24 University Geological Survey of Kansas. 
to Joplin to be smelted. Being the first lead shipped from 
the new district, the occasion of moving it was celebrated by 
securing the four largest horses to be found, decorating the 
team and wagon with bunting, flags, etc., in appropriate 
style. 
‘‘Meantime, Messrs. W. B. Stone, Wm. March, W. J. Lea, 
and Wm. Craig, as the Craig Mining and Smelting Company, 
had secured a lease, with option to purchase, from the Kansas 
City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad Company, on the eighty 
acres of land next to the Moll tract on the east, since become 
famous as the property of the South Side Mining and Manu- 
facturing Company. These gentlemen conceived the idea of 
taking advantage of the conflict over the Moll farm, and, as 
soon as it was dark enough so that their movements would 
not be discovered by the opposition, W. J. Lea left to get the 
county surveyor, who lived about twenty miles away. By 
driving all night Mr. Lea arrived with the surveyor before 
daylight, and with the rising sun the surveying party com- 
menced operations. Inthe meantime, several hundred specu- 
lators had gathered for the purpose of investing in town lots ; 
the surveyors were followed, and as soon as the stakes were 
driven around a lot it was immediately sold, and a payment 
of from five to ten dollars made to bind the bargain. In this 
way more than 100 lots were sold on the first day, and when 
night came there were more than a dozen piles of lumber on 
the ground ready for the commencement of the buildings early 
the next morning. 
‘‘But danger often makes friends of those who were before 
bitter enemies, and the result was that sundown of the next 
day saw the parties holding the three claims on the Moll tract 
having a meeting in a fence corner, with the result that before 
midnight their difficulties were compromised, and the next. 
morning the surveyors commenced laying out the Moll tract. 
For two or three days it was uncertain which tract would 
win, as the commencement had already been made on the 
first tract, but the new consolidated company, assuming the 
name of the Galena Mining and Smelting Company, had 
commenced the erection of some buildings for themselves, 
which turned the tide, and not more than half a dozen of the 
