Evening star., 1933-06-04

HE depression breathed new
life into the ghost towns and
near ghost towns of the old
gold-mining West. Where desc
late, empty wooden buildings
for a generation or more clustered for
lornly about the gaping mouths of un-
used mine shafts, the last few years
have brought again the busy clatter of
the hammer, the thrilling roar of the
stamp mill, the sight of contented faces
and the Tilt of happy voices. Spectral
townships once more are flushed with
life
But fortune turns and swings in the
slightest breeze. Again the existence of
these rejuvenated communities is
threatened. The events of the last month
or two, coming as bolt from the blue,
seem likely to turn these bustling COM
munities back into the ghost towns that
they were for so long.
: And, oddly enough, the same wheel
of fortune which threatens now to bring
the second death of these old ghostly
centers of our days of golden prosperity
may, at the same time, bring the spark
of life back into the ghost towns of silver
fame They were not reborn along with
the forgotten cities of the gold-produc-
ing areas-they slumbered on in dreary
inactivity. Now they, too, may know
second life, may be turned again into
bustling, prosperous communities.
-OUT in California the gold-mining
towns of Grass Valley, Placerville,
Nevada City, Jackson, Eldorado and
Downieville, nesting in the High Sierras,
do not have the riotous life and wealth
that they knew during the latter half
Of the nineteenth century, when gold
was still the States principal source of
wealth. But since 1929 they have come
long way back toward their former
glory. These towns, along with others
in Nevada, Placer, Amador and Eldorado
Counties, in California, and in the gold
mining sections of Utah, South Dakota,
Nevada, Colorado and Arizona, are once
more alive after years of browsing in
semi-oblivion.
The old stagecoach does not swing
along the dusty California trails, carry
ing miners, gamblers, fancy ladies and
gold to Sacramento and San Francisco
from the distant East and the nearer
mountains, but new automobiles now
swiftly skim the smooth highways where
until recently there was only silence and
tall trees. The rough amuSementS of
earlier days-gambling, great drinking
bouts, dance-hall carousing and frequent
set-tos with knives and pistols-may be
a part of the exciting past, but new
motion picture theaterS, lighted store
fronts and bustling throngs of workers
and their families now take the place
Of inactivity and despair.
But this new vitality must soon make
way for the old desolation unless there
comes some change in the Presidents
embargo on gold exports. Bankers and
economists may theorize over the effects
of Americas REIMBURSEMENT of the gold
standard the general public may debate
the pros and cons of gold and its con-
nection with world events, but to the
miner the problem is simple and direct
It means that the ghost towns, granted
brief respite from limbo, must return
to antiquity. 1t means the sleeping again
under the Summer sun and the Winter
snow of towns that are now thriving
and prosperous.
But let us, for a moment, look back so
years or so. There was then gold
for the mining in CALIFORNIA; mountains.