Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-11-13
at Funeral i'm Gold Camp.
Paid High Tribute to Famous Gambler
By z. A. BRINENSTOOL

hide, none other than Goldfield's
great Tex Richard, gambler and pug
Hist sporting gent. delivered Gold
fields eulogy by spreading across the
front of an outgrown church building
a large sign:
This Church Is Closed;
God Has Gone to Rawhide."
Prospectors, promoters, miners, bar
tenders. percentage girls, gamblers and
others spread the tidings. laughed hi
lariously and decided to go too For at
the moment. hard hit by the financial
panic of 1907, the mining business of
the desert, in general, was somewhat
depressed.
In the spring of 1908 the Goldfield
and Tonopah papers devoted more
space to Rawhide than they did to
their own mines and activities. On
March IA, the Goldfield Review re-
ported that Riley Grammar, nationally
known gambler and racetrack plunger
had gone to Reno to buy supplies and
fixtures for a paIatial bar and gam
bling resort which he was about to
erect and operate with Swede Sam
Wallin of Butte, at the camps princi-
pal corner, which he had purchased
for $4,000. This lot, incidentally, had
scarcely been cleaned of sagebrush
and could have been taken without
argument by any squatter few
months earlier.
Grammar, like Rawhide, was a pro-
were soon to be written into the his
tory and literature of the West in
Permanent fame, with a funeral ora
ton significant of the time, the place
and the man.
Died In Infancy
Rawhide was to die in its lusty in
fancy. The funeral Grafton that pre-
served the memory of Riley Grammar
forever in the hearts of the sage
brushers, might more properly have
been delivered over the ashes of the
town itself. For the body of Riley
Grammar had not crumbled to dust
before the town itself was in ashes
burned and scattered to the desert
which gave it birth The two were
strangely one.
Grammar, like Rawhide, was prod
duct of the gambling fever. He gained
name among gamblers from Sara
toga to Tanforan Though his life had
been spent upon race tracks and in the
underworld, his spirit was the spirit
of the mining camps. So, broke but
famous among his kind. he had gained
the backing Of Nat Goodwin and
George Graham Rice, and had come to
Rawhide with the boom. There again
he had gone broke, as Rawhide was
to 90 broke; had died as Rawhide was
soon to die, and crumbled to ashes as
Rawhide was soon to crumble to
ashes.
Another figure of the town was
w. H. Knickerbocker, former
preacher, equally at home in the
motley throng that makes the mining
camp. "Knicker," man of cultivation
embittered by experience, had aban-
doned the pulpit for the mine. Though
in a different line of endeavor, he had
fitted as naturally into the composite
life of the community as had Gran
nan, Outstanding in the unique psy-
chology of mining camps is this power
of the community to attract and hold,
to use and unity such wide variety OF
human material.
The florid oratory and impassioned
periods of the preacher-miner's eulogy
at the bier of the gambler whom ne
had hardly known, were in perfect
keeping with the time and place. TO
the crowd of sweat-stained miners
tawdry women from the dance halls
and bagnios, promoters, gamblers and
Pfloaters gathered in the shabby little
vaudeville theatre where the services
we're held, the words of the speaker
we're golden words of sympathy and
understanding. The speech was tuned
! ....@ Is f1,n
less. accounts for the fact that it has
continued to live in the hearts OF the
desert jewellers. For the moment tne
unfrocked preacher was touched WIFI
inspiration.
| He was the spirit of the mining
camp, and the periods of his oratory
| touched and by touching, revealed the
heart of its people. If, for the ashes
of Riley Grammar, could be substituted
the ashes of Rawhide, we would have
the perfect benediction to be pro-
nounced upon all the great dead MN
ING camps. For that reason 1t mas
lived. and is here available:
The Eulogy
| at feel that it is incumbent upon me
to state that in standing here 1 oc-
cupy no ministerial or prelatic posi-
ton. I am simply a prospector. MAKE
no claims whatever to moral merit OF
religion except the religion of human,
ity. the brotherhood of man. stano
among YOU today simply as a man
among men, feeling that I can snake shake
hands and say brother" to the ynes!
man or woman that ever lived. y
there should come to you anything OF
moral admonition through what I say
If comes not from any sense Of moral
superiority, but from the depths OF
my experience.
"Riley Grammar was born in Paris
XIV, about 40 years ago. suppose ne
dreamed all the dreams OF boyhooo
They blossomed into phenomenal sue
cess along financial lines at times
during his life. I am told that from
the position of bell boy in hotel ne