The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1923-11-22

homo who differed as greatly from his
cousins of the eastern states as zev
differs from truck horse says the
Anaconda standard
These products of western environ
ment had the philosophy of the Arab,
the resourcefulness OF a Yankee. the
stick -to-itiveness of a man tracking
Indian. an indimerences to hardship.
the bravery Of a Spartan the imagi-
nation of Monte Cristo, and the rest
less energy of a Gagged jungle beast.
They sought for gold, silver, and
other precious metals and, in its quest,
they crossed the trackless deserts of
the West-and left their bones to
bleach under the pitiless rays of
blazing sun. They scaled mountain
peaks-and died of cold and hunger.
They forded the icy waters of glacier
fed streams or attempted passage by
means of improvised rafts-and the
waters closed over their heads
They invaded the forbidden pre-
cncts of what was, to the Indian
hallowed ground-and they were
burned at stake for their temerity
Their scalp locks decorated the center
poles of Indian lodges scattered from
Arizona to the British line. but de-
spite hunger. cold, starvation and In
dian torture. the stream of these
treasurer seekers never slackened.
They poured across the continent from
ST. Joe. Omaha and Kansas City. or
A.
the southwest by way of the Santa Fe
trail across Nebraska to Colorado and !
Utah they poured carrying in their |
wake a tide of emigration that was
checked only by the waters of the Pa
cifc ocean and which when it could |
go no further westward eddied and !
swrled. spread north and south. up |
to the straits of Georgia and down TO
the Gulf of California and then
doubled back upon itself, thus es
tablishing a new empire under the
stars and Stripes and one which has
challenged the wonder and the admir-
alton of the world.
Added States to Union.
These pioneers, treasure seekers,
searchers after the Golden Fleece or
to use the honored term which the
West coined for their designation
these "prospectors," added as di-
rect result of their efforts, the states
of Colorado, Nevada, California, Ida
no and Montana to the American
union Indirectly they are entitled 10
credit for Washington, Oregon, New
Mexico and Arizona as well as the
Dakotas and Wyoming
The prospectors, some of them re-
turning California Argonauts, others
from Colorado and other raw eastern
farm hands or sophisticated city
dwellers from beyond the Mississippi,
built Butte, Helena, and other Mon
tana cities and poured a sorely needed
stream of wealth into the sadly Grip
pied treasury of the nation following
the severe financial drain of the Civil
war
1t is probably not too presumptuous
to say that were it not for the thrill
ing tales of western adventure, of vast
wealth, of sudden riches that lay al
most at the pick-point of the adven-
turous prospector, the tide of Euro
pean immigration would never have
set 50 strongly for American shores
as it did in the years preceding the
war Without the wealth dug from
the rocks of the western states eco Z
nomic conditions due to an overcrowd-
ed population would probably have
revolution upon revolution and
the entire map of the world might ]
long since have been rewritten in {
terms of tyranny and blood had it not
been for the restless gOld-digging crew G
that swarmed into California in the s
los and by so doing drove the dOns t
back to Mexico and Spain and called +
the attention of the world to the min a
sral riches of Western America.
The prospector fretted under the C
dea of working for a boss" but each q
winter he put his pride in his pocket, t
inless he had made a rich strike in O
he summer months, and came back O
o the established mining camps to /
,arn a "grubstake" for the summers d
work. In some parts of the West a
ne DfOSDeclOi was hIOWi -ttS Il .5iON
bird" He came to the mining Ur
smelling camp with the first snow o
all and left at the first thaw He !
vas nearly always accompanied in t
alter years by one or two burros. those g
iure- footed intelligent little beasts of
which it used to be said that "the t
heavier you load them the faster they o
ravel." a
Accompanied by his faithful pack t
,nimals, usually two in number pros {
,ectors would fearlessly set out across t
desert with not a water hole of t
resh water closer than 40 miles or s
more. The man and his fOur-footed o
riends would scale mountain peaks n
along trails as narrow as the
coping on a wall, where a moment of p
lizziness or a misstep meant death A
IN Jagged rocks 1000 feet below. n