4/9/2005
Our Dinner: MRE's at Columbus
The official State of Nevada hysterical marker mentions that the tale of Columbus begins in 1865, when a quartz mill was erected at the site. In 1871, their version goes, William Troop discovered the borax deposits. It was the only source of water for quite a ways, which is surprising if you've been there. It's said that people came all the way from Candelaria to get some, until Candelarians finally got smart and laid a pipe from Trail Canyon.
By about 1875, the population was about 1000 people, a post office, and several business establishments. By 1881, borax activity had pretty much come to an end, and the mill ceased operations shortly thereafter.
COLUMBUS was an outgrowth from the discovery of mines; was the first town started in the district of that name, and its commencement dates from 1865. The building of a quartz-mill was the first thing that concentrated settlement there, the mill being located at this point because of its proximity to the salt and borax flats, as well as the facility for obtaining water, that is found by digging wells but a few feet into the ground. Nut pine and cedar wood are found in the adjacent White Mountains. In 1866, the town had gained a population of about 200. The place has not been entirely dependent upon the mines, for the large deposits of salt and borax in the vicinity have supplied an industry that has supported quite a population. The Pacific Borax Company commenced operations in September, 1872, at the Columbus Marsh, five miles south of Columbus. In 1875 the company also went to work in Fish Lake Valley, ten miles farther south, and a little village of some forty cheap buildings, chiefly adobe, sprang up, containing some twelve families, and 200 people. This company suspended work some time ago. Teels Salt Marsh, and the Virginia, or Rhoades Salt Marsh lie north and northwest of Columbus, and have been worked quite extensively. The former is at present being worked by Smith Brothers, and the latter by A. J. Rhoades. Columbus was most prosperous between the years 1870 and 1875, during which time the number of its population is reported to have reached 1,000. The buildings are of wood and adobe. There is no church, but a school house, built of adobe, 16x20 feet, with twenty pupils to attend in it, is among the institutions of the town. At present there are about 100 people living there, and the town contains two quartz mills, two stores, one hotel, one restaurant, six saloons, one black-smith shop, one livery stable, one doctor, one attorney, one express office, a post-office and a newspaper, the Borax Miner. In early times W. W. Barnes started a weekly twenty-four column paper, known as the Columbus Times there, but was forced, for want of patronage, to suspend publication. The nearest railroad station is at Hawthorne, distant fifty-eight miles, and teaming freights from that place are thirty dollars per ton.
-History of Nevada 1881
Why, the Governor hisself came down to take a gander.
PROSPECTING
Gov. Blasdel and State Treasurer Rhoades have gone on a sight-seeing jaunt to Columbus and Montgomery Districts. We hope they will find lots of silver and few Indians.
-Gold Hill Daily News, November 11, 1865
We need to get some mail through here.
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 31, relative to establishing a semi-weekly mail from Aurora via Columbus to Silver Peak, read third time and passed.
-Gold Hill Daily News, January 30, 1866
They got a custom-made mill, not one of those mail-order ones from Amazon, mind you.
FOR COLUMBA DISTRICT
A new dry-crushing quartz mill is being constructed at the Nevada Foundry, Silver City, for Columbus District. There are many good mines in that section, which, by proper management, can be and will be made to pay.
-Gold Hill Daily News, January 11, 1871
Five ten-mule teams were engaged yesterday in loading at the Nevada Foundry, Silver City, with mill machinery for Columbus District.
-Gold Hill Daily News, April 22, 1871
This is why newspaper editors got into duels.
THE "BORAX MINER " ON THE COLUMBUS WAGON ROAD.
In its issue of September 18S the Borax Miner publishes what we had to say by way of comment upon some remarks upon an article in the Reno Journal, about the Columbus carrying trade, and comments, upon its own part, as follows.
As seen through the spectacle of the APPEAL. the curley road through the White Mountains is a most inviting thoroughfare! It is " well watered and accessible at all seasons of the year." Mighels, the plain truth of the matter is, somebody has been "stuffing" you. The road from Teels Marsh to the junction with the old Carson and Aurora road is almost impassible for heavy teams at any season of the year. It is for the most part cut in deep and dangerous gorges. The teamster who ventures into it is in imminent peril of losing his property and perhaps his life in one of the cloudbursts which are so common in that section, and there is not even a possibility that any teamster could make his expenses hauling freight from Carson over that road to Columbus at the rates ruling for freight from Wadsworth here. The distance to Carson is at least thirty miles greater than to Wadsworth. The road to Wadsworth is never closed at any season of the year. The road from Teel's to the junction is liable to be closed for months together, for in many places the canyons are so narrow that even a few inches of snowfall would furnish material enough to fill them with the drift. You will never succeed in getting the Columbus freight at Carson, because nature has provided a better road another way. But if you should get influences to force it over the V. & T. road you will run into a new difficulty: We all know what an ungodly set of cormorants the managers of the Central Pacific road are: but if our shippers ever have the Virginia and Truckee bills to pay, they will learn that the C. P. crowd are angels of mercy when compared with the V. & T. people.
What there is about borax to produce such demoralization as is here exhibited we confess we do not know; but that the editor of the Miner is suffering from a diseased state of mind is not to be questioned. That condition is partly natural and partly the result of artificial causes—mainly borax. We cannot trust his statement. There is a kind of insane, not to say semi-malignant tone of glee-- some cussedness running through what he says in the foregoing. We understand his enmity to the V. & T. Company. It grows out of the Superintendent's refusal to grant him a perpetual pass. We do not blame him for being angry at not having one given him. All editors should have one. Patient as we are we incline to rebel against the humiliation of having to buy a ticket whenever we travel that road. But it never occurred to us to get even by lying about the freight charges exacted under its management. But there is a future, and it is well enough for the company to bear it in mind! Reasoning from analogy and from our knowledge of facts, we suspect that Barnes' enmity to the Columbus Pike is born of Mr. Holmes' refusal to deadhead him over that road. In fact there is no doubt that that refusal is the cause of his malignity—that and borax. The treatment demanded by his case is plainly indicated : He should be invited to ride free on all roads leading from Columbus to Reno and then be retorted—for borax.
Daily Appeal, September 23, 1875
Pilots and extremely tall people will have noticed that, almost two miles south of Columbus, lay an oval race track of exactly one mile in length. This was used to race horses, and probably the only mining camp in Nevada that had one.
Races At Columbus.
We are in receipt of a letter from J. S. Mooney, President of the Columbus Jockey Club, giving information of the organization in that place of a new Jockey Club, and the construction of a now mile race-track, which is pronounced the finest in the State. The letter also informs us that there will be five day's running races there, commencing on the 7th of March, for purses amounting to $1,300. These races will he between the best blooded stock in California and Nevada, of which many famous horses are already entered. We congratulate our Columbus friends on their club and their track, and also all who may attend on the opportunity to enjoy the fine sport which will commence there on the 7th inst.
-Weekly Nevada State Journal, March 3, 1877
The flats yielded some useful minerals and kept Columbus alive.
Esmeralda Borax.
The upper or northern end of the borax marsh, lying east and south of the town of Columbus, is once more a scene of industry, says the True Fissure. After an idle period of about fifteen years, the manufacture of borax has received renewed activity. Some three or four companies have been formed and have begun operations in real earnest. Material for tanks, boilers and other machinery arrives by rail quite often, and finds Its way southward by means of teams. The advance in the price of borax has done much to increase the manufacture, and the field in the southern end of Esmeralda county is almost inexhaustible.
-Reno Evening Gazette, July 17, 1883
What The Heck Is Borax, Anyway?
Borax was first discovered on the dry lake beds of Tibet, and was trades as early as the 8th century AD. But it was our ol' pal Francis Marion "Borax" Smith and his Pacific Coast Borax Company who began to market and popularize its use. A type of salt-- actually a hydrated borate of sodium, it easily dissolves in water. It is used as a pesticide (ants hate it) , a soldering flux, a component of glazes, for tanning hides, and as a wood preservative, among many other things. One of its most popular uses is in laundry and cleaning products. When borax is added to water, it converts some molecules in the water to hydrogen peroxide,and changes the pH level from a neutral 7 to a more basic 8. Borax is extremely alkaline (pH of around 9.1), which creates a basic solution that can help fight acidic stains (like tomato or mustard) when dissolved in water and used as a pre-treating solution. When added to a load of laundry, borax can help get white clothes whiter.
Well they didn't have a post office any more, but maybe, just maybe...
REVIVAL SEEN IN CAMP OF COLUMBUS
Revival of the old town of Columbus, where Borax Smith got his start in life is probable as the result of the incorporation of the Native Silver Mining Corporation which has just received its charter. The Incorporators are Carl Reick, Ina Harris, Marie Berry, Boise McKay and A. M. Hardy. The latter is ex-congressman from Indiana who served on the committee on mines and mining during his term, says the Tonopah Bonanza. This company proposes to operate an old property two miles north of the town of Columbus where there is a shaft 200 feet deep and four other shafts on various claims embraced in the six claims held by this company. The old dump remaining after the mine was abandoned carries excellent values and it is claimed that a recent shipment of ore sorted from the dump returned $220 silver to the ton. Columbus is famous as the starting point in the career of Borax Smith who began life in that section packing wood which he carried from Miller's Mountain on five jacks which constituted. his freighting. outfit. From this small beginning grew what is now the Pacific Coast Borax company, which controls the borax supply of the world. It was Smith who located Teals marsh near Belleville and then followed by securing Columbus marsh where the borax industry was developed under the handicap of the high cost of
freighting overland to Wadsworth by way of Luning. At one time the town of Columbus boasted of the Sweetapple mill and the Northern Belle which continued to operate until new mills at Belleville caused business to. be transferred to that place. Among, other notables who grew up with the, prosperity of Columbus was A. J. Holmes who owned the Holmes mine which was one of the big producers of 1874 and 1875 who lived at Candelaria and Columbus and conducted extensive work at Rhodes marsh. He amassed a fortune in that section and eventually moved to California where he spent his money and died penniless. Columbus was the Tonopah of the days when silver realized coinage value and the horseman of Southern Nevada flocked to the great race track at Columbus.
-Nevada State Journal, August 3, 1919
No matter what you read, this is why Columbus finally died.
OLD-TIMER TELLS STORY ABOUT CANDELARIA
It was in the town of Columbus. on the edge of Columbus marsh, that the idea of a mill town at some other point was conceived and finally carried into execution by A. J. Holmes. He had been working on his claims for some time when his supply of grub ran low and he went into Columbus to replenish his larder. He was short of real cash, although he was the owner of a potential mine. He asked the storekeeper for a small amount of grub on credit and was politely refused. His inability to secure credit in Columbus necessitated a trip with his burros to Wadsworth, 125 miles as the crow flies, the nearest place where he would be able to get the needed supplies. He swore vengeance then and there on the town of Columbus and told the merchant that he would some day cause the grass to grow in the streets of this town. This threat, while made in all sincerity, he was not able to carry out in detail as it I would take more power than that possessed by mere man to make grass, or anything else for that matter, grow in the streets of Columbus on account of the borax content of the soil. He lived, however, to see the town dwindle to a mere white spot on the desert.
-Reno Evening Gazette, December 16, 1930
It was cold and windy when we arrived, and about lunch time, so we were thankful for the remains of a few wooden buildings next to which we could take shelter and enjoy our meal.
I saw a reference to there being a graveyard with about 200 graves, but I kind of doubt it, since that would imply, to my way of thinking, a much larger city. But hey, what do I know. We didn't bother to look, because I forgot, so if anyone happens to stumble across it to see the one remaining headstone, why, give me a shout and maybe a focused picture or two.
There are a few buildings and remains left. However, upon further reflection I would say that Columbus is worth more than the cursory glance that we gave it.
UPDATE - July 24, 2006: Which is apparently what Mr. Robert Lucia did when he visited, since he found the cemetery.
Mr. Lucia and I agree that this cemetery may have been used after the town's heyday, or at least the markers were replaced- since wooden markers would probably not still be standing for 125 years. But stranger things have happened out in the desert...