The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1907-07-04
PENClLINGS BY THE WAY.
Graphic, Descriptive Account Of the
West by U. G. Palmer.

pah, but the Idaho Main was late
and was compelled to wait IS
hours in Ogden. That is a beau
tiful city, the size of Cumberland,
situated in the wonderfully rich
Salt Lake Valley, surrounded as
every garden spot of the west seems
to be with snow capped mountains.
1t has many fine residences and its
streets are lined with the univer-
sally used shade trees, the Balm
of Gilead and the Lombardy
Poplar, tall and stately and prosaic.
This railroading in the west is
a fright and every traveller is ours
ing Hartman and his roads. My
train, called the China and Japan
Fast Mail" reached Hazen, the
junction point for the Goldfelds,
eleven hours late. We left Ogden
with one engine and fifteen cars
loaded to the "gunwales" and
were obliged to stop every hour to
make steam. These roadbeds are
good and engines large, but the
trains are too heavy. l noticed a
tender with a water tank marked
5000 gallons, the largest l ever
saw in the East being 5000 gallons.
Everybody says, too much ''busi-
ness for the motive power" But
they have to publish these sched-
ules to get the passengers, but
after they get them they don't care
further.
This is the land of Jap" cooks
q like American cooking better;
barren, treeless, alkali covered
plains and mountains for hour af-
ter hour; no human habitation ex-
cept the little nicely painted houses
of the railroad men at regular in
tervals along the tracks.
Just out of Ogden, the Southern
Pacific for more than twenty miles
crosses great Salt Lake on fill
and trestle. Then for miles and
miles the track passes over an
alkali plain, as white as the driv-
en- snow and as level as house
floor.
And at Tonopah we are out 600
miles on the treeless, waterless,
sun-cursed desert where the prin-
cipal freight of the train you pass
is water, loaded in wooden tank
cars about two-thirds the size of a n
ordinary box car, A man must
have copper bottomed" stom-
ach to drink this alkali water and
eyes that are made of steel to with
stand the alkali dust. You can't
escape the dust but you can
drink lemon soda if you care to
buy it at the rate of three IS cent
drinks out of the ordinary pop
bottle.
But everybody seems to have
lots of money and wages are high.
l met carpenter on the train 60
ing TO the Ely Copper company S.
per day for nine hours; the cheap
est dago gets 81 for nine hours
here and the ordinary miner S.,
and the forman, machinist and
other skilled labor, S. to S.. And
he needs it. The first time | was
"held up" was at Hazen when
bought ticket for Tonopah, less
than the distance from Oakland to
Washington, fare 5000 and the
peculiar thing about this is that
the railroad was built and is own
ed by Eastern people, what's call
ed the Fourth Street National
Bank Crowd" Of Philadelphia.
l will write you tomorrow my
impressions fully of this wonder
full gold camp.
II
Tonopah, Nevada, June "a, 1907.
Tonopah has a population OF
5000 dependent absolutely on its
mines and attendant industries.
1t is high toned and every luxury
of the great cosmopolitan city is
here to be had but it comes high.
1t was discovered in 1900 and
the ownership of its first mine
came to Philadelphia people
through o. A. Turner, a native Of
Wicomico county, Maryland, and