Evening star., 1932-09-04

-- HE electrifying cry of gold is going up
once more in Colorado. And-just
as in the days of Ait is Turing
thousands of men, and a few score
of women to the creeks and streams
from which may be wrested small
dekes OF the precious metal. Rugged men,
many of them beaten back in the uneven battle
to live in industry while depression goes on,
line the most famous of the old streams with
their gold pans, Shovels sluice boxes and rockers
Within the city limits of Denver itself it is
not uncommon to run across small band OF
men, Overall-clad and booted, panning the mud
OF the Platte River for the few tiny "colors'
which will pay for their beans and coffee.
Nearly 10000 men and a few score women
have learned in organized classes the intricate
business of finding the elusive gold amid the
rocks and gravel and muddy water of one creek
or another.
Uncounted others have called forth expert
ences from the past or picked up the knowledge
rs they might and trudged out to try their hand
at scraping from the ground the gold that will
keep hungry wolf from the door.
Some have found the task too great, the work
too arduous or the returns too small. For
perience and skill, strong back and patient
heart, a site and right to work it. a practical
knowledge of placer mining or geology and no
small measure of luck are as essential as gold
pan and a sluice box to the man who will un-
lock the treasure chest Of nature
0UT many are averaging enough-perhaps so
cents or 81 a day-to keep bread, butter
and beans in the house until the call to regular
employment comes again
Still others, with little more experience, a
little better equipment and a deal more luck,
are making wages from the gravel and mud of
the bed streams. few, with the best knowl-
edge and the greatest luck, average better than
wages. From some claims in the choicest
ground a man may take 81 or So a day.
And always in the heart and mind of the real
prospector is the age-old, though seldom spoken.
hope that "I'll strike it rich tomorrow"
For there's still gold in them thar hills just
as there was when the rugged frontiersmen
fought their way along rutted wagon trails in
the early SOS in the gold boom that gave Col
orado its birth and laid foundation for the
West of the modern day.
It's economic depression which beckons men
to the toiling and battling for the precious stuff
It was national panic in the late SOS which
turned mems ears to the far of cry in Cali
fornia Nevada and Colorado that there's gold
Tor men who can come and take it,"
And it was sinking commodity value levels
and unemployment which turned mems
thoughts back to the gold streams and the
metal mines in the last year or so.
The level of wages was dropping. The cost
OF recovering gold was lower Yet the value
Of the yellow metal remained the same and
Uncle Sam stood ready to accept it at his mints
for dollars.
CO it was not without reason that gold min
- ing ventures were stimulated and that prop
critics long idle began once more to hum
"Ghost' towns of all-but-forgotten eras took
ON q little of the life that had been denied
them since the turn of the century Streams in
California, Nevada, Colorado and other States
are being "panned" once more for the precious
yellow flakes.
Prospectors began following their burros into
the rocky gulches and up dizzy hillsides in the
quest for strike
Other men, men to whom the doors of regu-
Lar employment seemed closed, heard the call
and needed it, Closer to home they began to
pan the mud of river and creek The word
spread that gold still was to be had for the
taking
Gold pans, long relegated to dusty attics
~ ~Sa4ne 1orth and stores began again to offer
nr.nlng supplies" to the lone prospector.
~, oncie sam did his bit. Through Frank E.
S''ps'ru' superintendent of the United States