Two other sides of the Plaza
were faced by stores, offices, and stables. The rest of Carson City
was pretty scattering.
One sees the place pretty clearly from this brief picture of his, but it
requires an extract from a letter written to his mother somewhat later to
populate it. The mineral excitement was at its height in those days of
the early sixties, and had brought together such a congress of nations as
only the greed for precious metal can assemble. The sidewalks and
streets of Carson, and the Plaza, thronged all day with a motley
aggregation--a museum of races, which it was an education merely to gaze
upon. Jane Clemens had required him to write everything just as it was
--"no better and no worse."
Well--[he says]--, "Gold Hill" sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down;
"Wild Cat" isn't worth ten cents. The country is fabulously rich in
gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, marble,
granite, chalk, plaster of Paris (gypsum), thieves, murderers,
desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians,
Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpens; coyotes (pronounced ki-yo-
ties), poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. I overheard a
gentleman say, the other day, that it was "the d---dest country
under the sun," and that comprehensive conception I fully subscribe
to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow
here, and no green thing gladdens the eye.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213