Arizona's yesterday : $b Being the narrative of John H. Cady, pioneerCady, John H. (John Henry)
History
Arizona's yesterday : $b Being the narrative of John H. Cady, pioneer
Cady, John H. (John Henry)
Cady, John H. (John Henry), 1846-1927; Frontier and pioneer life -- Arizona; Pioneers -- Arizona -- Biography
When he had completed his work on the store at Eureka Springs for myself
and Stevens, Warren drew me aside one night and, very confidentially,
informed me that he had a hunch. "You're welcome to it, George," I
said, and, something calling me away at that moment, I did not hear of
him again until I returned from New Fort Grant, whither I had gone with
a load of hay for which we had a valuable contract with the government.
Then Stevens informed me that Warren had told him of his hunch, had
asked for a grub-stake, and, on being given one, had departed in a
southerly direction with the information that he expected to make a find
over in the Dos Cabezas direction.
He was gone several weeks, and then one day Stevens said to me, quietly:
"John, Warren's back."
"Yes?" I answered. "Did he make a strike?"
"He found a copper mine," said Stevens.
"Oh, only copper!" I laughed. "That hunch system of his must have got
tarnished by this time, then!"
You see, copper at that time was worth next to nothing. There was no big
smelter in the Territory and it was almost impossible to sell the ore.
So it was natural enough that neither myself nor Stevens should feel
particularly jubilant over Warren's strike. One day I thought to ask
Warren whether he had christened his mine yet, as was the custom.
"I'm going to call it the 'Copper Queen,'" he said.
I laughed at him for the name, but admitted it a good one. That mine
today, reader, is one of the greatest copper properties in the world. It
is worth about a billion dollars. The syndicate that owns it owns as
well a good slice of Arizona.
"Syndicate?" I hear you ask. "Why, what about Warren, the man who found
the mine, and Stevens, the man who grub-staked him?"
Ah! What about them! George Stevens bet his share of the mine against
$75 at a horse race one day, and lost; and George Warren, the man with
the infallible hunch, died years back in squalid misery, driven there by
drink and the memory of many empty discoveries. The syndicate that
obtained the mine from Warren gave him a pension amply sufficient for
his needs, I believe. It is but fair to state that had the mine been
retained by Warren the probabilities are it would never have been
developed, for Warren, like other old prospectors, was a genius at
finding pay-streaks, but a failure when it came to exploiting them.
That, reader, is the true story of the discovery of the Copper Queen,
the mine that has made a dozen fortunes and two cities--Bisbee and
Douglas. If I had gone in with Stevens in grub-staking poor Warren would
I, too, I wonder, have sold my share for some foolish trifle or
recklessly gambled it away? I wonder!... Probably, I should.
A FRONTIER BUSINESS MAN
"_The chip of chisel, hum of saw,
The stones of progress laid;
The city grew, and, helped by its law,
Men many fortunes made._"
--Song of the City, by T. BURGESS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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