November 15, 2011

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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Nevada History:

 [Albert S. Evans, Letter from White Pine, Alta California, August 7, 1869]

LETTER FROM WHITE PINE.

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[SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE ALTA CALIFORNIA.]

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The Chicago Party, and What They Did and Saw and Felt — New White Pine Route — Stretching the Mining Camps Southwards — Amount of Milling Done — The Miners' Strike — Road Agents — Weather.

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HAMILTON, Nevada, August 3d, 1869.

            Editors Alta: Well, the Chicago Commercial Relations Party have come, and seen, and departed. They had a good time. They saw the Eberhardt, the Hidden Treasure, the Auroras, the Pogonip, the Silver Wave, and other representative mines of White Pine. They got sacks of magnificent specimens of no inconsiderable intrinsic value, and a good impression of the country, were fed and lodged, handsomely, treated well and often, and went on their way yesterday rejoicing.

What Did It All Amount To?

            This. The Chicagoans came out to the Pacific coast to see the country, have a good time, and cultivate friendly relations, and establish trade where they could. They have seen the country, had a good time, and cultivated "friendly relations." As to the trade they have secured, that remains to be seen hereafter. They have been entertained right royally, and go home with enlarged ideal of the value of California and Californians. They have sold nothing to San Francisco, but they have bought something in the way of jewelry, woollen goods, wine, fruit, curios from Japan and China, etc, etc. With the State at large they have formed no relations which will result in a revolution in the course of trade. They have introduced greenbacks — at the brokers offices on Montgomery street — to a small extent, and have not cured our people of their blind attachment to specie currency. We found them gentlemen, representative Americans, and jolly good fellows every one. We were glad to see them come, and sorry to see them go away. Virginia City and all the country westward they concede as the province of San Francisco. White Pine they look upon as "debatable ground," and intend to contest it with San Francisco. They did not come here to buy mines at any price, and did not buy any after they came here. The rock sharps, who own shallow holes in the ground, for which they expected to get $50,000 apiece, and for the sake of spiting San Francisco "usurers, pawnbrokers, and grasping monopolists," were willing to take greenbacks at par from Eastern men, talked to them, buttonholed them, and preached to them all in vain. They were not on it. People here with more sense treated them well and did well in doing so. The Chicago men left their business cards well scattered through the community, and told their new-found friends to call and see them when they came to Chicago. They will get some orders for machinery, etc., from White Pine, and if the labor organizations continue to control the manufacturing interests of San Francisco to such a degree as to paralyze all operations and make it impossible to compete with Eastern manufactures, may succeed in laying it down here cheaper than it could be done from San Francisco, but beyond that their visit has done nothing more than to give them a fair idea of the great wealth of Southeastern Nevada. This knowledge will be of as much benefit to San Francisco as to Chicago — possibly more. A few mines have been bonded or sold to Chicago men — not of this party — within a few weeks, and an eight-stamp mill now running is to be sold to a Chicago association in a few days. Much stress is placed upon these facts. Now, San Francisco capital, or the capital of men who naturally look upon San Francisco as their commercial headquarters, has opened mines by the hundred in Eastern Nevada, and in this district alone controls eleven mills, with an aggregate of one hundred and four stamps already, while three more mills, with fifty stamps, will soon be ready for running. Thus far, San Francisco is "a little ahead." All the capital which can be attracted here from Chicago or elsewhere can be employed to advantage if well invested, and it is to the advantage of the whole country to have it invested well, not fooled away on enterprises which only entail loss on individuals, and serve to damn the reputation of the entire mining country of the Pacific coast. The Chicago men will do just enough in the way of influencing White Pine trade to stir up the merchants of San Francisco to renewed energy, activity and enterprise; if they do any more it will be our own fault, all the after dinner talk to the contrary notwithstanding. If the experimental shipments of fruit to Chicago, now being made, prove successful, this trade alone will more than compensate us for all that can be taken away from us by that city.

A New Road to White Pine.

            Since my last I have seen Len Wines, the energetic stage proprietor, and learned some interesting facts regarding the new route from the railroad to White Pine. After a careful survey of the new route, he has determined to put a first class stage line upon it immediately, and will commence running — carrying the Pacific Union Express Company's boxes — by the 15th instant.  He reports the route as follows: From the new town of Palisades, 33 miles east of Elko, up Pine and Moonshine Valleys, to Diamond Springs; thence to Treferen's Station, on the Austin and Hamilton road; thence by the latest road to Hamilton. Total distance, about 110 to 115 miles — the same distance as by the Hill Beachy route up the eastern side of the valley from Elko to Hamilton, and ten or fifteen miles less than by the other line, on the old route, on the western side of the valley. The saving on the railroad travel by this line over the Elko route will be 38 miles and $2 50 railroad fare. Like the Hill Beachy route, this road will run over table land country much of the way, and will be comparatively free from dust in summer and mud in winter, while the advantages for procuring fodder for the stage stock will be much greater than on the Elko route. Wines has great confidence in the success of the new line, and he is an old man at the business, generally holding a winning hand.

Off Southwards.

            Precisely the result of the discovery of the White Pine mines predicted in my letters to the Alta last autumn has already been reached. The whole country to the southwards and southeastwards to the Colorado River and beyond towards the Mexican boundary line is being prospected. Every foot of the ground is being diligently searched for the precious metals, and many new districts, some of which will prove of immense value in the future, have already been discovered. No new White Pine has been found, but the discoveries are nevertheless both numerous and valuable. I meet parties every hour in the streets of Hamilton and Treasure City discussing the question of a trip to Arizona, and not a few are actually starting, or about to start. It is always so in a mining camp. These men are the most hardy, adventurous, and reckless men to be found on earth. No sooner is one district explored and made productive than the old fever comes upon them, and they are off. They could not remain in one place many months to save their 1ives, and after all it is better that it should be so. If they were content to do well and settle down in one place for life no new districts would be discovered and no country explored. They do their work quickly and well, and are an element not to be despised in a new community. I wish I could say as much for the little gang of European miners now on a strike here, stopping all work, deranging business, and holding the well disposed portion of the community in a disgraceful state of terror and subjugation. Apropos of expeditions, I am requested to forward you for publication the following card of thanks from Lieutenant Wheeler, U. S. Engineer Corps, in command of the scientific and military expedition which left here yesterday for Southern Nevada and the Colorado country.

HAMILTON, Nev., July 31st, 1869.

            To the Proprietors of the Western Union Telegraph: Lieutenant Geo. M. Wheeler, U. S. Engineers, desires to express his gratefulness for the courtesy extended in allowing him to make use of their lines tor the purpose of exchanging chronometric signals to obtain longitude of initial and important points connected with the reconnoissance through Southern Nevada, and especially to the agents and operators at San Francisco, Cal., Ruby Station and Hamilton, Nev., whose kind attentions have facilitated the work that has proved eminently successful. By this process I have been enabled to fix with great accuracy the longitudinal positions of Camp Halleck, Elko, Camp Ruby and Treasure Peak, Nevada. Again, with many thanks,

            I remain, your obedient servant,

GEO. M. WHEELER,

Lieut. of Engineers.

The Situation.

            A wonderful change has been wrought here since I left — in May last. There were three mills here then, and a fourth nearly ready to run. They were the Oasis, 10 stamps; Moore's (now Drake & Applegarth's), 8, and the White Pine (Miller's),10; in all, 23 stamps running, and the Nevada, 10 stamps, was nearly ready to run. Now the list is as follows :

                                                                                                Stamps.

                        Manhattan Mill                                               24

                        Treasure Hill   Mill                                          20

                        Nevada Mill                                                     10

                        White Pine Mill                                              10

                        Oasis Mill                                                        10

                        Metropolitan Mill                                           10

                        Drake & Applegarth's Mill                             10

                        Treasure Mill                                                     5

                        Moger's Mill                                                      5

                        Kohler's Mill                                                    10

                        Henderson's Mill                                               2

                        Total stamps running                                    116

            Add to this the 20 stamps of the Newark Mill (the Centenary), now running on White Pine ore, and you have 136 stamps in operation. Then we have the California Mill of 20 stamps, Dayton of 20 and Monte Cristo of 10, in all 50 more stamps nearly ready to run. By September 1st the number of stamps available for reducing the ore of this district will be 186, and with the strike ended, and anything like a decently easy condition of the money market, admitting of extended work in the way of opening out mines, White Pine can take out nearly a million a month in bullion, without the aid of smelting furnaces, from which so much has been anticipated and so little realized. Of these smelting operations I shall have more to say in a future letter. Other improvements have kept pace with those noted, and in spite of the monetary stringency, and the foolish strike — almost criminal in some of its features — now approaching its end, I trust, White Pine is to-day, the liveliest mining district, by all odds, on the Pacific Coast. Next year it will be five times as lively.

            The Miners' strike last week was a serious affair, inasmuch as the strikers resorted to open violence to prevent other miners from working even by contract, and there was imminent danger of a bloody collision. The men directly engaged in the strike did not, at any time, exceed three hundred, and on their last parade, when they went around and hoisted the men out of the Eberhardt and other mines, only about one hundred and ten were in the ranks. Of this number two were said to be of American birth. The town authorities, mine owners, merchants and citizens generally, are opposed to the strikers almost to a man, and on Saturday and Sunday preparations were quietly made, and the determination openly expressed, to resist to the death any new attempt to prevent the miners who wished to work from doing so. Yesterday was anxiously looked forward to as the turning point. All the leading mines had given notice that not more than four dollars per day would be paid from August 1st. A few of the strikers threatened violence on Monday, and the majority of them refused to go to work; they had a perfect right to refuse if they preferred idleness to remunerative employment. But the great majority of the miners were sick of such nonsense, recognizing the fact that four dollars per day, with the present reduced cost of living, is better pay in reality than six dollars during last winter, and determined to be led by the nose by demagogues no longer. So most of the miners have resumed work, the strike is over, the strikers who hold out will leave for other localities, prosperity will return as confidence, which was badly shaken, is gradually restored, and the steady yield of bullion will soon convince San Francisco that the discovery of White Pine, with all its attendant draw-backs, was one of the most fortunate affairs for the Bay City which has ever occurred.

Road Agents.

            These gentry have been quite active of late, and have twice stopped Wells, Fargo & Co.'s stages on Pancake Mountain, and got off with their plunder.  Wells, Fargo & Co. have offered $2,000 reward for the recovery of the plunder and the arrest of the robbers. This is, in my humble opinion, the wrong way to go to work. The stage drivers now have no interest whatever in fighting when the stage is stopped, and as the passengers have not been gone through at all, they, of course, do not care to take the chances merely for the fun of the thing.  The robberies may, therefore, go on unchecked for any length of time.  Now, if a different policy was inaugurated, this thing would be stopped at once.  Let the Company offer a premium of $1,000 for the first stage driver or passenger who shoots a robber in the act of stopping the stage, and they will soon get their man.  Just as soon as it is certain that the road agent business is going to be attended with loss of life, the robberies will stop at once.  I don't charge a cent for this advice, whether it is taken or not.

The Weather.

            I never saw finer in my life. It is just warm enough to make one shudder at the thought of returning to the cold winds and fogs of San Francisco, and yet not hot enough to be really uncomfortable to a man who has no very hard work on his hands.  I have not sweat enough to melt a paper collar since my arrival. The thermometer stands at about 60° at sunrise and 80° at noon, with a fair breeze; nights cool and refreshing; slight thunder showers almost daily. If I had not experienced the weather of the winter season in White Pine, I should form a very favorable opinion of the climate. As it is, I remember the man I met on the trail from Treasure in an April snowstorm, who mildly referred to your servant as "the son of a — who wrote to the Alta about the beautiful weather in White Pine," and reserve my opinion for expression elsewhere.

Yours,

EVANS.