[From Col. James J. Ayers, Gold and sunshine, reminiscences of early California (1922)]

 

CHAPTER XXIII

BACK IN THE EDITORIAL HARNESS - THE COMSTOCK LEDGE - THE RUSH TO WHITE PINE - A DISASTROUS NEWSPAPER VENTURE - ABOVE THE CLOUDS

            Whilst editing the Territorial Enterprise in 1868 for Joe Goodman, who was making the grand tour, I became impressed with the extent and richness of the mines on the Comstock ledge. They had been continuously worked on a colossal scale for seven or eight years, by processes that were being improved every day, and yet the yield from them was constantly increasing in volume. Some of the old mines would for a time fall off in their output, but the dips, spurs and angles of the great ledge would be followed, new and richer deposits than those before worked would be found, and up would go the quotations on the stock board. Thus the feverish excitement was kept up from year to year until it reached its climax in the seventies, when the Bonanza mines turned the heads of the coolest people on the coast. Stimulated by the wonderful riches developed on the Comstock, experienced miners were scattered all over the State of Nevada prospecting for

234

Rush to White Pine 235

other Comstocks. It was not believed Mount Davidson was alone in its glory, but that mines as rich as those opened at its feet could be found in other places if intelligently sought for.

            I had not been long in the editorial chair of the Enterprise before mysterious hints about marvelous discoveries came from the region of White Pine. Information from that remote locality continued to come to the office during the summer of 1868, and from sources so authentic and direct as to leave no room to doubt that a rich and extensive system of mines had been discovered at Treasure Hill. Later in the year the news had spread all over the coast that another Comstock had been found at White Pine, and that the laurels so long resting on the imperial brow of Virginia City as the greatest gold and silver producer on the coast were about to pass over to a new city in Eastern Nevada. The boom was on. The White Pine fever seized everybody within the range of its influence. Miners were moving in columns from Montana, Idaho and Utah towards Hamilton and Treasure Hill. It struck San Francisco and the rush for White Pine showed that it was at white heat there.

            In my position, as editor of the Enterprise, I was in the way of getting the best and most reliable information from the district. We had special correspondents there who sent us glowing accounts of the mines on Chloride Flat, and dwelt especially on

236 Gold and Sunshine

the immense wealth developed in the Eberhardt mines. One of the five owners of the Eberhardt claims I knew well, and his letters confirmed even the most extravagant reports we had received from the district. I was clean gone. The White Pine fever had taken full possession of me. I went to San Francisco, sold property there near the Baldwin Hotel that would now be a large fortune to anyone, purchased an elaborate newspaper outfit, most of which was in Virginia City, and started for the new El Dorado.

            When I arrived in Virginia City, I found that the White Pine fever had reached the epidemic stage there, and that many of the old Comstockers were getting ready to move to the scene of the new discoveries. I had made arrangements with the magnates of the Central Pacific railroad for transportation from Reno to Elko. I had hard work to accomplish this. The rivalry between the Central and the Union Pacific railway companies to complete as much of the road as possible before they met in Utah was very great. It was not so much that the Government subsidy of $36,000 per mile was an inducement as it was that each road desired to have its terminus at as great a distance from its initial point as possible. Both roads were putting forth their greatest efforts to push forward the work of construction, and the Central Pacific had sent to the front every possible car it could spare to ex-

Rush to White Pine 237

pedite the work of building. Only as a special and exceptional favor could I get the cars I wanted.

            Announcements had been made all over the coast by the publishers of small newspapers that they intended to remove their concerns to White Pine, and I concluded that if it was generally known that I was taking a very large establishment to Hamilton it would discourage them, and that I would have the field to myself. So I issued a prospectus that had the desired effect. My outfit consisted of a large power press and four or five job presses, with the types to publish a large-sized daily and the material for a complete job office. Arrived at Elko I hired teams to take all this machinery, at an enormous figure, to Hamilton, a distance of two hundred miles from Elko. I brought with me also all the men necessary to get out the paper and work the job office. Arrived at Hamilton, I purchased a lot and put up a building. Lumber cost $400 a thousand there at that time, and very inferior lumber it was at that.

            Hamilton and Treasure Hill were already alive with people, and the arrivals were constant and numerous. The winter was setting in and the weather was intensely cold at that altitude. The peaks were covered with snow, and the white mantle was getting lower down every day. Treasure Hill is about 1,000 feet higher than Hamilton, and the altitude at Hamilton is about 10,300 feet. Business in all lines was at high pressure, and '49 prices were the rule.

238 Gold and Sunshine

Everybody was muffled to the chin, and blanket coats reaching almost to the feet were universally worn.

            The first number of the Inland Empire—that was the ambitious title I gave the paper—was ready for the press, and was eagerly waited for by crowds of people who blocked up the approaches to the office. I made arrangements to run a pony express to the nearest telegraph station, fifty miles away, and thus the Inland Empire came out with all the latest news. Everything went along swimmingly, and it looked as if my venture would prove a complete success in every way. As, however, everything depended upon the character and extent of the mines, I took the earliest opportunity that presented itself to make a careful personal inspection of them. The Eberhardt series and the other best known mines were situated at Treasure Hill. Men were at work in all directions sinking shafts and prospecting.  The chief mine of the Eberhardt company was called the Belle something, and that was the first I visited. We descended to the "silver chamber." That was as far as the company had got down. The chamber had been yielding the richest chlorides yet found in the district. It had been worked into the shape of a square of about forty feet at each side and perhaps thirty feet from floor to ceiling. This was indeed a wonderful chamber. The walls, the ceiling and the floor were composed of chloride so soft that it could be cut with a knife like cheese. One

Rush to White Pine 239

could place a silver half dollar against it at any place, strike it with a hammer, and it would leave an exact facsimile of the piece upon the chloride wall. Not only an exact impression, but the stamp left would shine out as pure silver. The chloride in this chamber yielded ten thousand dollars to the ton, and there was no telling to what depth or width this wonderful deposit penetrated. All the mines I visited gave promise of richness and permanency. I returned to Hamilton fully satisfied that the Comstock was duplicated in Treasure Hill.

            The new paper was well received everywhere, and the business of the office was as great as we could handle. This continued through the winter and well along into spring. The camp had been visited with two epidemics—one of pneumonia, the other of smallpox—from which many of the large number attacked succumbed. This was the first serious cause for discouragement which we were compelled to experience.

            All at once the Eberhardt company closed down their most noted mines. The silver chamber was hermetically sealed. New people ceased to arrive. There were innumerable mines to sell, but no buyers. The output of bullion from the mills began to fall off. Small smelters increased in number, and as the leading silver mines were shut up the miners turned their attention to smelting the base metal ores that abounded in certain localities. The bars they pro-

240 Gold and Sunshine

duced could be sold to distant refineries, and this industry seemed to be taking the place of chloride mining. No one could help feeling that the bottom was dropping out of the district. Business was greatly depressed. Bills came to be hardly collectible. Everybody almost was living on credit.

            At last the crash came. The best houses went into the hands of the Sheriff, and the town which a few months before was a lively picture of active prosperity was in the doldrums. Nothing stirred but an occasional pogonip, or sleet storm, and that sometimes left wreck and ruin in its track.

            The rival newspaper—for there was a rival newspaper in Hamilton as there is everywhere—seemed to be weathering the storm in good enough shape. But then it is not every editor that can run a newspaper, a whiskey mill and a gambling establishment at the same time. This feat, however, J. W. Forbes accomplished with ease. After writing up his newspaper he would adjourn to his saloon, run that in lively fashion for a while, and then go into his faro rooms and see how his banks were getting along. Next morning his paper would come out inveighing loudly against the growing immorality of Hamilton, how the vile passion for gambling and drinking was increasing, and calling upon the authorities to take effective steps to purify the moral atmosphere of the place.

Editorial Changes 241

            When Forbes concluded to leave Virginia City for White Pine, he was publishing The Safeguard, an evening paper. In his valedictory he said that long experience had taught him that the average man would reluctantly pay five cents for a newspaper, but would throw down a quarter for drinks in a free and off-hand way. He would therefore when he got to White Pine take with him a stock of liquors and open a saloon as well as a newspaper office, so that the profits of the former might make up for the deficits of the latter. No wonder his paper outlived mine.