Finished the book, some more gems:
Gold Rushes of Other Days:
George W. Custer, Auditor of the Board of Education, Chicago, another '49er, who went overland in 1850, remembered the hardships well enough to shudder as he talked of them. He said :
"It was the fourth day of April, 1850, that my father made up his mind to go to the California gold fields, and started with his family across the country to where we were told men could dig up nuggets with their heels right out of the soft surface mold all over the peninsula of California. I shall never forget our experiences on that trip. Hundreds of people started out without sufficient money or provisions, and as a result they perished of hunger and thirst on the great American desert of the Salt Lake district, through which their path lay.
Our family formed a portion of the caravan known as the Patterson Rangers. It was composed of twelve wagons, forty- seven men and a boy (myself). We ate dinner on the Fourth of July, 1850, right in the heart of the desert, and on that evening we practically ran out of provisions. It was the poorest Fourth of July dinner I ever remember to have eaten. I remember it well. We each had a small piece of smoked meat and a biscuit. My father, who had smuggled a small jar of sweet jelly with him, smeared a little of it over my dry biscuit in honor of the occasion.
Our trail was littered with the remains of other caravans of pioneers who had preceded us across the deadly waste. The skeletons of men and animals dotted both sides of the trail, and wagon wheels, old arms, rusty swords, broken rifles and other relics of the victims of that terrible summer were lying around in profusion. The value of the material that lay there decaying on the desert would, I believe, if fairly computed, run up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars."
And this from "Side-Lights & Other Attractions"
Clairvoyants on Deck.
Clairvoyants put in their bid to be recognized as factors in the Klondike development. Something in the nature of a grub-stake company was formed by a number of spiritualists in Chicago and an advance agent or prospector sent out to locate the rich claims which a well-known " medium" professed to be able to discern clairvoyantly across the vast intervening distance. Some of these claims were said by the " spirit guides" to be fabulously rich and all of them well worth the finding. Maps were drawn and explicit directions given and a new field for "prospecting" duly opened.
A Description of the Theatrical Fare:
Barkeeper Charley.
"The title had local significance, as Douglass Island is just across the channel from the town. It was a very successful play. The hero was a barkeeper named Charley, and the heroine, to use the hero's own words, was a ' perfect lady/ who had a desire to see something of the town with a fancy, rather unusual in a person of that description, for incidentally 'hitting the pipe.'
There was a bootblack, a Chinaman, an Irish policeman, a dude and a number of sports and ' ladies ' in the piece. After the requisite amount of adversity and bad luck had been ground out, the hero, with the help of the bootblack, triumphed over the dude, got a 'pull' with the policeman, married the heroine and otherwise attained brilliant success as the proprietor of the ' finest joint in the town,' to quote his own language again."
This sounds like it should have been a movie with Matt Damon...