The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-09-08
,"CACTUS JIM" LONESOME IN NEW YORK
Death Valley Pioneer Longs for Company of the Flying
Things. Was Fory-Five Years in Desert

NEW YORK.-"Cactus Jim Nc
Ginty, man whose habitat for 40
years has been Death Valley, in
southern California, has spent three
weeks in New York looking over the
''diggings." He was a pioneer pros
pector of the fastness of the somber
Funeral Range, and one of the origi-
nal desert rats of the land of
trackless sands, of boraX, of red gold
and of consuming thirst.
Keen-eyed and with visage deep
Drowned by the sun of the California
desert he stood in Times Square
watching the throngs of hurrying
New Workers as unnoticed and as
unpicturesque as any of them. Gao
tus Jim" bought a newspaper. Then
he fished from his pocket the max
ings" and rolled a cigarette, and then
drank a glass of lemonade
Cactus Jim wore a split straw
hat, light sack suit of neat pat
tern, ties of subdued russell, a soft
w AACC L1ciOA do olIIl anu SlLlplC pearl
pin stuck into a plain silk four-in-
hand. Out in the alkali-carpeted
desert, whence he comes, they have
it that Cactus jim" McGinty, who is
otherwise James A. McGinty, has
''salted away" in Phenix and Los
Angeles a goodly pile.
Not "a Spectacular Visitor.
Yet Cactus Jim" will have none
of royal suites at the Astor, Kniclz-
erbocker or Waldorf-Astoria, Of
special trains, of scurrying bellboys
with eager palms, of boxes at the
theater and of other things which the
Broadway mind has been taught to
associate with "Scotty" and Others
who have come to it out of Death
Valley. Coming to the metropolis
for the first time in his life this
veteran prospector of Funeral Range
has been living quietly at the home
of a friend in Brooklyn, Richard w.
Amos, at "a Boerun place.
When he was a baby McGintys
parents migrated from Pennsylvania
to Missouri. In the early sos they
contracted the California gold fever
and went across the plains in a
prairie schooner into southern Cali
fornia. There, between the Pana-
minis on the west and the Funeral
Range on the east, McGinty has lived
ever since. He is said to have dug
from the earth and lost a dozen for
tunes. McGinty, has roughed it with
the famous 'Scotty," but his partner
through many years in the prospect
ing line was Shorty" Harris, known
throughout the region as the founder
or the mining town of Bullfrog,
AriZ. Harris was shot and killed
by a Mexican about two months ago
during a quarrel. When Cactus
Jim" was asked what they did with
the Mexican he replied slowly:
'Oh, guess the Greaser didn't
git very far"
Service on peace Committee"
MeGinty was one of a commit
tee" when effected a treatry of peace
between the Piutes of the Death VAL
ley region and the prospectors and
other white men there years ago.
The Indians had been shooting pros
pectors whom they found alone,
poisoning water holes, and otherwise
making trouble. Finally "Old Man"
Winters, who is said to have been
the man who discovered the great
est of the borax deposits of Death
Valley, determined to put a stop to
the practices of the Piutes. With a
committee noticeable for its size
and for the number of six-chambered
"persuaders' which it carried, he
waited upon old Chief John.
THE Indian was informed that if
the shooting of prospectors and the
poisoning of water holes WASH t
stopped at once a big force of white
men would come down from San
Bernardino, and that when they got
through with their work there would
be only good Indians left in the
valley. Knowing the white mans
idea of good Indians Chief John,
after consulting with his braves,
agreed to treaty. After this had
been signed the Chief asked that it
be amended.
Braves say must be allowed to
Kill him Dutchman," he explained.