Los Angeles herald., 1907-04-14
ODD HOUSES AT COLDFIELD
rrom the Kansas city journal.

TNHREB years ago nothing existed at
Goldheld, New, except sagebrush,
alSali dust, coyotes and an occa-
sional jaokrabbit. The region round
about is a desert.
Such things as wood, stone and brick
often sell for nearly as much as the ore
which comes from the ground. The
soft .friable stuff they call Nevada
sandstone costs so much delivered in
Goldfeld that so far only three build
ings are constructed OF It. This stone
comes from such distance that IN
cluding the freight merely the front
wall of one of these buildings cost
$4,000, although it is only two stories
high.
once in while you run across what
the miners call a Joshua tree, a poor,
scraggly apology for a tree, fit for
nothing but fuel. But the Joshua trees
are so few in number that they could
not furnish enough wood to keep the
fires of the town going in winter even
for a day.
Under such circumstances how do
the miners and others house them
selves? Go along the main business
thoroughfare and you will see dwellings
which are curiosities I'm building
the bottle house. Goldheld is not
dry town so far as liquids in jugs and
bottles are concerned. In fact, there
are times when q drink of water costs
about as much as the stuff which
passes for cheap whisky. Bottles of
various kinds of fluid come to the
place by the carload.
At first as fast as their contents
were drained by the thirsty they were
Il II nf Ia m
other place which was convenient. one
day a miner down on his luck CHANGED
to see a huge pile of empty beer bot
ties and asked the saloonkeeper IL he
could have them. The keeper, glad
to get rid of them, told him to take
what he wanted.
The miner carried away several hun
dred in his arms and with an old
wagon. Then he set to work to build
what is the warmest place in winter
in the town.
Piling the bottles in tiers, he filed in
the space between them with mud,
which in this climate soon dries into
hard cake resembling the adobe eX-
tensively used in the Mexican towns.
Then he got some pieces of tin down
by the railroad station, put them on
top of the front and side walls of bot
ties and with a little solder made
tight roof.
The back wall of the bottle house
was at first formed of canvas sewed
together with twine, but finally when
the miner struck paying ore he took
this off and substituted plank, which
cost him more than all the rest of the
house put together, including labor.
The dwelling is not only water tight,
but SO much light is sifted through the
bottles that the house is like a sun
a,o In int nd Of hn
cheerful places in the town, although
this is not saying much. The bottles
were laid with the necks in and the
bottoms out. The owner did not worry
about finishing the inside. The necks
stuck out into the room and are used
to hang clothes on.
With the nearest forest 100 miles
away and coal mines at a greater dis
tance something had to be substituted
for wood and coal for fuel, so it is an
oil burner from the shacks of the new
est comers to the hotel, of which the
town boasts as it's "palatial hostelry."
There are old fashioned ones with the
big round wicks to the wickless blue
flame stoves which are guaranteed not
to explode even if filled with powder.
Beer and petroleum come to Goldfield
by the bottle and can, and the empty
CtuS udNS dlSO USSl pI6SSSu IilO ser
vice for house building when the pros
pector could not afford to pay the
fancy prices which are asked for lum-
ber. They have several dwellings,
whose walls are made entirely of oil
cans.
In some cases the can is torn apart,
the metal stretched into sheets and
tackled upon light wooden framework
When a man wants a good, warm
house in winter, he takes entire cans
and builds a wall and thus has a
double protection against the wintry
blasts To fill the cracks between the
cans, the builders use the thick brown
paper wrapped around furniture and
other packages which come to Gold
field, while those who can afford it get
some sheets of asbestos and stick this
in around the cans.
They tell story to the tenderfoot of
how a man made hot fire in one of
these can houses. Several of the cans
had not been entirely emptied of OIL
The result was that the oil generated