GOLD IN BADGER HOLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19847, 23 May 1927, Page 2

GOLD IN BADGER HOLE

BOYS’ LUCKY DISCOVERY ARIZONA DESERT ROMANCE. The recent diamond rush in South Africa has been forestalled in the picture theatres of the United States by a gold rush in Arizona. Both provide ideal subjects for the cinema camera; but the perfect touch has been lent to the scenes from Arizona by the overnight growth of a brand new town — Weepah—with a mayor, restaurants, hotel, and bank all of them owing their sudden birth to a lucky badger hunt by two 19-year-old boys. Covered with dust the two lads only a fortnight before drove into the mining town of Tonopah in a battered rickety “flivver.” They lifted a few

dirt-covered bags from the car, locked them up, and then walked around the town showing glittering chunks of rock to the old-timers. So dazzling were the chunks that the old miners who looked at them askance said they dLd not contain gold. So the boys went to bed racked by doubts. When they awoke the following morning they carried one of their chunks to the assay office and were told that it was worth about seven guineas a pound. The town seethed with excitement. Crowds dogged the footsteps of the boys, who maintained an obstinate silence regarding the origin of their find.

A few hours later a train from Los Angeles halted at Tonopah. Out of it sprang Frank Horton, a hero of the gold-field rush of 1902. He is the father of one of the boys. The threeshut themselves up for a talk. When they emerged the town became a whirling mob of shouting humanity. The trio were pursued across the desert by a mad procession of men and boys, some driving in ramshackle motors, others in squeaky carts pulled by mules. For 40 miles amid clouds of alkali dust across the desert the proces-

sion struggled along until it arrived at Weepah, a treeless spot on the foothill plateau of the Silver Peak range. They found there Frank Horton, the veteran, with his boy companions triumphantly squatted on a site he had bought six years ago for £5OOO. All round* the “strike” the army of excited adventurers staked their claims within a radius of six miles. Each day the gold rush assumed bigger proportions. They arrived by hundreds. Manv of them dragged shacks and sheds and tents all the way from Tonopah. At Weepah flimsy buildings arose as if by magic. Gambling dens sprang into being. In telling the story of the discovery the lad Horton said he and his chum Leonard Trayner, after months of fruitless digging near Tonopah, trekked to Weepah. equipped with cheese, bread, and sausage for a couple of davs. The second morning he walked straight uphill awl started digging in a badgers hole. He dug a trench four feet deep and handed over the shovel to his frreqd. Suddenly young Traynor “let a war whoop out of him and tore down the hill.” The vein stood out glittering with gold leaf.