Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-05-23
TOWNSHIP AUCTION
Old searchlight Bitterly Resents Boom ing of New Sites, and Issues
 Proclamation


 SEAECHLIGHT, New, January IT, Searchlight is al, torn up over a town. site squabble. The town is built on the slope of the hills, and down in the flat a new townsite company has laid out lots around the Santa Fe depot location and is trying to induce the old town to pull up stakes and slide down hill. The advertising placed by the new townsite company in the Los An gcles papers to promote the sale of lots has aroused the old town people to wrath and they have issued procla- nation, signed by about 90 per cent of the property owners and business men, emphatically denying that they intend to move. The business houses of Searchlight are not of the fimsy, temporary character common to most mining camps, but costly, well built structures. The town has a water sys- tenn, affording ample fire protection; a modern electric light and power plant, banks, hotels and mercantile houses of solid construction, and a determina- tlon 10 stay rlBnt where iI ir.
 The indignant Searchlighters say:
 "The proposed line of railroad that is building into searchlight is about twenty five miles long, and most likely the desert adjacent to it on both sides will eventually be platted and sold as choice building and residence lots to the unsuspecting public by unscrupu- | lous townsite boomers. However, the responsible men, who have made Search light, advocate the square deal and will not be parties to assisting the fake townsite booms that are being foisted on the public through extensive adver- Using"
 To those who know the real "trutb about Searchlight," tho statements made by the Terminal Townsite are absurd, and whatever possessed this company to attempt to boost its ad- dition at the expense of the town is more than anyone can understand. The natural advantages of the addition have been kept in the background, and first and foremost the public has been told l minal holdings. Although the owners of the Terminal townsite object to hay | ing their property termed an addition, nevertheless, that is what it is-an ad- dition to the town of SeaEchlight. It is located in the neighborhood of mile to the west of town, and aside from the buildings of the Boulder Mining com pany, the surface rights of which the townsite company has acquired, there IS absolutely at tho present writing not a single improvement of any kind what soever.
 The resources of this district are be ing successfully exploited and as a re- suit the town is growing rapidly, and it is not at all improbable that the limits of tho town will be gradually extended until they embrace the Ter minal as well as other new additions.
 People are getting the idea that there is too much townsite business mixed up with the building of the Barnwell & Searchlight railroad and unless this idea is corrected the Santa Fe is liable not to receive the volume of business the enterprise merits.
 The Barnwell & Searchlight railway has now been in process of construction for almost a year. The grade has been completed and trains are running out nine miles from Barnwell. The complet. ed grade extends to the edge of town about l,500 feet from the central DOT tion of the town.
 The completed grade bellies the state ment that it would be necessary to construct miles of railroad over hilly portion in order to reach the town. The grade speaks for itself, and to bring the road in as near to the business DOT tion of the town as any one could de; sire all that would be necessary would be to extend the grade on up the gulch it now is in for an additional distance of about 1000 feet.