Obviously Yreka was named prior to Garnet as the December 23, 1881 New Northwest carried an article about a robbery there. The headlines were: “Skipped-waiting for a verdict-in the woods.” With the following article: “Some weeks since the sluice boxes of McKivitt & Childs, Yreka, and the boxes of a Chinese company on McGinnis gulch were robbed, it will be remembered that Henry Jensen was arrested and confessed participation and that two other robbers, supposed to have the bulk of the money, escaped. On Tuesday Jensen’s case was called in court and nine jurors impaneled. When court met Wednesday morning and was ready to proceed with the case, Sheriff Strang came in and reported that the prisoner had just escaped. Undersheriff McTague had been walking Jensen and Ryan about the building and gave Jensen permission to go to the water closet while he locked Ryan in the cage. Jensen passed out of sight a moment and skipped. Although the alarm was instantly given and active search instituted Jensen is still at large and his case has been continued until next term. It was an inexcusable piece of carelessness that he was permitted to escape. Jensen has run with the Indians a great deal and is likely to make good his escape. He evaded the officers for weeks when wanted some two or three years ago and has friends who will help him." Extensive research has failed to produce any more information on Henry Jensen.
Wolle in “Montana Pay Dirt” spells the Camps name as Eureka and describes Yreka as a gambling town, where the gamblers “often cleaned up more gold at their games than the miners did from their claims.”
The April 7 and 14, 1882, New Northwest carried articles about a dead stranger found near Yreka in a deserted cabin on Days Gulch, a tributary of Elk Creek. Thomas Geagan found the body “in an old vacant cabin in Day’s Gulch.” Geagan on the 14th gave the following story: The man had spent the night with Schott and Geagan on Elk Creek about the middle of November. He stated he was a native of Scotland and had been working for the N.P. railroad near Edwardsville. He was known there by the name of “Scotty.” The body when found was ‘loathsome in the extreme, the arms and face being entirely denuded of flesh, supposed to have been the work of rats.” An inquest was held by G.W. Brock who was Justice of the Peace and Acting Coroner. The jury consisted of: Charles Schott, James Brennan, Patterson Armstrong, Alexander Hiland, Alexander Pearson and John Dolan. The verdict returned was in accordance with the above facts.
I did not find a lot of references to either of the mining camps of Silver City and Reynolds, except The Missoula County News on February 17, 1886 stated: ”Mr. Tibbett, the agent at Drummond has three men at work at The Golden Gate at Reynolds City (five miles from Beartown). Assays are 163 ounces for gold and $10 for silver. Loomis and Stone own a very large and promising property next to the Golden gate."
Wolle (Montana Pay Dirt) states they contributed to the “nearly $2,500,000 in gold taken out by 6,000 miners while the district was active.” References are made to frequent violence in claim jumping and that a meeting was held at Reynolds City in 1865 where an effective mining code was drawn up, alleviating the violence.
November 28, 1865, Montana Post stated” “[an unknown person] amused himself, the other night [in Reynolds City] by profusely sprinkling one of the hurdy-gurdy floors with snuff, or cayenne pepper, or both. The girls stamped, and the boys stampeded; stamping and snuffing and sneezing and swearing, were momentarily the order.”
Another Montana Post article from Virginia City stated that more than half of Reynolds City burned during a fire on the 18th of July 1867. The fire broke out at 3:15a.m. in Sam Ritchies butcher shop on Main Street in the center of town. The flames spread quickly to the two log buildings on each side; Boswell and Jones dealt in general merchandise and Johnny Gordon ran a saloon in the other log building. The flames then spread to the German shoemaker’s building, according to the Montana Post, August 17, 1867.
Reynolds City population was never more than 500 but it yielded more than $1,000,000 in the two years it was active. The camp was named for Jack Reynolds an early miner who found “pay dirt” there, according to Cheney in “Names on the Face of Montana.”
The post office for Top O’ Deep was established in January 1893 through August 1894 and Tillie Kreuzberger was the postmaster.
No comments:
Post a Comment