Elko independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1915-current, 1915-09-21
AURORA
carson News)

In the last issue of the Saturday
Evening Post, Charles L. Van Loan
published another of his series OF
Ghost Cities OF the West" and tells
of old Aurora-the town which came
back. Van Loan tells of the town OF
Aurora as he has CLEANED from his
tory of the days of Mark Twain in that
little mining own and creates Il min
er who speaks of the pioneer days in
anything but a truthful tale.
Their was a time when Aurora was
the greatest city OF all the southern
section, and Esmeralda, Mineral, part
of Lyon and all Of Mono county knew
Aurora as their great city IL it was
the county seat of all that great do
main. While Aurora never reached
the vast empire of Virginia City yet
1t was the desert port where gathered
ihe big men and the little men, the
honestm men n the rogues, the wives
and mothers and the girls who lived
as best they could.
To us, born and reared in the west
oAN iofS1S thGlSOl, Nue SGlGS Vi III
Loan do not bring the joy and happi-
ness with they could b. made TO bring
and we harbor Il little resentment that
the history is overlooked and covered
with fairy tales which had but little to
bring them into existence.
When you swing around the turn
from Del Monte and land in Aurora,
you are brought face to face with the
wreckage of what was once a big
brick hotel-the landmark Of Aurora
the old Cobb Hotel. Flames swept
through the building nearly thirty
years ago but still, for years, the
gaunt old skeleton stood as IL monu-
ment to the builders of the pioneer
days. Across the old stone threshold
stepped the greatest men Of the day
and though their names perhaps have
been forgotten, still in their day they
welded the sceptre of an inland en-
pire whose fame reached unto many
lands. Could one have stood within
the ruins and conjured back the
scenes, b faces, the voices of the
men of the early sixties OF Aurora,
no tale told could have been more Gag
erly listened to or could have caused
more feverish pulsing of the blood.
Up the street at the extreme end
of he Main street. where the street
forked and branched to the right and
to the left, was the fiatiron building of
the camp. Twas Z stately mansion in
its day, builded of the lumber sawed
at the pioneer mills in Lundy canyon
and hauled across the almost untrack-
ed waste of thirty odd miles by the
slow-moving but ever faithful on
teams. This was known as the SUP.
~erintendent's House" and We remcm-
Der well when Ex-Governor Colcord
called It his home and drove his old
grey team from the barn in the rear
along the highways to the mines.
There still stands the old court
house, a two story, square building of
brick, whose very walls are chinkcd
with history. Look at the stain upon
the lower wall in the jail section
where twenty-five years n more ago,
4 the masons placed in new brick to
fill the hole where Sharpe the stage
robber, he of "P. o. s" fame dug his
way to liberty, which withal was but
short lived owing to the markings of
the Chinese laundry upon his cuffs.
There are marking upon the floor of
the upper story where the court room
1 mead IN he o,,In h, A.. ..-i-.---,
of he flooring broken by the heels of
| big Ed. Loose when he turned his
handsprings down the room after Pat
Reddy had bearded the lion in his
den and had asked the forbidden ques.
ton of Pearly Plane. That was the
day when the gunner of Bodie had
rallied to the IS. o. S." of Pat Reddy
and had backed him in the game when
the gun men of two towns stood op-
J posed within n courtroom. Surely
those were history making days.
Think OF the night that the farmers
of Big Northumberland called
! Brfdgeport-rode into Aurora-booted
and spurred, and armed to the teeth
| and tool the record which pertained
! to their section of the country and
rode back to the little village beside
the bridge which crossed the Walker
! and there established their own coun.
ty seat and started the formation of
a new county. They were men who
were ready to do or to die and in the
history making days which were to