I was one of the first men at Bonanza City, and when I went there with the railroad--I was on the very first train that ever ran there--the whole town was just a row of miners' shacks near the foot of old Bonanza.

It's the richest mineral streak in the State, and yet twenty-five years ago, before the C.A.

& F.W.tapped it, there wasn't even a saloon out there at Bonanza.City.When you wanted a drink--and that didn't worry me, for I haven't tasted anything but water since I was twenty-five--you had to go all the way to Olympia to get it; and what was worse, all the ore had to go to Olympia, too, on a little no account branch road to be shipped over the main line.

Well, as soon as I discovered Bonanza City I said that had to change, and it did change.

I guess I did as much to make that town as any man out there, and to-day I own about two thirds of it.