Year: 1876

The Ups aud Dow Ms Of Gold Hill.--PIenty


OF Stories and Lots OF Letters.


Gold Hill, Nevada, is city of steps.
The town stands at the head of Gold
canyon, large ravine that empties into
the Carson river at Dayton, some ten
miles away. There being little room for
the town, it has been squeezed down be-
tween the banks of the canyon as COM
pactly as possible. Not only has it been
squeezed down into the bottom of the
canyon, but it has also been squeezed
up tho banks on each side to consider
able distance. This popularity in the
locati IN of the place makes it city OF
steer s and steps. Main street, as the
name implies. is the principal thorough
fare indeed is almost the only street in
the town worthy of the name. On both
sides of Main street are plank sidewalks,
but such sidewalks as can be seen in no
other town in the world. They are made
up Of succession of steps. Hardly a
rod of level walk can be found in any
one place on either side of the street.
When you have walked past the door Of
a single little shop, you must descend or
ascend from four to eight steps. You
pass another shop, cigar store or saloon,
and more steps are before you. Look
where you will, there are steps-steps to
the right, steps to the left, steps in front
and in the rear. In passing through
Main street there must be not less than
thousand steps in the sidewalk on one
side alone of the street-perhaps more
than thousand. When house has a
frontage on the street of twenty or
thirty feet you find steps in the middle
of the walk before it. AS there are no
street lamps it is very rough place In
which to attempt to move about after
dark. There is no regularity about the
steps. They occur in all kinds OF places
and after all manner OF intervals. You
descend six or eight steps and think you
have reached place where ali is plain
sailing, but have not proceeded six feet
before you find the descent softened by
two or three steps stuck In as an appen-
dix to the main fight. Were all the
steps on the sidewalk Strengthened out
they would make sidewalks for a town
four times the length of Gold Hill. Not
only are there whole cataracts of steps on
the streets that run lengthwise of the
canyon, as does Main, but to reach that
part of the town which has sloped up on
the banks, one must ascend whole flights
of stairs. At the head of these stairs are
small landings, then more stairs. All
the houses are full OF stairs. You step
up or down at every move you make In
passing through house. No two rooms
appear to be on the same level. When a
Gold Hill husband remains out late and
starts for home little top-heavy, his
wife-well acquainted with his style of
falling-spots him while he is yet afar
of indeed, as soon as he has left his
favorite saloon she is able to note his
progress and calculate the chances of
his breaking his neck from the time he
starts out for home until he has reached
the door of his own apartment. The
houses are either pushed far back into
the banks of the canyon, or climb up
there by series of terraces house
growing in height in front as it gains
length In the rear. All. DOteu, eultOl
and proprietor of the Gold Hill Nesos,
has built residence on the east side Of
the canyon which is four stories high,
and the roof of his house is not yet on o
level with the ground behind it. He has
cellar on level with each floor in his
house, and should he take the pains to
dig it, might have cellar into which he
could walk from the gable end Of his
garret. If still in want of cellar room
there would be nothing to hinder his
digging another cellar twenty feet higher,
into which he could climb by ladder
planted on the roof of his house. Aft.
enters his house by drawbridge This
bridge starts on Main street, and running
east some forty yards, strikes his house
about half way to the top. When ne
sees man coming towards his house
with copy of the NeVs in one hand and
Zig club in the other he touches the
wire of an electric battery and blows up
the bridge.