The daily silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1903-1907, 1906-12-19
THE TRAGEDY OF THE DESERT


With the passing of the great cat.
tie ranges of the west and the rapid
population of the plains. most of the
picturesque types CT western life have
passed away. The old-time scout, with
his bistory of Indian warfare and the
s aeking of the 6ss late waste, of de-
sert andmountain, is almost a thing of
the past, seldom to be found except as
the hero of novel or short story. The
same is almost true of the old-time
cowboy and the cattle king who roam
ed the range as a king of his empire
until within the past few years. There
is, however, one character of western
life still occu1 yir 9 the stage of ru,nan
activity today, who is just as pictur-
esque as ever, and with story of com
edy, of farce and tragedy as great and
as interesting al that of fifty years
ago He has received scant attention in
the popular literature Of the day, Will
deserving much. He has ranged the de-
sert places of Nevada since the eaerly
sixties; he can tell, if he will, of In
dian fights, of massacres by night, of
arrow wounds; his face is scanned and
tanned by the fierce heat of the desert
sun and the deadly cold of the mount
ain camp. He has lived in the open for
forty years, his bed has been the sand
or perhaps the pine and cedar branch
has formed his couch. He has dug
with pick and shovel and with powder,
into the bowels of the earth. In the
tragedy of loneliness the bones of his
fellows lie unmarked amid the sweep
of boundless waste; he has known the
tragedy of disappointment, of hunger
of thirst, of hope deferred; his shout
ders are bowed under the weight of
| years and the burdens they have car
ried; his tracks cross and recross the
the desert and mountain. His story
/ is the story of the rise and fall of
Virginia City, with its Comstock Of
Old Belmont, with it's great mines
-four and lumber and eggs and all the
scant necessities of his existence were
freighted 500 miles by OK team; the
story of great fortunes made and lost
again; the story of the building of
great cities, like San Francisco, built
from the wealth of the desert places
of the earth; of the building of rail-
roads, of mills, of mines, of gold, and
if one should ask him why he has Civ
en- up his life to the search he would
answer, as we must all answer in
whatever walk of life we are found
that he has been trying to better his
condition.
Nevada has been a desert with scant
! population; it is still a desert, while
its sister states have been made to
blossom as the rose and have been
growing rich in men and m in
homes and all that goes to make life
enjoyable. Through it all the tragedy
of the desert has hung wei the old
silver state. But Nevada is coming in
to her own; no longer is she the silver
state alone, but is rapidly climbing to
the top of the list of g~old-producing
states. Tonopah first, q great camp;
Goldfield next, a greater camp; now
Manhattan, the greatest camp; with
Bullfrog, Searchlight, Rhyolite, Blair
Silver Peak, and a dozen others begin
ming to loom up in the distance, Neva.
da IS population has grown to FIVE fold
in as many yeaers. To aid the good
work the national government at Wash
ington has undertaken to make of the
desert a garden, and great irrigation
enterprises are under way to reclaim
hundreds of thousands of acres of de-
sert lands. Virginia City, Belmont and
other great silver and gold camps of
the sixties and seventies, camps which
produced hundreds of millions in their
first glory, are waking up from their
sleep of a quarter of a century and are
beginning to pour their wealth again
into the lap of the American public.
J San Francisco is to be rebuilt, as it
was built, by the gold of Nevada. The
tragedy of the desert is ended and the
auhiuuatiou has he0uu