THE BONANZA KINGS.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume V, Issue 226, 13 June 1885, Page 2

THE BONANZA KINGS.

There never was a more improvident sot of mtu than the Colorada bonanza kings. Inaptitude for business life was also a striking characteristic. Chaffee Irittered away the bulk of his immense fortune on railroad stocks of which he knew nothing absolutely nothing. For years his life had been mainly spent in the neighborhood of the 44 ticker." Bob Green, once a wealthy placerminer, is a miserable pauper, wandering S about the streets of Denver. Celonel Denver, the possessor of hundreds of thousands not many years since, is enjoying the life of the gentleman on the collection of suppesed bad loans made when he was affluent. Kiche, the discoverer ef the little Pitslurg, is in a fair way to soon return to his shoemaker's bench. He it was that paid 4*10,000 for a wife, and who, when lie ihot Pat Dillon in a saloon brawl, said: If I haf kilt him, send arount the pill in the morninV George Daly was killed by the Apaches. His debts, which were cancelled by his tragic death, are said to be enormous. He led a life that for fastness was never surpassed in the West. Nclso Halleck, discoverer of the Carbonate mine, and William Yankee, of the Yankee Consolidated, have a mere pittance left between them. Jim Williams, one of the discoverers of the Grand View, did not have enough money to buy a coffin when he was shot down in a Silver City dance hall. Bill West, his partner, is a destitute drunkard at Leadville, dependent upon a chair in some friendly drinking resort for a sleeping place. GfO'-ge Houston, ef the Big Pitsburg, died penniless in an Ohio insane asylum?' General Craig, of the Little Giafc, died of paralysis of the heart, after a night's debauch. And so ended the lives of twenty others, who turned up fortunes at the point of a miner's pick in Colorado. The case of George Gryer was perhaps the saddest. In 1872 he cleaned up £40,000 from the sale of the Pioneer Consolidated at Alma-. His aged mother was in poor circumstances at Philadelphia, and the first expenditure 'he made was that of iIGQOO for a home in

tho suburbs of the city. Banking £±ooo \ n to her credit, he launched out into a life | c of dissipation and profligacy that made him notorious. Chartering a coaster, he j r peopled it with the most beautiful women p to be had from among the Routhern demi- ■• monde, and loaded it with wiues and j table luxuries. After cruising about for! 0 two weeks at a total expense of £;KH), S.o ! i returned to land to continue ids m»i.J I ; 1 revelling. A year later he was wavers- j ing the mountains again an impecunious ; prospector. He never would take as ; p much as a dim • from his mother, an 1 punished himself for his folly by exposure | to every privation and hardship known to ; mountain life. Four years later lie struck it rich a second time in the New Discovery claim at Leadville. He endeavored , to take advantage of the opportunity which the sudden acquisition of £iO,OJ3 , gave him, but through business incapacity failed.