Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1915-10-14
WILL SULLIVAN WRITES LETTER
Prosperous Gratiot County Farmer
Tells Absorbing Story of Final
Stage al Trip Across the
Continent.

MI. y. Il blONus
Well, c. f., | have missed one week |
without writing you, but after we left
Salt Lake City we were so far from
a railroad most of the time and where
there was post Office that the mail
did not get out fast enough so
thought it would be better to wait
until got to Frisco. We left s. Lake
City Thursday, September 10th about
noon by the Lincoln Highway and
found some extra fine roads and some
not so fine Heavy loaded freight
wagons passing over made them chop
Ply with a great many dust holes but
we had no trouble except few bumps
now and then. We had dreaded the
Great Salt Lake desert but when we
reached il our ner' settled down
considerable, nothing as we had inn
agined it would be, for miles you could
drive on the salt beds that were as
good as pavement but if we had been
travelling during wet season we GER
tainly have had soma bad time, they
told us if we got in trouble build q
sage brush fire a man would see u
20 miles and would come TO our as
sistarco or The look out for such jobs,
see? And he certainly had been need
ed by some one by the looks OF the
road. II does seem as though we
had extraordinary good luck all the
way. Through Iowa and Nebraska
were fine roads Now others say, who
have had such times getting here that
those states are flooded. The country
to McGill is mountainous. You cross
a range Of mountains then a valley
or desert AS far as the eye could see
there was nothing but sagebrush
and now and then bunch Of cattle,
and you wondered where the people
were who owned them We came
I through, or better over, Shelborne
Pass, out into a valley. saw smoke in
/ the distance and thought we were
right in a town, but we drove TWEEN
ty five miles before reaching
McGil. BY this you may understand
how level the roads were. During
the drive we shot four jack-rabbits
and, dressing them, had ten quart
pail Of the meat.
McGill is where the great copper
smelling plant is, with capacity of
twelve to fifteen thousand tons of
ore per day They draw their ore
from Ely Lane and Copper Flat, the
seat of the big copper pit. They dig
the ore with big steam shovels. After
flushing it, they load it in cars and
ship it to the smelters 30 miles away,
This pit is 40 or so, maybe
more rods across and ! should say
100 rods long and so to 100 feet deep.
1t is very large, there are mines along
the mountains but this is the prin-
ciple one. From McGill we started
up another range over Jakes Summit
across Alkali bed as smooth as glass,
then over and up to White Pine Sum-
nit, Pancake Summit, and then into
a valley where we were told we would
find sand, but it was clay, and ground
fine by travel, and the roads were so
chopped, and the holes so filled with
this dust, that we had to be extraor-
dinaryly careful about driving. And
we took no chances. Nfs
The main thing 10 look out for is
water, gas and oil, and if you keep
supplied you can many times
dodge the places where they charge
such high prices. West o. Salt Lake
City, gas the most of the time was
SOC to Doc. The highest we raid was
45c a couple of times at ranches
where il was so far from the rail
road and had to be brought in on
wagons. And on to Fallon the
ranches all had it for sale at son1t
price and three places they sold water
but we were wen supplied so logged
or. At Fal!on you detour for the
Government Reclamation Project
known as the Truckee Carson Irriga-
ton Project There are two dams
the first one from Reno is known as
the Derby dam on the Truckee river
while the other is a larger one. The
Lahontan dam is between Fallon and
Wadsworth. The Truckee Carson
project irrigates something like 206,-
600 acres, the farms about 80 acres
each and the elevation about 1000
feet above sea level, and all known as
Uucle Sans 100000 farm.
From there to Reno we found what
we called the first real sand, but il
was not so bad that we could not
make good time Reno is a nice place
of about twelve thousand population.
1t is little over four thousand feet
above sea level. We camped here and
the next day journeyed through the
Sierra Mountains to Truckee, which
is five thousand eight hundred twenty
feet above sea level. Here it freezes
every night in the year. We stopped at
a private rooming house for the
night. The next morning, after
stocking up with food and fuel, we
started. Just out of Truckee can be
seen two monuments which were