Weekly journal-miner., 1911-11-08
WICKENBURG DISTRICT


 ranch, four miles from Wiekenburg and five from Hot Springs Junction;
 have a eOzy room in the north corner of the house, with a bully air-tight heater that burns anything from wet | cottonwood to green mesquite; and it is becoming somewhat of a meet ing place for the old and the new timers of the section. They gather here and talk over present prospects and past successes and failures, and in this way get lot of bully stories A. J. Kent was out from Wiekenburg Tuesday, and related some of the ex- perienees of the early days, when there was a boom in every direction and when no matter what way you went there were Indians. He told of the near here famous placer fields of the desert at Tyson's Wells and the Middle Camp, as well as of other things. The telling is best left with him.
 ''I went to that country with Prof. Church of Yale; Wells H. Bates and MT. Fuller, as well as the men who were working for these gentlemen. We had a fine outfit, big mules, and everything we needed. Tyson's Wells is 112 miles from Congress Junction, all the way over the desert, where you must carry all the water you need as well as the other necessities. After you get to the camp it is all right, though the prices might seem to some rather high. Water is s a barrel; barley cents a pound; hay s a bale-and other things in proportion. Meals at the hotel surprised us-they were excellent, and the charge, 50 cents. TysOn's Wells was in the sos a regular stage station on the overland route to California; and there were thousands who stopped there en route to the promised lard. There is good water there, at meager depth, but nobody seemed to care to dig for it, and so the price has al ways been s a barrel, whether for man or beast. Yet one cannot kick at that for I remember back in '62 when I had to pay 10 cents head to water my animals right in Wicken- burg. Well, anyway, this Tyson s is well known by all the very old timers, though now it is nothing more than a little settlement of possibly fifty TeOple, one store and a little hotel Danny Scott owns the store. I re- member when Scott quit the Congress and went out to Tyson's. He had tent, a couple of burros and $4O-and with this he started a store. He's easy worth S4O,OOO now.
 "Well. we went out there on scheme to divert water from the Bill Williams fork of the Colorado and bringing the water down Striped Can yon onto the Tyson ground They had had a surveyor there for months | going over the ground, and to this day that fellow is known as Dam | Site Smith don't suppose he'd rec ognizt any other greeting than Hello, Dam Site But it didn't work that tells that part of the story. We sampled about very generally and in- everybody. There is a bunch there, you may be sure, all old timers. I have seen three tables at Scott's crowded with poker players, the youngest being 60 years aid and the oldest s5. The latter old man got pretty well acquainted with me turing our stay and told me a lot ,bout the country. He said that he lad been in there since 1861, and that he only days he had missed work vas when he was drunk, and that he ladn't had a sick minute. He as well iS must O1 luCul lS -Dtdltu l .nough, skin like parchment and as 'ellow as a Mexiean-but they are Ill white all the way through.
 "Most of these people went to Ty- on's during the great Ehrenburg l loom, when boats were running up he Colorado ard when Ehrenburg ( vas the supply point for hundreds of niles around. They were en route to 'alifornia, but the local excitement eld them and they have just remain d. The work at Tysons is all by ny washer, and they make good l honey, from the grassroOts to the bed f Ock. Jack Johnson, who was one of 2 he first to placer in this field, one i ay recently took out S90 in one day a -ith his dry machine. The machines r -eigh about 40 pounds, yet these cid q