted in these parts.
The mine superintendents CAV them
tents and enough money to feed them and
started them in to work. They worked
until they had laid up $50 or $40 apiece and
they they disappeared.
Two months ago they walked into Gold
Geld and sold their claims for 500, 900. But
they didn't get their money until q fort
night or so ago. They are now trying TO
get rid OF 1t a. BOOT as Goldfieid will let
fhcm. And GoIdfeld ia very helpful to
such as they.