The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-12-13
ZINC AND LEAD FIELDS
KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA
DESCRIPTION OF MINING LIFE
FROM JOPLIN AND GALENA
TO MIAMI.

Joplin DdTDeT stopped 10 COillei, over
the hot water tap, with the other part
ners in his mining ventures. When
he returned to his chair the second
time he flipped his razor deftly off the
edge of the strop, The blade sang
clear as bell He poised it as the
note died away.
That means luck" he said drawing
the edge affectionately across his
thumb nail. when she sings on the
first try after I've made a deal it's a
sure sign. Barrin accidents. in two
months I'll be settin easy
"As / was tellin' you, there's only a
few of us small fry that got in on the
new Pitcher field. It's deep vein
down there in Oklahoma, and 1t takes
lot of money to sink shafts, The
prospector with just grubstake bet
prospects are different. They're right
up against the Modern Midas mine,
and If you've got few hundred you
want to put in, | might What?
Just lookin for information?
"All right They're fifty to a hun
bred motors block from here that
make the trip several times a day. It's
about twenty-five miles. When you
Bill Hicks. And you'd better stop at
Baxter Springs and see Mr.. Grantham
at the candy store, and Charlie Good
eagle; and when you get to Miami see
leased a lot of rich mining land. And
see w, II. Seed at Miami"
Transforming the Prairie
To Mr.. Stanton and Mr., Hicks and
Mr.. Dardine and Mr. Seed and the
others whose names are not mentioned
for lack of space, apologies are ten
dered for the failure to see them, says
Star, Two days in the new Oklahoma
mining district are just about sufli-
cient to begin to realize that the flat
prairie in the northeastern corner of
only prairie and nothing more. now Is
a cluster of mining towns with an ag-
giegate population of thirty thousand
persons; that dozens, scores and hun
dreds of drill rigs pointing derrick like
toward the sky on every horizon from
Galena, Kan, to Miami Okla, actu-
ally are boring down into rich, thick
veins of ore; that the unceasing whiz-
from Joplin to Pitcher and from Pich-
er to Joplin merely are the forerun-
ners of an extension of the Southwest
Missouri Electric Railway from Joplin
and Galena to Picher--an extension
for which tracks already are being laid
and (which will be in operation by
Christmas. Two days among the new
Jack mines are barely enough to
give flavor of actuality to this adj
venture. which seems-despite the mo-
tors and the trucks and the huge piles
of charts and the looming accouter-
ments of modern industry-like Bret
Harte setting immensely magnified,
Bret Harte? Yes--all but the hectic
excitement, the eXpectant feverish and
of the bonanza camp, and the guns
and the gambling, These We're there
oh, yes-and all that ever went with
them. But only little while. Because
the new Oklahoma mining district is
people by miners-mine workmen--
who earn for the most part, s25 to $40
Il week and who brought their wives
and children along when they migrat-
ed from the Joplin district. And be-
cause Oklahoma Is bone dry
Soldiers of Fortune.
There was the Red Apple" Two
years ago, when the first frame
shacks went up in Pitcher, ottawa
county where now city of seven
thousand persons from all over the
United States and from many for
eign cline. came the adventurer and
the soldier of fortune, And they fore
gathered at the Red Apple" There
was no vigilance committee, no law
and order league, no marshals. But
there was no booze. And the women
and children came. And the rosy hue
faded from the Red Apple" and its
habitues-men with dead white skin
and tired eyes and nimble fingers and
women in flashy silks with cheeks too
rosy and lips too crimson, faded away, !
too.
And about that time came Wesley |
Post. to be sludge mill foreman for the
Lead company, which |
owns the lease to the land on which |
Picher is built. Post ran--and runs
the big sdudge mills week days and |
preached Sundays. The company /
built a church and now, Post breaches
from it's pulpit twice every Sunday.
He baptizes converts in one of the
mill ponds.
All of which may seem a rambling,
way to tell of this tre-
nendous new lead and zinc field which
las sprung into being and created a
lozen towns where there was only
lirgin prairie two years ago, But the
district itself was built that way. 1t
lad its beginnings when the shallow
re vein at Commerce, Okla, few
niles northeast Of the present site of 5
oicher began to play out. A few
IrilI t,or fnr 4