The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1917-11-24

and sudden wealth appearing IN q.
form of huge chunks of almo., ~,
silver, so nearly pure that old tin"
tell stories of taking the impress
of a dollar on the crude ore BY nrs..
ing the coin against the prodnc, !,
the rich veins.
During the active period NJ a.
camp not less than nine sme,,.~
were put up and in operation D.
tween eight and nine million dolls..
are credited to the mines which -.
piled these plants. SHELTERS in y.
lead belt, however. were not war,
profitable, the finished product be;n.
but little better than the crude ma
terial owing to the presence of
large amount of the black metal
There are no records available fron
which an estimate of the enr;,.
camps production can be mads
During 1870 at the height of the dis.
trict's prosperity wave, there were
1879 operating mines. and many leas.
ing operators at work in the district.
Many of the mines. during their short
existence. were dividend payers.
At a time when the surface riches
were beginning to grow scarce and
the boom had begun to wane, Hami.
ton was visited by a fire. said to have
been of incendiary origin, which de.
stroyed all but two buildings in the
business part of the town. and
burned nearly all the dwellings. Dat.
ing from this disastrous confiagra.
ton, which occurred in 1873. a gen
eral exodus followed. Hardly a year
later Treasure City, three miles dis
tant, was visited by a similar fire,
and almost as rapidly as the two
camps had grown to thriving cities
they ere deserted and left, a few
years later, to a lone sheepherder
who tended his focks under the
shadows of the abandoned smelten
and sheltered himself in the ruins Of
the homes built by the treasure seek.
ers of a few years before.
The fire which burned Hamilton d
blamed on a tobacco merchant named
A. Cohen. According to the story,
he had a small stock of goods which
he had covered heavily with insur
ance. To get the money he set fr'
to his building. The blaze 60
beyond his control. spreading t.
the business district under tn,
spell of a heavy wind. The dam
age in the business district of tn,
town was placed at $500. 900
What became of Cohen when his fire
was discovered is not mentioned in
the stories of the history of the dis
trict.
In a later effort to continue the
operations at Hamilton. a British
corporation drove a mile-long tunnel
through the Eberhardt and Aurora
properties without disclosing any
ores which could be profitably worked
at that time.
When silver began the marked de-
cline, in 1887, and when the greater
ore bodies which had been worked
up to that time had been exhausted,
the last of the big silver operations
in the district ceased. Some few
miners remained to extract lead ores,
an estimated las, 900 tons of this be-
ing shipped out despite heavy trans
portation costs.
One of the interesting claims made
by Hamilton is that no capital. other
than that which was realized from
the working Of the property, was
used in building up the big mines 10
its vicinity.
Hamilton, located at an altitude Of
5000 feet. is midway between Ey
and Eureka, and Is reached only by
stage. Transportation costs have
been too high to permit marketing
thousands of tons of low grade ores
lying on the dumps of the abandoned
properties.