The daily appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1906-1907, 1907-03-07
THE STORY
Of GEO. GREY
A MAN FOR WHOM ADVERSE FOR
TUNE SEEMS TO HAVE DONE
ITS WORST.
Broken in Fortune, Blind and Starving
He Refuses to Become a County
Charge.

One of the saddest stories ever re-
corded in Nevada is that OF George
Gray:
When Virginia City in her boom,
when Gold Hill rivalled the famed
GoicOnda with her mines and her &C
tivities, when Silver City was named
because men found pure native silver
in carloads in the shafts and drifts
bored into her bosom, George Gray
was alive, virile wealthy man OF many
properties and mines.
Like all the men OF that time, ne
was open handed, free with his money
and free with his advice to those vino
sought ii. He looked into the future
and saw nothing that made him afraid
The came the crime Of seventy
three and he was impoverished over
night, not as some men become i'm
poyerished, simply by comparison,
but reduced to actual poverty, with
no,Iing but a lot Of worthless holes
III he ground and the clothes ne
stood up in.
Years have passed since that day.
Men have come and men have gone
from Silver City-mostly gone, hut
new methods Of mining and ore re
ducjions have been successfully used
10 keep the camp busy with What
mines yield gold, as well as silver.
But for Gray, there was nothing,
for with advancing years his sight
failed and failed until one morning
Wnen ne woke in his lonely cabin
and was unable to see the light of day.
| What those first hours held for
/ George Gray no pen will ever de
because he had once been anluent, he
retarded within himself and kept his
cabin for days, going without sufi-
cient water and food rather than ap-
pear on the hill side gropng for as
sistance.
Since that time, lie has been d
HSnI IOI lllII1 IAIuult LtISIDOIS u
casionally visit him and renew his
water supply. even his food supply
and he has managed to, exist, for Il
years a man blind though he becomes
familiar with the topography and geo
graphy of his own room, and Gray was
able to cook his scanty meals withou
/, assistance,
One day he found that with piece
OF baling rope tied together in
string two or three hundred feet long
he might venture from his cabin
after sagebrush for fuel. He has mad
, trip after trip from his cabin doc
in this way, from time to time es
tending his excursions as he exhauste
the supply Of sagebrush in the radiu
OF his life line. This he has don
+ until 90 feet from his cabin door, no
G a shrub exists. He was absolute
=. dependent on his life line, however
and never ventured to let go tha
, rope for fear OF becoming lost in tn
q nils, and alwsys he dreaded the da.
he knew would come through some a,
cident, he would let go that guild,
q therther, and cabin that confined hill
# t ohis little darkened miserabl
!, world.
c Last week it came.
! Some thoughtless boys cut his rop,
II and Gray, confident with the severe
if line in his hand walked out, and OF
until he stopped suddenly, with th
lknowledged that he had wandere
further than in seventeen years.
Pulling frantically at the rope, til
= severed end came into his hands an
u he knew then that he was lost,
$ retrievably lost.
/ 1t was near evening and he dete
. mined to make an effort to reach b
q cabin. Without knowledge of its d
Il rection he started, walked a few hui
. dred feet and the earth gave way u
der his faltering footsteps. precipita
ing him to the bottom Of an old shat
nj Bruised, bewildered and sore
IL instinctively found way to clamb'
out of the shallow hole and walk ava