The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-09
PLIGHT OF MAN WHO HAD TOWN STOLEN Yet Place Was Not Called
 Charley RosSviIIe CARRIED TO GOLD HILLS Father of the Town Did Not Despair, But Moved Along and Pitched
 His Tent in the Center
 of It.
om the San Francisco Call.


 around.
 This town was left carelessly lying around and some one kidnapped it in broad daylight-including every house and store and all the people.
 You would naturally expect this town to be named Charley Rossville. But, of course, when the man was naming his baby town he did not dream of it's un- happy fate.
 He called it prosaical1y Bonanza. It was little sprawling rag town on the Nevada desert.
 The wretch who kidnapped it carried it into pocket of the gold hills, where it camp now called Rhyolite.
 The fathers of some towns might have given up in despair and moved out with the rest of the vanished town; but the father of Bonanza still lives on in the hope that some day the wayward town may repent and steal away to come back to him.
 He never comes home from his work in the mines without hoping against hope that he may find his little old town there waiting for him, with it's face streaked with tears of remorse.
 In the meantime his one little tent is white dot in the midst of a desolate gray plain, where once were the streets, the stores, and the houses of Bonanza, Nev.
 Came to Gold Country Early.
 The name of the man who suffered this mortifying loss is J. A. Therma
 He came to the gold country about eighteen months ago, when the first won- derful discoveries were made in the Bull frog region in Southern Nevada.
 His prophetic eye saw that some of the biggest of the gold mines were sure to be in the hills surrounding the valley in which the town of Rhyolite now lies.
 He placed his town at the foot of the long slope where the storms of long, lonely ages had washed dowr the dirt from the gold hills in a turgid, drifting avalanche. He took out government n1io- eral claims enough to make a big tract of land.
 When the tenderfeet and the gold greedy rushers from other camps came whooping in they found Therma with a ready-made town. All the streets were laid out and the site for a bank selected. All that was needed was a few buildings. These came fast enough Bonanza rap idly grew into the most prosperous rag town in the desert. They had a fine kill ing or two and some gun fights and every thing seemed propitious and lovely.
 Somebody started hotel by dividing off a big tent with canvas partitions and some one else started the first bank and safety deposit institution in a strong box, upon which he sat with big gun.
 Rockefeller of the Community. sThey began developing political parties, and some of the ladies began giving after- noon tea par9les in the shade of their tent flies.
 Therma was a very proud man. He was recognized as the magnate and the John D. Rockefeller of the community. The very dogs were afraid to bark at him. When he walked down the main street the pfospeetors pointed him out to the newest tenderfoot and jerlled their thumbs back over their shoulders, saying, impressively: That's him"
 But, alasl in his might, Therma, builder and rather Of Bonanza grew careless He failed to note the glitter in the eye of two city bred prospectors who struggled Into town one night at dusk and took the two outermost beds in the rag" hotel
 Therma had met and outstared the desert bear and fought off the wild claim Jumpers. But a city real estate agent was new foe too subtle for him.
 The next day Therma carelessly went away to some of his mining claims up In the mountains, returning at dusk
 He saw the desert sunset softly draw a gossamer of whitish violet over the terra cotta and amber glow of the desert hills lie saw the violet give way to the heavy rich purpls of dusk on the desert. Just as the last light was fading, he came to the top of the last divide. He was just in time to see the end of a mysterious procession of wagons toling up the slope above his tender young town.
 Went to Bed in the Dark.
 The wagons were big ten-horse freight CTS and they seemed to be loaded to the guards. It looked, even from that dis tance, as though the plunder with which they were piled high consisted of furni- ture and tents and pieces of houses
 But Therma only noticed them casually in his fatherly joy at getting back to his town again.
 But here, This was queer. The inhab- itants of Bonanza didn't seem to have lighted up in his town. The spot which should be twinkling out from the desert blackness was-desert blackness He couldn't understand why everybody in his town had gotten sudden inspiration to go to bed in the dark that night
 It couldn't be that candles had all given out at once. Things often did give out, leaving a little famine until the next freighting wagons pulled in from civiliza- tion, hundred miles away. But all the candles wouldn't snuff at once.
 The thought crossed his mind that the town might be in darkness out of respect to his absence.
 Thoroughly alarmed he hurried down the trail so rapidly that no more thoughts had an opportunity to cross his mind without peril of being run over.
 It was dark when he got back to his town. He stopped in horror as he came around the base of the last hill
 The town wasn't there! Where had been the town was an aching vacancy Only one tent loomed up, a dark, lonely shadow. He examined it and found that his was the only abode left there.
 UnfeeIing Wretch Was Guilty.
 He groped around where the hotel had been and stumbled over a forgotten tent peg as the only reminder of its exist ence. He wandered up and down what had been the magnificent main street of the town, but he could not tell any longer which was the street and which was the boundless desert.
 He turned up the canyon and where the empty gray wash had been merrily twinkled the myriad lights of a town. He could hear the shouts of men and the praying of burros. 1t had a busy sound
 He who has been a father knows that Therma had an unerring instinct that told him the meaning of those lights up
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 @ GOOD LUCK
 X@W Do you desire to know how you may be fortu-
 EEfR nate in life, successful in business and prosper
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