NEVADA'S DEAD TOWNS 



blocks of "real estate" graded on the hillsides 

 are rapidly falling back into the wilderness. 

 Sage-brushes are growing up around the forges 

 of the blacksmith shops, and lizards bask on 

 the crumbling walls. 



While traveUng southward from Austin 

 down Big Smoky Valley, I noticed a remark- 

 ably tall and imposing column, rising like a 

 lone pine out of the sage-brush on the edge of 

 a dry gulch. This proved to be a smokestack 

 of solid masonry. It seemed strangely out of 

 place in the desert, as if it had been trans- 

 ported entire from the heart of some noisy 

 manufactvuing town and left here by mistake. 

 I learned afterwards that it belonged to a set 

 of furnaces that were built by a New York 

 company to smelt ore that never was found. 

 The tools of the workmen are still lying in 

 place beside the furnaces, as if dropped in 

 some sudden Indian or earthquake panic and 

 never afterwards handled. These imposing 

 ruins, together with the desolate town, lying 

 a quarter of a mile to the northward, present 

 a most vivid picture of wasted effort. Coyotes 

 now wander unmolested through the brushy 

 streets, and of all the busy throng that so lav- 

 ishly spent their time and money here only 

 one man remains — a lone bachelor with one 

 suspender. 



197 



