Houston What's the Problem?

In the 1840's the cattle drives were driven overland to Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana, but the Civil War changed all that, opening up possibilities for a huge Northern market for beef.

After the Civil War, the Texas ranchers had a problem.  During their absence fighting as soldiers, their longhorns had been wandering wild and free on the vast ranges of Texas, increasingly in huge numbers.  So huge that the ranchers claimed that if the war hadn't ended when it did, the whole south of Texas would have "sank under the weight of the cows".

The local markets who had once  handled so much of the cattle supply and driving herds to the slaughterhouses  and was inefficient for the number of cattle.  The slaughterhouses in Cincinnati, St Louis and Chicago were a long way away and cattle were poor travelers.  They need special handling, special feed, cleaning and care just to make it to the local markets and survive.  There was no way they could be driven overland to Chicago with enough meat on their bones for profit.

In 1867 news reached the Texan ranchers that could be the solution to their problems...the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

Next time...the railroad brings the solution

Ft Benton 1875

Fort Benton Record, February 5, 1875

"Our usually quiet burg was disturbed in its serenity on the night of the 12th through an attempt to murder.
Mr. Moses Soloman, in Company of Mr. Jeff Perkins, proceeded to the saloon of the later to take a drink, as all the other saloons in the area being closed at the time and most folks abed.


Perkins placed a bottle and some tumblers on the counter, reached under the counter and presented a revolver without a word and shot Soloman, the bullet striking him in the right breast. Soloman retreated and endeavored to reach the door and had his hand on the knob when Perkins again fired, the ball striking Soloman in the hand.  In Soloman's attempt to open the door, Perkins fired again but had no effect this time.

By this time, people were aroused and Judge Mills, Mr. Conroy, and Mr. Tillman knocked Perkins down and took the revolver from him.  But for the interference, Perkins would undoubtedly have completed his work. Soloman was carried to his own house and is now under treatment by Dr. W E Turner, USA"

 

Pioneer Pieces: Paramint

Nowhere else is the phrase "Greater than the Comstock" more often associated than with Paramint (but not for the reason you would think!)  Paramint was high up in the Paramint Mountains on the edge of Death Valley, with only the minimum background of mining resources.

In the mid-1870's the impact of the Comstock on the West was one of mass hysteria and it was into this that Paramint was born. 

The Silver Senators, Stewart and Jones along with Tenor Park, a San Francisco aristocrat, skillfully and manipulated Paramint shares.  Paramint soared in mining exchanges around the world and with nothing to prove their claim, they were great salesmen, however illegal they were.

Obviously Paramint was never greater than anything and after it folded people forgot about Paramint  and the entire idea of "Greater than the Comstock".  Like those imaginary bonanzas, the phrase never really found validation in recovered gold and silver.  It became, in later years near the turn of the century, more of a joke, a prediction of doom and failure.

A half century after those forgotten diggers thought the camp and city dead, Virginia City had been in business longer than all of them together!

Next time we go searching the West for more history...

Pioneer Pieces: Lola Montez was One Tough Lady

As the High Sierra's fertile valleys were settled, the farms sprang up and towns took their place in the West.  Such towns included Grass Valley, Nevada City, and Virginia City.

Grass Valley's key to fame was Lola Montez, an aristocrat from Europe who reportedly  was related to Czar Nicholas 1 and Alexander Dumas.  Lola lived in Grass Valley from 1850-1860's with an income of $100,000 in 1851. 

The story goes that she horse-whipped a newspaper editor that she said had attacked her in print over a private matter.  The details of the editor's story are lost, but Lola soon left Grass Valley involved in a public scandal, never to return again.  Lola Montez, the legend, however, lives on!

Next time -the biggest mining town of them all...