Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1907-09-22

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made herself known as his first cou-
sin, he remembered the story of his
aunt who had Joined the ArgonautsN
many years ago. Miss Smith visited
with Mr.. and Mrs. Bell a few days
and while here met Mr.. L. w. Hum
phrey, a young lawyer. She return
ed to California. Mr.. Humphrey fol-
lowed her and brought her back to
North Carolina as his bride. True to
her ancestral instincts she takes
great interest in the gold mining Cos
sip, inheriting, as she did, for
tune begun in these southern mines
and enlarged In the western gold
fields; and owning as she does, a
romance which connects North Car
DINA and California in a peculiar
way.
Many are the stories of lives vast
ed in searching for the gold in these
hillsides, many are the stories of
lucky strikes, many the tales of i'm
nense nuggets, but the really sue
cessful gold miners are few. Char
lotte itself pays little attention to the
gold business. 1t knows there are
mines all about, but 1t is far more
interested in the mills which spin
and weave the cotton fibre into
cloth, and those that crush the cot
ton seed into oil. "The Mine" is
pointed out to the stranger as the
place where most of the gold came
fro min the days "befo' de war;" and
many citizens know that the total
coinage there In the twenty-five years
1t was operated was over $5,0O0,00O
Few know that the gold deposited in
that building for coinage and for as
saying has in all amounted to over
$15,000,000, all of which was taken
from the mines in this vicinity. One
mine, only five miles from town, has
produced $2,O00,0OO worth of gold
and is now deserted.
Not far from Charlotte is the little
village OF Rutherfordton, where in
the old days the Bechtlers coined
money at private mint, operating
under the permission of Congress.
The Bechtler coins were of great
beauty and each bore the stamp of
its own natural degree of fineness.
The coins were SIS, $3.50 and 81
pieces. There are few of them to
be seen here now, but most of them
known to be In existence are in the
hands of coin collectors, by whom
they are greatly priced. A $3.50
Bechtler coin in good condition is
worth from $40 to $25.
The present prosperity of this sec
ton of the country, which is in no
way dependent on it's rich deposits
of precious metals, is forcible illus
tratien of the difference between
Spanish and English methods of ex-
plotting the colonies which they es-
tablished in the new world. When
the Spaniards came to Florida they
were in search of two things-the
magic fountain of youth, and the no
less magic and mythical mountain of
gold The Indians whom they met
wore ornaments fashioned from gold
nuggets. The nuggets were appro-
priated and the Indians killed or run
into the forests, as seemed most con-
venient at the time. These nuggets
undoubtedly came from the Carolina
gold fields. just as the copper utensils
used by the Indians had come all the
way from Lake Superior. The Span
iards attempted to find great supply
of the nuggets and, failing, practical
| ~ abandoned the country. i@
I The English, Scotch and Irish
came into the same country. They
began to farm and raise cattle, and
as nearly as possible to live in this
new country as they did in the old.
Gold hunting did not occur to them,
the failure of John Smith to find
gold in Virginia having been taken
as conclusive. And so it was after
| the settlement was fifty years old a
| visitor found twenty-five pound
chunk of gold doing duty as door
stop in the cabin of pioneer
Frederic ]. Haskin, in Salt Lake
Tribune.