Everything favored the growth of Pithole. The close of the war had left the country flooded with paper currency and multitudes of men thrown upon their own resources. Hundreds of these flocked to the inviting “city,” which presented manifold inducements to venturesome spirits, keen shysters, unscrupulous stock-jobbers, needy laborers and dishonest tricksters. The post-office speedily ranked third in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and Pittsburg alone excelling it. Seven chain-lightning clerks assisted Postmaster S. S. Hill to handle the mail. Lines of men extending a block would await their turns for letters at the general-delivery. It was a roystering time! Hotels, theaters, saloons, drinking-dens, gambling-hells and questionable resorts were counted by the score. A fire-department was organized, a daily paper established and a mayor elected. Railways to Reno and Oleopolis were nearly completed before “the beginning of the end” came with terrible swiftness. In November and December the wells declined materially. The laying of pipe-lines to Miller Farm and Oleopolis, through which the oil was forced to points of shipment by steam-pumps, in one week drove fifteen-hundred teams to seek work elsewhere. Destructive fires accelerated the final catastrophe. The graphic pen of Dickens would fail to give an adequate idea of this phenomenal creation, whose career was a magnified type of dozens of towns that suddenly arose and as suddenly collapsed in the oil-regions of Pennsylvania. [Illustration: JOHN A. MATHER.]