Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1909 — The Ghost of a Famous Town. [ARTICLE]

The Ghost of a Famous Town.

Virginia City is indeed a strange town —a living skeleton. In the height of its opulence it boasted a population of thirty thousand. To-day there are lese than one-tenth than many, dilapidation and ruin are seen on every hand. The chief streets terrace along a great hillside. Farther up the slope are wastes of sagebrush growing In stunted clumps that half hide the earth with their gray twigß and foliage. Down below is a valley where the mines have dumped vast heaps of waste. The entire region is a wild upheaval of hills, and around the horizon are seen ranges of snowy-top-ped mountains. The only trees are an occasional gnarled scrub pine or dwarf cedar a few feet high. Formerly scrub pines of fair size were plentiful on the hills;"but they were practically all used for firewood long years ago. After they were gone some Chinamen ran a woody&rd and sold pine roots. Probably one hundred and fifty donkeys were engaged In tolling about the uplands and bringing in the stumps and roots of the old scrub pines. This material, too, was exhausted presently, and now the fuel comes by train. The town streets are rough and dirty, and as I walked about I was constantly encountering old tin cans and getting my feet tangled up in wires from the baled bay. Buildings in good repair are rarities. There are tottering fences and ragged walls and broken roofs and smashed glass, and many windows and doors are boarded up. The search for gold has resulted in tearing the country all to pieces. Everywhere the hills are dotted with prospectors’ holes. From any height you can see dozens —perhaps hundreds They suggest the burrowing of woodchucks or prairie dogs. The region along the Comstock lode abounds too In deserted shafts. Usually the spots where had been the buildings and the machinery for working the abandoned mines are now only marked by great dumps of waste, with possibly a few immense foundation stones and irons. Two miles from Virginia City is the village of Gold Hill, which. If anything, is deader than its neighbor. There Is the same dilapidation and wreckage, and the same canting wall* and neglect of repairs. On the borders of this hamlet I met a Scotchman who affirmed that his cabin wae the oldest dwelling in the region. The main part contained a single room but there was a !ean-to at the rear, and a little cave ran back under the hill. Th<? owner Invited me in to rest myself and. as we entered, a gray cat departed through a missing windowpane.—The Outing Magazine.

a ship without a rudder; a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, if it l> only to kill and divide and sell oxen well, hut have a purpose; and having it, throw such strength ol mind and muscle Into your work as Ood has given you.—Carlyle