Howdy doody everyone,

We hope it’s been a happy new year for you so far.

It’s a cold and snowy day here in Gold Point so I thought it would be a good day to write a newsletter. We had our first snow of the season back on November 9th. Right now we have two inches and adding.

We had our Friday the 13th problem this year when it got down to about 10 (colder with the wind chill factor) and our pump froze up. With Red Doggie’s help we took off the cover to the pump house and removed some insulation to put in a heater to warm things up. We left the heater in there for a few more days because it got even colder. With the wind chill it was below 0.

Our day after Thanksgiving dinner was about the same as last year. We served 39 hungry guests without anything special to remark on except thanks to all who came out.

We exchanged close to 70 Christmas cards this year in our exchange news for old antique cards from the Wiley collection program.

The last 4 newsletters (32, 33, 34 & 35) have been posted on the newsletter page of our website if you missed them or are new to our newsletter e-mail list.

With the help of our friend Ken from Las Vegas and his girlfriend Debbie cheering us on last week we finally put the last few rows of cedar shingle roofing and ridge caps on the Stone’s cabin. It’s been at least 5 years since I started that project but now it’s finished. There were some delays such as weather, getting more material, finding time and of course procrastination in finishing it sooner.

Now it’s time to find another cabin to put a roof on.

We may save up about $9,000 and put a new cedar shingle roof on the saloon. It will take about 40 squares at $200 per square plus the cost of the 30# back felt underlayment.

The first 24 feet is getting pretty bad. It was put on, with the help of Dick, our first caretaker, back in March of 1986 at a cost of $60 per square (100 square feet).

The next 16 feet isn’t as bad but not looking that good because it was put on in May of 1990 at a cost of around $100 per square. The last 70 feet was put on when we expanded in May of 2000, at a cost of $160 per square, so it isn’t bad at all but we’re going to do the whole roof when we do finally get the money to do it.

Thirty years from now it will be someone else’s responsibility to put the third roof on. Lol.

Finally got around to putting in some more pages in our photo album and adding the last of the photos I had taken with a 35mm camera. I now have to start getting our digital pictures developed to add to the album. We have just under 9000 photos in it right now and it weighs 126 pounds!! Our friend Paul, who operates and owns Cal Na Bindery with his dad Richard, in Sacramento, is making more pages as we speak. When the album is opened up it is about 5 feet wide. It’s about 15 inches high, 21 inches wide and 25 inches long when closed.

Keep in mind that it’s only about 4 months until Memorial day weekend if you want to plan to come up for a visit. You can come and camp out and explore the “back country” during the day after you have our bountiful breakfast and come back and have a big BBQ dinner in the evening. No muss and no fuss. Shower house will be available. Let us do the work for you. All you need to do is bring money (remember we need a new roof on the saloon). Entertainment will be provided by us or you can bring your instrument (musical that is) and entertain us or your friends or everybody.

Well that’s about all the news to report at this time so now we’ll go to another semi-riveting “tales from the not so old west”.

May 19, 1908 Goldfield Daily Tribune Vol. 2. No. 238 Tuesday.

“more strikes reported from Hornsilver. Leasers and locators are all doing well, with good assays and mill returns from shallow shafts.

There is nothing but good news coming from Hornsilver, and new discoveries are reported daily from different sections of the camp. The town is growing faster than any new camp that has been discovered in the section since there was a Goldfield, and additions to the original townsite are being laid off in all directions. A conservative estimate of the population at the present time is 800, and there are thirteen saloons to cater to the thirsty, and the number is being added to every few days. Two new hotels are going up, one to be above the average, is being built by Zimmerman & Scott, and the other by Tracy & Burke. Work on both is being rushed. Lumber is being taken to the building sites from the wagons that bring it in from Goldfield and Cuprite as quickly as the checking clerks can put down the measurements.

Work at the 200 foot, or bottom level, of the Great Western, is in progress, and the breasts of both drifts are in shipping ore. Steady shipments to Cuprite in the sixteen-horse freight wagons is in steady progress.

Among the best finds that have been made in the past few days, was on the Colburn & Hassel lease, on the Deyling, one of the properties owned by the Silver King. Judge J. W. Deane has also struck it in his lease on the Great Western. Scott & Zimmerman secured a lease on the main workings of the Lime Point Gold Mining company’s ground about ten days ago. There is an incline shaft on the ground that is down 245 feet on a well defined lead. They took a general sample of the dump ore had a mill run made here on Sunday. the assay certificate shows that it carries gold at the rate of $86.50, and silver values of $3.40 the shaft is about two miles east of the Great Western. J.F. Flynn and associates, who opened up a wide body of $200 ore in their lease on one of the blocks of the Silver King, accepted an offer of $10,000 cash for their lease. The buyers are eastern investors.

J. E. Murray, a brother of J.T. Murray, the mining man who has struck it rich, arrived in town yesterday morning from his home in Los Angeles. He is here for the purpose of looking into the mining situation, and if things turn out as they have been represented, he and associates are prepared to furnish the money for development.

Lee Garrett was in the city yesterday to receive some very promising assays from the Great Eastern Property, which he controls, and which is in the Hornsilver district about two and a half miles east of the Great Western. Six inches give $261.95, a foot a half $39.00, and two feet $7.20. this is found at a depth of twenty-three feet, and the ore is almost wholly silver. Eight feet above the steak first named the vein was but half an inch thick, but widened out during the eight feet to six inches.

“located the first Hornsilver claim Dan C. Mahedy arrived in camp Saturday from the old camp of Pioche, in Lincoln county. This is not his first visit to Goldfield, as he was here on a prospecting trip over three year ago. From Goldfield he wandered south to the Gold Mountain section, and on spur of that mountain called Lime Point, which is now known as Hornsilver, he made a number of locations, and had a strike on what is now the recognized big silver mine of the section-the Great Western. He secured assays on surface rock there that went as high as $140, and sent the ore to his partners, with a request that they send him some grub so that he could carry on the work. They failed to come through, and he abandoned the ground, and when the time expired the Russell and Cavanaugh brothers located the territory, out of which they already have made a small fortune, with a prospective big one in sight…”

May 20, 1908 Goldfield Daily Tribune Vol. 2. No. 240 Wednesday

“Strike on Deyling Claim at Hornsilver. Judge J.W. Deane made a flying trip to Hornsilver the first of the week and brought back samples of ore from his strike on the Deyling, one of the properties owned by the Silver King company…”

Well we hope you enjoy this small newsletter and remember valentine’s day is coming in a couple of weeks. We’re thinking of going to Heber City, Utah and riding the Heber Creeper train. If anyone has gone on this trip we’d love to hear how it was.

Thanks for your interest and take care.

happy trails and sunsets


Sheriff Stone and/or Red Dog Lil