[F. McPherson, In the Tonopah Country, Sunset, December 1905]

In the Tonopah Country

            The trip to Tonopah and Goldfield, Columbia and Diamondfield today, compared with that of twelve months ago, might be likened to the sudden change from laborious ox-teams to the Pullman car. It takes the west and the westerner to forge ahead, nothing daunts him—he moves mountains to acquire his purpose, and makes water flow on the dry desert at his command, with force of energy, and the good American dollar. C. M. Schwab, who has just concluded a flying trip of inspection through this wonderful region of southern Nevada, said:

            "I like the West—I like this Nevada, I like the men—their very bearing says 'do,' says 'independence,' says 'success.'"

            Tonopah and Goldfield are reached over the Southern Pacific by Pullman cars and easy chair cars, direct from San Francisco without change. Mr. Schwab marveled that he should travel all the way from New York to Goldfield without change. Tonopah is a camp some five years old, with nearly six thousand people, and mines that are a wonder to the mining world. At a conservative estimate, there is ore blocked out here that will furnish railroads with freight for the next fifteen or twenty years. Mr. Schwab is largely interested in Tonopah as well as in the newer camps of Goldfield and Bullfrog.

            Goldfield is all of eighteen months old; it has now 10,000 people, with buildings that give every convenience, for business, residence, or the sojourner. Social conditions are as good as at home, and here is a club —The Montezuma—that would do credit to the Waldorf-Astoria as an annex.

            Progress is the constant call on the bugle. Millions of dollars have been taken out of small holes in the ground, for there are no great depths reached yet. Six-hundred-dollar ore is as common as twenty-dollar gold pieces, and three-thousand-dollar ore is not at all uncommon.

            Bullfrog—the sister camp—is some sixty miles distant from Goldfield, and is reached by automobile and stage. Mr. Schwab made the trip and climbed the mountains of Bullfrog and looked into many holes in the ground; one looked so good to him that he said that $3,000,000 of his good steel money can be called upon any time for it.

F. MACPHERSON.