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Show George Wingfield A Typical Westerner I By EDWARD F. O'DAY IN THE SAN FRANCISCO TOWN TALK I wHAT brought you to Nevada in the first Iplace?" l asked George Wingfield the y &s other dayt , "My feet," ho answered with a smile, and lest the reply might have a "sassy" sound, im-1 im-1 mediately added: i "I walked most of the way." "Wlas ;t a long walk." "Some two hundred and fifty miles," replied ; the millionaire mining man. "We had a thousand thou-sand head of cattle in Southern Oregon, and we had to get them to Wlnnemucca to ship them to Colorado. That -was twenty years ago, and there were not the rail facilities we have now. v So we drove the cattle. There were fourteen of jiU us, and it took us three inonths to make the 1 trip. It was hard work. Of course we weren't going all of that three months. You can't drive cattle too hard and keep them fat. Twenty-five miles a day is about the limit, -and too much of that pace would ruin your herd. When we ' came to good grazing we laid over for a feAV i days and fattened the cattle up. Sometimes it was a long ways between water holes, and then the cattle suffered, and so did Ave. Adventures? No, we didn't have any adventures; only hard work. Hard work isn't an adventure." "And when you got to Nevada you stayed there?" "Yes," answered Wingfield, "and I've been there ever since." Although George Wingfield is a Southerner he was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1876 his life since boyhood has been the life of the extreme West. The elder Wingfield engaged in tho cattle 'business in Oregon, and the younger Wingfield became a vaquero, or, to' give It the pronunciation peculiar to the northern ranges, a buckaroo." The stamp of the "ibuckaroo" is on George Wingfield today. For the "buckaroo" is very quiet in his talk, except when he is cutting cut-ting a steer out of a herd, and then he uses a great deal of bad language, " but no blasphemy. And the buckaroo" is extremely reserved in his demeanor toward strangers, but when he comes to know you and to approve of you he will pick out a good horse for you to ride and even, as a very special favor, lend you his favorite bridle. The "buckaroo" despises a coward, cow-ard, and also despises a boaster; if there is anything any-thing which will make him blush, aside from the ordeal of asking a pretty girl for the next dance, it is to hear any admiring reference made to his courage. George Wingfield has these typical "buckaroo" traits: the soft voice, the reserved manner, the personal modesty. Twenty years in ai the mining camps of Nevada did not deprive him ($ of them. The accumulation of a huge, fortune did not alter him a bit. j Another "buckaroo" characteristic is strength of friendship. When a "buckaroo" makes a friend he keeps him;, when he picks out a pal, I it's for life. If you do not think that a millionaire f with a great variety of mining, banking, agri cultural and Industrial interests can preserve this simplicity of attachment to his old "bunk- ies," just observe George Wingfield during one of his frequent trips to this city. When he comes here he puts up at the St. Francis Hotel. The press announcement of his arrival brings out a t lot of his old-time comrades. Some of them are prosperous cattle men or miners; some of them are down-and-outers. But wealthy or broke, most of them are not used to the grandeur gran-deur of a hotel like the St. Francis. Many of them will not enter the hotel at all. They send word to Wingfield, and he meets, them on tno sidewalk. Some, more venturesome, pluck up sufficient hardihood to invade the lobby. Rarely do they get as far as the big red rug. Generally they take one startled look at the glided ceiling and sink into the chair nearest the door and wait there' patiently until Wingfield makes his appearance. This is the regular course of events whenever Wingfield is at the St. Francis; it has been observed with Interest by tho students of human nature who frequent that hostelry. These observers have noticed that George Wingfield was too ibusy to entertain one of those rough pals of his. It was in 1897 that Wingfield drove that herd of cattle into Nevada and decided to stay in " the sagelbrush. What money he possessed was put into a copper mine at Golconda, That money never came out. Finding himself broke, George Wingfield did the best he could, meanwhile making mak-ing a stury of mines and mining. Tiie golden year 1901 found him in Tonopah acquiring claims and mining stocks. And then he went to Gold-field. Gold-field. Wingfield had studied the Nevada mining situation to such good effect that he was able to forecast the future of Goldfleld when Gold-field's Gold-field's greatness was still in the making. He bought mining properties there, and when he couldn't ibuy he leased. One of the mines he leased was the great Florence mine, whose amazing yield of gold makes one of the veracious romances in the annals of the golden fleece. From that time forward the history of Nevada Ne-vada mining is closely bound up with the story of Wingfield's operations. The year of our fire and earthquake was his big year. He bought the Red Top and Jumbb mines, merged them with the Mohawk and the Laguna mines, and formed the celebrated Goldfleld Consolidated. He added other b'g properties of enormous yielding yowor, and when his operations were completed he was at the head of a mining corporation that produced about forty-five millions in the succeeding half a dozen years. "Nobody packed a gun when I first went into Nevada," says Wingfield. "The people there were orderly and peaceable. But the lure of gold ibrought an undesirable element, and we had to arm to protect ourselves against them." Wingfield's reference is to be understood as applying to the trouble which came to Nevada with the I. W. W. This lawless organization made common cause with tho Western Federation of Miners, and the result was that outbreak of violence vio-lence which began when high-grading operations were resisted. There were retaliatory strikes, with the usual accompaniment of (bloodshed. Threats were freely made against Wingfield's life, 'but he went his way with cool indifference and the trouble-makers never dared to assail him. There is a story that one day when the lawless element was gathered in the streets of Goldfleld, bent on trouble and swearing that they'd "get" Wingfield, he walked through their midst, silently defying them. I asked Wingfield about that story and he laughed. "If I walked through them," he said, "I guess it was so that I could get away from them." Wingfield's activities were not confined to mining. min-ing. He engaged in the banking business and in real estate operations, his partner in these as in his mining ventures being the late United States Senator Nixon. Later this partnership was amicably dissolved, and when Senator Nixon d'ed, Governor Tasker Oddie of Nevada offered Wingfield the vacant seat. Wingfield appreciated the honor tout refused to accept it. I asked him why he had done this. "Because I didn't care to become a target for everybody to shoot at," lie answered. "I have seen enough of politics to know that there -are more drawbacks than attractions to public life." H Wingfield tells me that Nevada is enjoying H a stable prosperity. H "It is true," he said, "that the purchasing power of sold has gone off on account of tho In- H crease in the cost of mining materials. But tho fl demand for ibase metals caused by tho war has H opened up some of the old mining camps, wamps H like Hawthorne, Luning, Candelarla and Ely are A H enjoying a new prosperity. Agriculture is advanc- H ing in those sections where water Is to too naa. H Reno is prosperous. The divorce colony alone H means a million dollars a year to Reno. Yes, H Nevada is prosperous, and that is a good thing H for San Francisco, for NevadanB come to San ' H Francisco to enjoy themselves. I suppose Nevada H does more for hotels like the St. Francis and H the Palace than any other State in tho country. H Nevadans like San Francisco. There is here the H kind of life they want to Bee when they go on H a pleasure trip. They do not go to Los An- H geles." H "Would they come here if San Francisco was H shut up tight?" H "Certainly not," replied Wingfield. H |