Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-06-22
GOLDFIELD AND
 NEVADA THE GOLDEN
From Sagebrush 10 Towering Lawns. Comfort and Mill
 lions of Gold.

lions of Gold.
 Four years ago, if ever human foot had trod the site of the Goldfield of
 to-day 1t was shod in the hob-nailed
 boot of the shepherd who drove his fiocks over the hills from one winter range to another, or 1t was the un-
 daunted prospector years ago who followed the old Montezuma trail
 which by devious and perilous route dimly pointed the way from Nevada $ northern settlements to the uncanny
 borders of Death Valley. Three years ago half dozen campers made up the population of Goldfield, new a city of fifteen thousand souls. Topo- graphers of those days would have told of the trackless, scorching waste. Now they find lawns instead, where were only sickly sage and puny palms. Burros bore hitherward the initial outfits They come now by steam and their owners in Pullmans They go hence in those fleet and tire- less and never rested greyhounds of the desert, the autos, that know no garage. The isolated tent of three years ago has given way to the sky scraper of stone. Where was naught but the treeless, lonesome desert of hills and valleys with no inhabitants save the peripatetic prospector with his patient burro plodding along four years ago is now a thriving city which ranks with those first on the Pacific slope in it's volume of con- merce, the business of it's banks and it's railroads, it's express and post office, its production of gold and it's transfer of stocks. Such was Gold field. Thus it is.
 FIRST LOCATION.
 Sandstorm was Goldfield's first To- cation, the prospect appropriately christened on day when the air was filled with the alkali dust that drives in fierce clouds of cruel current from the lower plains to the foothills. Harry Stimlar and William Marsh packed their belongings and plodded blindly to the south, in the February of 1903. Ore they found on the north slope of Columbia mountain, two miles to the south of which now lies Goldield. Their they staked their claim and made their fame. Follow ing their lead came the stampede which gave birth to Goldfield busy, bizarre, bustling, booming, giver of the goodly gifts to the heroes who entered her borders, possessed of but blankets and bacon and burros. Just here let 1t be said that the burros and the prospectors and promoters have made Goldfeld first the camp, then the town, then the city of the now, and not least of all is the burro without whose faith and patience the prospectors toll could never have availed and the railroad could never have reaped its annual millions.
 Goldfield owes her present location to Al Meyers and T. D. Murphy. They were drawn hither by the golden magnet of the new strike and grub staked by friends. located the Mo- hawk, a name conjured with by every man who reads or hears or knows of mines They staked the Combination Fraction and other claims which now are worth millions of dollars. Those prospectors' twain who borrowed the price of the flour and SOW belly upon which they made the trip to Goldfeld are worth fortunes. Kings might we'll envy them.
 They just camped at Rabbit Springs, two miles southwest of the diggings, but in trudging from camp to claim they discovered signs of de- velopable water and dug we'll where is now the corner of Main and Myers streets, Goldfield. a mile nearer the mines. Other miners who came this way pitched their tents or spread their blankets near the we'll and thus was formed the nucleus of its exact site.
 Platters gave gratis many a lot that is now occupied by immense business blocks. the ground worth thousands of dollars. Where now stands the magnificent home of the club was an unsightly lot that was purchased for fifty dol lars. Twenty-Five feet frontage in the very heart of the present business portion went for twenty-five dollars, was later bought for thrse hundred and fifty dollars and lost on a single hand in poker game. The eighty thousand dollar Nixon block stands on ground that was sold for a song and so on ad libitum throughout the business and residence section of Goldfeld. whose finest dwellings oc- cupy land that was had for the upon 1t. The camp was re- cognized by the government in It's i of postoflce Tn Jauu- ary, 1904. The district recorder, Claude Smith. was given the honor able but scarcely lucrative office of postmaster, and held forth in the primitive shack which soon gave place 10 big stone block. Now but three years after the first leather pouch was tossed by carrier into the tent d office of Postmaster Smith, Goid- ield's postoffice has reached a first ,lass rating. does a business of one hundred and fifty thousand per an- lum. employs dozen clerks with a payroll of twenty thousand dollars a Tear and sells stamps at the rate of me dollar per capita of population | .aeh month.