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Show THE STORY OF PIOCHE By Miner Mike In early-day Pioche, these plants hired muny guards to keep o.T e'.ulm jumpert and maintain ownership of property. IE-lilor'i Nnl: Thin la thr lliild cf a rrif. of .IkIiI Hrtirlr. kIviiik h:t:hlit!ht. of th. hinlury uf I'lochc, Nevuila. 11 ininiriK iiimniunity whirh h:i hcn nn inumrtnnl fnitor in Ulh imlimlry ml hicli bin born letiuilt lr t't.ih men.) At the time Pioche, Nevt. Ja, came into prominence as b mining district, dis-trict, the "rod" was the host con-vincer con-vincer of ownership to nvn!n;? ground. Mining laws were rather sketchy and the prospector and operators who could shoot the straightest usually ended up with the mine. Before the government authorized author-ized 100 x 300 foot claims, possession posses-sion was 99 points of the law and that was tho law of Pioche. A mine operator thought more of a good gunman than he did of his miners. Old payroll records of tho Meadow Valley Mining Company, one of the early-day Pioche operators, show the following at the top of the payroll sheets: guards $20.00 per day; superintendent, $5.00 per dav, and miners $3.00 pr day. Guards were the toast of the burs and they boasted that they would not eat breakfast before they took a shot at some claim jumper. It is a curious fact that the rich, booming community of Pioche, nearly near-ly broke the county of Lincoln in which it located h number of times, because the numerous bristling gun battles involved too ina.'.y court battler end murder trials. (Most of the murder trials were cleared up as self defense.) Order was finally brought about by Juke Johnson, a deputy sheriff, who set up what became known far and wide as Johnson's Law. Johnson was one of those big square built men who carried a Sunday punch in either his right or left. Those who knew Johnson said that he would seek out the trouble makers, strip them of their guns and then "take em on" in rough and tumble. Those who were not convinced with his first treatment were taken to the county line, given another working over and sent on their way. Another bit of interesting information informa-tion on tha early days at Pioche comes first hand from a nan named Poujude whom Mr. Snyder met in his later years. Poujado came to tro district re. a boy and went to work f-r th? Pioche Record as a printer devil. According to the story he und the editor practised shooting for two hours each day. After euch publication pub-lication had been spread around the town tho editor would wall; up and down main street with his banc's on his guns to settle then and there any objections to what he had published. pub-lished. One summer the editor was called away and Poujude was left to publish pub-lish the paper, lie told Snyder that i he prayed that nothing sensational would happen during his term as editor, but as luck would have it a main street shooting scrape oc ur-red. ur-red. After writing and publishing the incident, he barricaded himself in the newspaper office and could not get out to dinner until the sheriff and two deputies came to escort him home. Such wns the life in early-day Pioche, and it took Jake Johnson to smooth out the troubled waters. He became a lep.end throughout southeastern Nevada, and he had a hand in helping Snyder with his , early struggles to rebuild the camp. j (The fourth article in this series will appear in these columns soon.) |