Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1909-12-30


or so varied kinds of booms as the
town Of Medbury, soon to be revived
on a permanent prosperity basis-on
the basis of land values that will not
fail Years ago. when the Oregon
short Line was building across Idaho
hating between necessity and power
ty. Medbury was the western termi-
nus for the greater part of a year A
large hotel. many houses and an army
of tents and shacks marked the place
as one of considerable Importance.
Then the company gathered in
some money. made another effort
westward and left the town stranded,
on the map. ION the main line" but
only the grinning skeleton Of pros
perity that was dead
Then came the gold miners. The
sands of the Snake river are wonder
fully rich in gold. There is perhaps
the valley to pay the debts of all the
nations of the world. IL is easy gold
TO find-but mighty hard to get hold.
For. coming as It is believed to have
come, from far-off mountain ranges,
where it was deposited in the form
of quart. it has been worn. commip-
uted, ground to an almost impalpable
powder that defes all but the expen-
sive methods of the laboratory to ex-
tract it, But the lure of the gold is
on men today as it has been from the
beginning of time. Like perpetual
motion or the philosophers stone,
there is every day new generations of
men ready to believe that what others
have not been able to do. they can
do. And so with Medbury and Snake
river gold. New inventors have be-
lieved that they have solved the Sc
cret of saving the precious metal that
can be washed ont in pans almost any
where along the river
Medbury sands contained more
gold, apparently, than most Of the
portions Of the valley Here was the
El Dorado of the miners. They
camped all over the broad, fertile
valley; their rockers, dredges. ditch
es, elevators were found everywhere.
A small army of eager miners were
at work night and day. working on
either the old methods or trying out
some new theory Of economical ex-
traction But the elusive gold baf-
fled even the best Of them. and not
enough could be saved to make it pay.
The golden dream faded and the
lands continued to lay as barren as
before
oil Excitement Breaks
Then came the oil Oil. the won
der-worSer of modern business the
fortune-maker for everyone who has
onvthing to do with IT'S extraction or
marketing. Some traces Of oil-where
they come from no one knows. OF
much cares-were found in the
streams at Medbury It doesn't take
much to start a boom with either
gold or OIL Almost every acre Of the
valley was filed on wells started or
proposed and fortunes were made in
an hour-on paper Outside invest
ors came into the valley and large
amount Of money was spent in acquir-
ing rights and in starting work It
was fruitless. of course. for there was
no ell there. that anyone has devel-
oped thus far The boom died a nat
ural death The dreams faded away
with the morning and again the vail
ley languished
Too dry for farming. without irri-
sation. one of the warmest valleys in
the whole Northwest. aud with no
EASY water source i'm sight. the FARM
ing industry was naturally neglected F
There is an old fable of the dying
father who called his shiftless sons
about him and bequeathed his fields
10 them telling them that they would
find buried somewhere i'm the fields a
rot Of gold that would make them
rich The boys plowed every inch of
The fields, searching in vain for the
gold; and then; not finding it. as an
afterthought, they sowed their crops.
from which they reaped a golden
harvest This came to pass in Med
bury valley the gold hunters, the
railroad boomers. the oil seekers. (
have at last come to look on the soil
as the real prosperity that they
sought and did not recognize it when
they saw it first
Modern science has made It pos
sible for the irrigation Of dry lands
where the early corners never
dreamed water could be made to flow.
None Of the countless thousands Of
fortune hunters who crossed Medbury
along the old Oregon trail, Of the
Boise-Kelton roae in the days when