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Show high mm ltip rt ion. OtMte WHj greuily i'M.ttiil, uml dlkturbud bV tUfl Icr "i"' M'nir w .iti.liM ins pi oaptvlor would hni'1'fn upon tho iceue nd io&to ihWctMund. H , wrott- lo Butter, thftn btveh oh Eh rwch. The Utter laid In Hullfr'a nmll box for a I nuinth. while oddlr "uwi-Ht hlood." I-Munl lyHutlor came In and with Oddlc pjamu-d to ln tht dl!0Q ery and dt lOnt dl (In?. will iroufntr uttb lAkru Into! the partiuTHhip, for the tfauon that h liad tt ii'nm, juid MOim- inrlhod of trails ponatlon ovr tho forty miles of VtJft hruali tvu vUhI to the euocenH ot the on-tiM'prini-. Ill oinilui'.s intfri8it nmd. him inllllonalrc. Yv cverul yearn ho liyod ti hiMirlouft lifo In CaltlorPhi. Work l nremiltinl . In OotobQT the men set out with n few tOi)l and rooking uiHihIIn. tit'dding and a icr barrel. Reach! nu th itMne of the dlsooer, the starttd work on a ttnall NMQ of ore from which tlioy ftittracted j two tona. Then it idnchcd. They made two trips out with the ore. hltUung 01e ton to Austin and one ton to Burtkft for shipment. Thev then returned to the prospect, lhl time with a wlndlufrs. dr-termlnsl dr-termlnsl to sjctM Ip the hope of finding more ore. In Kradiu out for the wlnd-lUl wlnd-lUl they uiK-oyered the real Mlxpah vein, tlva re( in width. Wtntey had I come- on and the weather was bitterly cold. They had no tent and not much food. Without hay or grain, the horats were 'hohbled" ntid turned loose lo riih-tie riih-tie from the Sparse hunch -gradi. They often wandered far afield and Oddie, being be-ing the yoUAgeit of the trio, undertook the job of rounding Mitri tip. WWIe not engaged in ohgttng i)e horaes, hauling wattr. cooking, etc.. he worked In the shaft. Kinally came a check from the smelter for t he two tons of ore, $600 per ton. which renewed the.r courage and Save them something with which to sustain sus-tain life. News Spread Hapidlv. New of the rich strike spread quickly quick-ly and earlv In LftOI men from the outside out-side reached the hew Ki lorado. Leases were let. new discoveries ware made, rich ore was gout to the smelterN and thu boom was on. Probably never lt the hie-lory hie-lory of mining wa a bin venture, audi as this quickly became, handled In such simple fashion, ilutler let the leases, pacing off the distance and setting up rude stakes or monuments of rock to mark the boundaries. There was, In the words of the Indian, "no paper talk " no formal documents merelv a verbal lease and a notation made Vv Butler R1 a little red note book that block No so and so had been leased to so and so. Oddle was the office man and to him Butler made report. The job grew inB big proportions pro-portions and the work became oneroui. Freighting teams flocked to the camp and at one time 900 head of horses and nules were engaged in hauling ore to.' tfodaviiie. a distance of stxtWflva miles, the nearest railroad point. Sodavi'.le was an old mining renter und supply point on the narrow-gauge Larson & Colorado Springs railroad, and was poorly equipped to handle ore. At one time there were 130 leases in operation, shtp-i shtp-i ping, all the way from a few tons to car-j car-j loads of ore; am! treOH leases had numerous numer-ous jMrtners. whose Interests in some Instances In-stances were baseJ upon the time at which they became partners. Oddie billed all shipments, looked after th smelter returns, received the money and dMded it. paying the teamsters, subtracting the royalties and then dividing the monev among the tessaes in proportion to each man's interest. He had no modern office! equipment, no adding machine, nor even a typewriter, and no clerical help. He did the work alone and without. retnuor- j ation. And so well was the busiticfes administered that in the full year of leasing- operations there was never a dispute dis-pute over boundaries, or shipments or returns. re-turns. In contrast with the usual custom cus-tom of liandtcapping a lessee w hen he developed a good s'oot of ore. Odfile encouraged en-couraged the boys and advanced them money so that they could employ miners and get out as much ore as possible. Railroad Built. "Cai" Brougher came down from Montana Mon-tana at the behet of his brother. Wilsc. and the two took a lease, which made' them good monev. Other big producers : were the Lynch-O'Meara iea.se, . tSierA'ut-ting tSierA'ut-ting and the Douglass-McQul! Near the end of 1901 tiie mine was sold ,to Piilla.de lphlans wito organized the.Tono-pah the.Tono-pah Mining company and built the Topo-pofa Topo-pofa & Goldfleld railroad. 1 New discoveries discov-eries were made and the camp' grew into larre proportions. Shortly after his arrival, Cal Brougher , opened a place of refreshment at a or- ner where the trail from the leases joined with a straggling line of tents and rouch buildings, named "Main street.' The four-story )UspaJi hotel now occupies this corner and Broucher owns stock lit the hotel company. With Qd,dte he took j over the Belmont, a prospect that was unfavorably considered, which they succeeded suc-ceeded in financing. Out of their efforts I grew the great Belmont mine. The spirit that influenced and inspired the pioneers of Tonopah is still alive In Nevada. Men still wander far Into the out-of-the-way places, sleep out of doors, eat beans and mulligan and drink alkali water, hunting for the precious metals. The automobile has replaced the burro. ' and evrytnine else has ben changed by J modern devices, but the spirit is the j same. May It Bve forever. Nevada Min- ing Press. NEVADA PIONEERS! CELEBRATE FIND Story ot Discovery of Miz-pah Miz-pah Mine, Famous in Annals An-nals of Industry. Veterans of Camp Gather at Tonopah to Relive Days of Past. Nineteen years ago three hardy men started work on a bleak hillside in a neglected section of Nevada, digging at a prospect that at times seemed almost a forlorn hope. Out of the prospect and from their work sprang the great Mltpah mine; grew the boom daya of Tonopah; MxugM men from the enda of the earth. Ooldfleld was founded, and more than a score of new camps sprung into be-Ull be-Ull within the confines of a wide circle with Tonopah as the center. The discovery discov-ery of the Mispah lode, due to the pertinacity per-tinacity of three determine! men, who endured hardships in the pursuit of the elusive treasure, ushered in a new era for Nevada- Their success has resulted in a production of gold and silver of the value of three hundred million dollars, and the heralding of Nevada throughout the" world as a state of Immeasurable riches. Impromptu Dinner Held. Of the tttle band of pioneers who bmVOd the cold of winter and the heat of summer, who trekked miles over the desert, making their own roads, many bare gone some to the far corners of the earth from which they came, others on te last long journey. There are left, though, qutte a number of the old timers, who make their home in Tonopah and i other campc of the state. And on the eleventh of November they "got together" togeth-er" at an Impromptu meeting in Tono-nah Tono-nah to celebrate the occasion. Tasker T.. Oddie. former governor of Nevada, was the only one present of the trio who found the Mlapa"'. "Jim" Butler was not able to travel from his ranch in Owens valley. California, and Wilse Brougher was ill at his home In Berkeley; hx Governor Oddie. who presided at the meeting and "banquet " looked down the doub'.e iine at the table into the faces of manv sturdy men and women whose worth he learned bo the trying davs of the camp. "Jim" McQuillen was there, and "Billy" Douglass, and "Bill" Booth, who started the first new spa per and is ptill publishing it; and t'ri B. Curtis, Bill" Walters and Mr. Frailer. 9? years o'd. who dug Frazie.' well in the north end of the camp. The loard also was traced bv the presence of the wives of oral . of the pioneers, who still caU Toaopa-i -jome. Table Made of Bare Boards. The meeting and hanncet were held in theidd fellows' lall. The table was set o:i the bare boards with tit: plates and iron TiJv and ,'orks ar.-I lighted with candle stuck in the necks of abandoned beer tottles. as in th old davs. Billy Douglass liad killed a doer and barbecued venison wa a pteoe de resistan.-e. Isnked by nlatters of baked beans, desert des-ert style. There was a' huge salad, a !uTirv seldom enjovefl In the old times, built in the shape of Mt. Oddie. usd vther sood things to eat and to drink. There was speech making, too. as a matter of ourse, that too'.; the form of reminiscences reminis-cences of the ra-shck davs. "d as a finale t-.e org.r.tza:;or. of the "Pioneers' society," t?fat "bespeaks future gatherings of the cfcui. There is no more romantic chapter in Nevada's picturesque history' than the discovery and development of the Mix pah mine, Jim Butler found the outcroo wl.ile on a prospecting trip from his ranch in Monitor valley. He wa3 skeptical skep-tical as to the value of the simples he took and carried tl.em around for a long rime before thev finally reached an as-sayer. as-sayer. Tasker t. Oddie, who had rained a knowledge of mining at Austin, where e was on the staff of Anson Phelps ?:okes. was oDeratins a small propertv at Belmont- This historic old cam?, once the county eeat of Nye county, was almost deserted. In .he whole county there were less than two hundred voters. No wagon roads ran near the new find, which was almost a trackless desert. T'pon his return to Belmont. Butler gave tle samples to Oddie with the remark that "if thev run 12 a ton this is a eood roapect. If you will have them assayed I'll rive you an interest." Oddie was "broke,'" With no money to pay for assays, yet reluctant to pass the nportunitv by. he sent the samples to Wallace C. Oayhart. an assaver a: Austin. Oddie wrote to Gay hart, "If they run. I win give you a share in my inter-egfc inter-egfc Wttty fan, from a few dollars to as |
