Dry Diggins (Fortune Out West Series - Book Three)

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It is soon given. Is there more where you found these lumps? Next day a party set out for the mill. The search was commenced in earnest. In the immediate locality of the first discoveries more was found. News was sent to the Bay. Men roused themselves from their sleepy trading, mounted horses, or took such small boats as had been in use on the rivers before, and set out for the mines. The first excited adventurers came down with laden pockets and crazed brains; sailors left their vessels; lazy Spaniards their ranchos; merchants their stores; clerks their desks.

The news flew over the country, and went to sea in vessels that could fortunately get away; and thus commenced that gathering which has since revolutionized—physically as well as politically--one of the most beautiful and attractive lands on which the sun shines, and opened an era in history which, considered in all its tendencies, inspires the progressive mind with more rational hope for man, than any that has preceded it.

This is the pleasant side of the picture, and I have got far away from the starting point, to which I return, to say a few words more on the mines—on one, especially, of their saddest features. I mean the condition of children and youth, growing up in them. Surely, nothing in the worst conditions of the young, in our large cities, could be more deplorable than much of what I saw in the mining towns.

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In the lesser ones, there are not, generally, churches; and religious meetings are held, if at all, once or twice a month, by appointment. The Sabbath is a day of revelry and dissipation. A majority of the miners repair to the towns to make purchases for the ensuing week. Then those who are disposed to indulgence take full license.

Drunkenness, carousing, profanity, are frightfully prevalent. The children participate in all the vices of their elders. I saw boys, from six upward, swaggering through the streets, begirt with scarlet sash, in exuberant collar and bosom, segar in mouth, uttering huge oaths, and occasionally treating men and boys at the bars.

A mother with whom I was talking, saw from my window her son, a young hopeful of ten, walk into a rum-shop opposite, and call up two or three men and large boys to drink. I called her attention to the fact, not knowing that she had a son. There are so many boys in town that do what you see him do, that it is impossible to stop one; and the fact is, that up here our boys grow old very fast, anyhow.

There is no school to send them to, and no church, and it's useless trying to make good boys of them, when they see men behave so badly, and hear so much swearing and bad language. Doubtless, remedies will be rapidly provided, as the settlements grow older; but it requires a great stretch of vision to foresee a time when one could willingly sit down in a California mining town to rear a family.

For it is not so much considerations of moral welfare that engage these communities as fluming, canalling, sluicing, damming, washing, etc. There are now in the state numerous water-companies, with heavy capitals, whose purpose is to convey water from rivers, springs, etc.

A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity

In a very few years, there will, no doubt, be an immense capital invested in works of this sort—in tunnels and other means of approaching and taking possession of the locked-up treasure. The amount of labor which these works have already absorbed, is greater than has been expended, since their first discovery, in opening half the mines of South America.

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The mechanic arts, generally, have kept pace with the improved methods of mining. Flour and lumber mills of the best description have been erected in or near the cities and towns, and many of the latter in the forest regions; the best agricultural implements are now to be had, and all the more common and necessary descriptions of mechanical labor can be procured in the cities and older towns. Artisans of all nations may be found in San Francisco, from the Chinese tailor to the Parisian artiste—from the sturdy blacksmith to the Swiss watchmaker.

The country abounds in the best kinds of timber, in many parts, in good stone, and coal is believed to be abundant, though as yet it has not been actually found, in any quantity, south of Oregon. For cereals California is unequaled. Maybe there are exceptions. Paisley, I'd love to visit that area. We lived in Cupertino for a year and tried to see the area each weekend. We didn't make it to Placerville, but did make it to Calaveras sp?

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County because of the Mark Twain story about the jumping frog. I love northern California, but there were way too many people in the Cupertino area.

Wish we had what the house we lived in is worth now, though! My aunt lived in Cupertino, Caroline.

Dry Diggings Festival to Welcome Matisyahu & Nahko and a Bit of Added Medicine

You are right - there are a lot of people. We live over a couple of mountains from Calaveras County, known as the frog jumping contest site.

One of these days, come on out and I can take you into the gold mine and show you around a real gold rush town. Parts of Placerville are decaying and buildings having to be taken down now, but we still have some plus the old Victorian houses. Paisley, Interesting post on the "justice" practiced at that time in that goldrush area.

Pretty rough time and place.

They didn't call it the 'wild west' for nothing. I am trying to find a way to put this into one of my stories. I did a post on it and the hangtown stuff at Petticoats and Pistols right after we visited. My aunt and uncle lived here for years during my childhood and my parents never took us up there! I agree with you, Tanya. There is an atmosphere in Placerville.

I loved working in the art gallery down there for five years.

Learned a lot about the history and even wandered into some of the 'historic' bars. Lots of the tunnels still exist, but some of the buildings are dying away. I hope you can visit it some day. Thank you for visiting Sweethearts of the West! Saturday, October 1, Old Hangtown, California.

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From Dry Diggins to Hangtown to Placerville Dry Diggins was the first of thirty mining camps to spring up around Coloma, where gold was discovered by James Marshall on January 24, Dry Diggins became known as Hangtown in the fall of , due to vigilante justice meted out to criminals at the end of a rope, often at the giant old oak tree on the thoroughfare in town.

With the large influx of fortune hunters from around the world came the usual portion of unsavory characters committing all manner of despicable deeds, from robbery to murder. Ian Stansel is a gifted young writer who starts his novel at a gallop and never lets up until the story's final reckoning. Like All the Pretty Horses before it, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo inks an indelible portrait of a hard, gorgeous world that is both timeless and in deep, momentous flux. I'm grateful to Mr. Stansel for having written it. Charles Portis and Larry McMurtry.

For me, the true star of The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo is Lena Van Loy, a stoic horsewoman who emerges as a fearless rider, a clear-headed tracker and a compassionate but avenging wife. With plenty of true grit, plot twists and reversals of fortune, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo builds toward an unforgettable showdown. A great read beautifully written! A captivating novel, elegantly spare in language but big in purpose.

See a Problem?

A stirring narrative of hostility, pursuit, and the desire for vengeance. That's a rare thing indeed. That's exactly the balance that Ian Stansel has struck with care in his novel.

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