We’ll howdy everyone.
I know what
you’re thinking—it’s been a while since you heard from
me. Yeah, I know in the last newsletter I said I’d
do another newsletter in June but someone left the corral
gate open again where I had “time” locked up and under
control but it got out again and I lost it for a few
months. Is this what happens when you’re retired??
Are we supposed to lose track of it?? Does anyone
else have trouble keeping that corral gate locked up??
We’ll let’s
get into the business of getting you some information of
what’s happened here since, WOW, May 14th!!
Let’s start
with the scattering of Chris’s ashes behind the
Hornsilver cabin in the spring. Somehow I
overlooked telling you about that in the previous
newsletter. Could it be old timers disease?? Does
anyone else have this problem also??
I met Chris
and her husband Sandy (Tom) (whose ashes were spread on
top of one of the mountains South of Gold Point on the
Gold Mountain range many years ago) back in 1979 after
buying my first 3 lots in Gold Point in February of that
year. After buying those lots me, and any of my
friends who wanted to join us, would come up from the
Sacramento, Calif. area every three day holiday and we
would explore the desert and mountains in all directions
of Gold Point.
On one of those cold
weekends Sandy came over and brought a pot of coffee and
introduced himself to us and brought us over to meet
Chris. He would tells us about places we should
explore in the area and exchanged personal histories and
such and became good friends. In 1981, after the
passing of Ora Mae Wiley, the Senators wife, they told us
the Post Office, General Store and their home was for
sale. We drove into Tonopah to see one of her sons,
Ken, and struck a deal and we now owned the first of many
buildings we were destined to buy in Gold Point. I
then moved out of Sacramento and into the Senators home.
Because of being out of town almost all the time with my
work the timing was perfect to make the move and
eliminate obligations and expenses in Sacramento.
We all have them to
thank for what was to become my destiny, along with
pardner Walt and Red Dog’s of preserving and restoring of
a lot of buildings in Gold Point and allowing visitors to
come and stay.
In 1985
Chris kinda wanted to move to Fyffe, Alabama so they
asked me if I wanted to buy their house, extra cabins and
lots, etc. Of course I said yes and the rest is
kinda of history as they say. I always stayed in
contact with them.
Chris and
Sandy’s son Tom and his wife Gail brought her ashes out
and spread them behind the Hornsilver cabin. That
is one of the cabins that they bought from Ora Mae and
moved it to its present location. They fixed it up
for their friends and family to stay in and it was the
first one we used for our current bed and breakfast
cabins.
Now some
news on another passing of someone connected to Gold
Point but never has been here. The following is a
partial from an email from Diana as you’ll read:
Hello
Herb and Red Dog Lil,
I
am sad to inform you that Sylvia Stearns who did all your
gold point songs has passed away. She passed on July
27th. I'm Diana her daughter and Paul’s widow (her
son).--I took care of her at home and she passed away
peacefully here. You folks meant so much to her and she
was so glad people loved her music about "Goldpoint"
Sylvia
read about our efforts in Gold Point in 2000 from a news
article written by Associated Press that went worldwide.
She asked if she could write a song about Gold Point.
We said yes and she did. It was called Gold Point,
Nevada (A Real Ghost Town). She had some friends of
her, from the East, play and sing it and record it.
It was fantastic how she was able to write a song about
Gold Point without never being here and just reading
about it from a newspaper. She eventually wrote and
had recorded 10 more songs about us and the West even one
about Sheriff Stone (me) called—Sheriff Stone. All
proceeds are used to help maintain and restore our
buildings here in Gold Point.
If
anyone is interested they can purchase a cd of her songs
from the Gold Point Mercantile Store page on our website.
Memorial Day weekend saw an increase of visitors
over last year’s crowd. Jim and Gloria, our bean
and people counters, counted 145 happy campers here on
Saturday. We were all entertained this year by live
music by Tim from California and his band Alkali Flat
which is a WESTERN/HILL BILLY/ FOLK BAND. Everyone
liked them so much we have invited them back next year
for hopefully 3 nights instead of just 2.
Ghost
Town Operations were back with their dinner with a ghost
and their paranormal tours of the old haunted Post Office
and plan on returning next year as well for our 4th
annual.
The old
days of the chili cook-off are really missed of course
but the new Memorial Day weekend activities has been a
lot easier on our aging bodies and bones.
We’ve added
a couple of new things to our website. Since it
looks like the new Memorial Day weekend activities will
continue we’ve added a poster to let everyone know that
we are still open and doing things at that time.
On the
“experience” page we’ve added another cabin available for
overnight stay. We’ve added the Senator’s home.
The description is--The old Senator Wiley home:
small house with two bedrooms. King bed in main
bedroom and full size bed in front bedroom. Has a
couple of electric oil heaters and a wood stove for heat.
Probably need someone familiar with wood stoves to stay
here during the cold months. Has running water in
kitchen and bath. Kitchen has large fridge, sink,
stove (not for cooking your own food but for things like
heating water for tea and such), coffee maker, micro wave
and dining room table. Bathroom has shower, tub,
sink and toilet. Has satellite tv in the living
room. $169 per night for first two people.
Each additional person is $20 per night. Breakfast
included.
We are also
ready to rent out the Gold Central cabin which Dennis has
been fine tuning. Everything is finished except the
kitchen counter cabinet which is being made from some of
the old original wood removed from the cabin during
remodel by our friend John. We hope to have it
installed within in the next month or so. After
that we’ll start working on getting running water to it.
That might take some doing though. We have to
purchase and bury a tank and then build a structure to
house the pump, hot water heater and pressure tank.
In 1908 this cabin was the Gold Central restaurant.
If anyone is interested in seeing pictures of this cabin
inside and out now and back in 1908 just drop us an
email. We will be listing this on the website in
the future after we get the kitchen cabinet installed and
the final picture. Until we get the water running
we will not be installing the sink we will leave the
counter top untouched.
Every
once in a while we do get some excitement here in
Esmeralda County. The following is an excerpt from
The Goldfield Historical Society Newsletter - 3rd
Quarter--
Also, you may have heard about
the bomb scare in Goldfield on September 17th.
There really was a bomb, (actually two), and the Las
Vegas bomb squad did explode it. The newspaper
reported that windows were blown out of the courthouse on
the backside and surrounding buildings but failed
to mention that it also blew out some windows in the high
school. Unfortunately, those windows had just been
replaced using donated funds. Sometimes it seems
like we’re going one step forward and two steps back.
This will no doubt become another project for us to take
on in the future.
If you’d
like to read more about historical Goldfield and the
Historical Society or even join please go to their
website at
www.goldfieldhistoricalsociety.com
Now a
couple of trivia notes.
Monday I
received my official notice from Social Security that my
first check will be (if the treasury don’t run out of
money) on January 8th. I guess I’m
officially old now. I know my body is getting old
and tired but my mind still thinks it’s only 20 years
old. Funny how the mind and body keep fighting each
other. Have to admit though that usually the body
wins most arguments when I try to do too much.
Red Dog has
about 41 more working days until her retirement on
December 16th the day before her 65th
birthday.
We “hope”
to continue letting groups come out for at the most maybe
8 more years depending on our physical capabilities or
limitations. Probably have another retirement party
on my 70th birthday. After that we
may just do overnight stays in cabins only which is a
lot less work for us to earn a few extra dollars in our
golden years. So keep that in mind when thinking
about coming out for an overnight stay or two.
You’ve only got about 8 years left to do so.
Let’s not
forget that the “day after Thanksgiving dinner” next
month is only 7 weeks away if you want to make
arrangements for it. Lettuce know if you’d like a
cabin, rv spot or just dinner.
We’ve
finally fixed the roof leak in the valley over the Post
Office/General Store/Senator’s home. Our friend
John, from Little Rock California, came up a couple of
weeks ago to do some work on his house and brought up a
good worker, Steve, to help him. He’s known his dad
for a long time who’s a roofing contractor and Steve has
worked on roofs for I think around 15 or so years.
Steve
pulled up the old metal roof off the valley that was put
on back in 1984. He found no wood base under it.
It was just screwed down onto 2 x 4’s. He laid down
a plywood base then a fiberglass something or other
material and then a three foot wide layer of torch down
roofing material with the overlap in the center going out
3 feet in each direction. Half on the flat of the
valley and the other half up the roof incline. Then
he sealed around the chimney flue.
Now we plan on going
into the bedroom of the Senator’s home and replace a
couple of sheets of wood on the ceiling which has gone
really bad and seal and paint the walls above and around
the wainscot. Then we’ll go into the Post Office
and fix the ceiling in there and clean things up and make
a nice museum display out of the old office part of the
Post Office. We’ll have to also fix the old floor
which has been damaged by leaking water over the years.
I’ve got a
couple of more things to talk about but they will wait
until the next newsletter. I don’t want this one to
get too long.
Now for
another riveting episode of “Tales from the not
so Old West” but first I’m going to take a break for
a while...
Ok, I’m back.
Thanks for waiting.
Ok, again,
the following is from the Hornsilver Herald May 23, 1908
Vol. 1 No. 3
“Board of Trade Soon to
be Organized Here. The first public meeting of the
citizens of Hornsilver was held Thursday evening in the
new building of James Fowlie, adjoining the Montana bar.
J. Holmes was elected chairman and W. H. Wiley secretary
(Harry Wiley went on to become Esmeralda County
Commissioner in the forties and elected Nevada state
Senator in 1946 and remained in that office until
he died in 1955)(we bought his home, including the
attached Post Office and General Store his wife Ora Mae
operated, back in1981. Today we let people in the
Post Office, which closed in 1968, and General store, we
believed operated up until the mines closed around 1960,
to look around. You can also be a guest and stay in
the Senators home today). Mr. Holmes stated that
the meeting was called to perfect some organization for
the government of this rapidly growing town, to regulate
local affairs, to prevent prospective evils, to give
publicity to the advantages of the district and to form a
medium for facilitating business between mine owners and
investors….
A.B.
Gibson, of the Hornsilver Herald…recommended that a plan
similar to that adopted at Rhyolite be effected here, and
moved that a committee be appointed to arrange for the
organization of a board of trade, the preparing of local
ordinance, etc. and report at another meeting to be
called. Dr. Kitchen seconded the motion and it was
carried. As such committee, the chair appointed
James Russell, James Fowlie, Richard Welsh, M.J. Ambler,
A.B. Gibson, J.F. Bradley and J. Holmes…”
“Many leasers are busy
extracting high grade ore…”
“Mackenzie
plans to build a mill…”
“Hornsilver holds
record for installation of joists…”
“Macmillan-Holleran Co.
controls the Hornsilver. The control of the
Hornsilver Mining Company passed into the hands of the
Macmillian-Holleran company of Goldfield Thursday.
At a meeting of the board of directors, a new directorate
was elected as follows: President, J.H. Macmillan;
vice president, Charles Howard; secretary and treasurer,
Charles O’Daniel;
“Lee Garrett open
phenomenal values…one and a half miles from town, in
ground owned by him….”
“Leasers will soon make
Lime Point a shipper…”
“Making
trial shipment. A trial shipment of three tons is
being made by the Frances Lime Point Mining company, of
which Dr. Frances E. Williams is president. Dr.
Dyos, secretary, secured a sample from the sacked ore,
which returned values of $115 per ton, principally in
gold….”
“Free gold
opened on Lime Point No. 2…Wm. Skinner and William Lyett,
who have a bond and lease on the claim, have opened eight
inches of quartz…at $75 per ton…”
“Hornsilver
will be represented at the Democratic state convention to
be held June 1 at Carson City…Pat Burke was elected
delegate, 65 votes being cast. Mr. Burke is
proprietor of the Great Western saloon, and is one of the
prominent citizens of the embryonic city.”
“Business increasing.
Mrs. Sarah Woods, proprietor of the Hornsilver hotel and
restaurant, reports a steady increase in business,
notwithstanding the fact that there are seven restaurants
in town. Tuesday noon she served 115 people, and
Wednesday noon 125 people. The rooming house
addition is completed, so that visitors to Hornsilver may
eat and sleep under the same roof.”
“In Lieu of
a Jail. M.J. Spaulding, Hornsilver’s deputy
sheriff, met his first victim this week. The unruly
citizen had been mixing with John Barleycorn, and needed
detention. In the absence of a jail, Mr. Spaulding
handcuffed the citizen to the real wheel of a huge
freight wagon, where the party remained until he was able
to more thoroughly understand himself.”
I’ve been
trying to add to this for the last few days but have to
many guests coming and going so I’m going to close now.
I’ll do
another newsletter in a little while and talk about more
stuff.
Thanks for reading.
Happy Halloween.
happy trails and
sunsets
Sheriff Stone and/or Red
Dog Lil
