116 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



however, the school board "owing to financial diffi- 

 culties," did not pay the bonds as they matured, and 

 the debt still remained on the township after the bot- 

 tom fell out in 1909. As a result the tax rate for school 

 purposes, which in 1898 was as low as two and one- 

 half mills, is now two and one-half cents on the dollar. 



Similarly, the road supervisors in 1901 and 1904 bor- 

 rowed in all forty-six hundred dollars payable on de- 

 mand. Like the school bonds, these notes had not been 

 paid when the crash came, and the burden now rests 

 upon the few people still left in the township. The 

 tax for road purposes is now ten mills, as against five 

 mills in 1898, and even this rate is insufficient to meet 

 the interest on the bonds to say nothing of the princi- 

 pal and the money required for current work. 



Real estate values in the township, according to offi- 

 cial figures have decreased from $896,862 in 1904 to 

 $18,815 in 1914, and the town would have been ab- 

 solutely bankrupt if it had not been for the assistance 

 rendered by the state. 



"Even cities have their graves," and Cross Fork's 

 looks wide and deep. Nevertheless, cities may also 

 iiave their resurrections, and there are indications that 

 a revivified, more wholesome, and more permanent 

 Cross Fork may yet rise out of the ashes of the old. 

 * Ht * * 



The big sawmill of the Lackawanna Lumber Com- 

 pany closed down in April, 1909 ; and by autumn of the 

 same year the exodus from the town was in full swing. 

 One of the hotels burned down in Jnne and another in 



