GOLD RUSH IN NEW MEXICO.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16680, 12 March 1925, Page 10

GOLD RUSH IN NEW MEXICO.

THOUSANDS HIT BLIZZARD-SWEPT DESERT TRAIL,

TOWN SPRINGS UP

HATCH, New Mexico, Jan. 20. — There is a new gold rush on by train and automobile into South-west New Mexico, where excitement over the wonderful tales oi the riches of the placer region is aileding thousands. Any story, no matter how wild, is being credited about wealth close to the surface in the desert territory affected. Placer miners from Sierra County exhibiting pokes tilled with varying sizes of gold dust were 'the original source of excitement. The rush • started! five days ago, and soon developed into a stampede, despite a terrific blizzard borne down on a freezing north wind three nights ago. Sunday evening brought a. cessation of the snow, and the worst of the storm is believed to have passed, but chili blasts are still blowing over the surrounding mountain ranges from tlie Mescalero and Sierra de lus Caballoa to Hie Organ Mountain on the south-east and the Black Ranee on the west, and the travel difficulties are great. TERRIBLE HARDSHIPS. The slampeders on llm roads, especially (hose riding in open cars or waggons, have been undergoing dreadful hardships because there is little wood on the desert, except mesquile. The gold fever is bringing in many women, and mothers with babies in arms are not uncommon sights amid the miserable thousands hitting the gold dust trail. Numerous cases of c.cvere frostbite are reported, especially on the northern loiite from the Pacific Coast )>v way of Flagstaff. The passage over "the Continental Divide halfway between Williams and Winslow, Arizona, lia.s been especially cold, and those joining in the rush from the west are being warned by wire from the gold camp operators to take the southern route by way of Phoenix, if they must come, until the weather moderates on the routes to the north. Travellers coming in from the east by way of Elpaso, L’Ascruoes and Rincon, and from the west by way of Doming and Lake Valley, have not suffered quite so severely ai those heading in from the north-east and north-west by way of Socorro. GOLD DUST TOWN. The town of Gold Dust has sprung up liko a mushroom over night since W. C. Hansen, an old-time prospector,

made his strike about three miles east of Animas Peak. It is six miles north-east of Hillsboro, the seat of Sierra County, and about thirty miles north-east of the city of Hatch, which is the closest railroad point. Up to Sunday- night an enormous aggregate acreage embracing contiguous sections totalling about thirty-five square miles had been located, and location monuments. The corners of every legal subdivision from individual claims of twenty acres up to the limit of 100 acree allowed a combination of eight associates.

The automobile with its motor generating electricity for lights lends a distinctively modern touch, strange to the experience of old-time miners from tho great camps of the past. As soon as the early winter darkness falls over Gold Dust, a myriad of headlights are switched on as the car and truck owners run their vehicles right up to the edge of the holes and then the digging is continued along under this rather expensive mode of mining illumination.