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In a truly desert setting WHITE HILLS, one of the wildest camps in ARIZONA, is now paved with dazzling white gravel, landscaped with typical desert plants and gnarled Joshua trees. The buildings are few, and lean toward each other as if seeking support in their senility.
In the 1900's the place was not so tidy. There were 1,900 rough-and-ready miners then, not to mention their unsavory hangers-on. Water was brought in from distant mountain springs, but who drank it? Not many, judging from the piles of whiskey bottles on the fringes.
Rats were a serious problem in the town, living sumptuously on the garbage left everywhere. Cats were imported, only to become as big a problem when they multiplied by leaps and bounds, as cats will do. These then became targets for gun practice, their neglected bodies adding to the general stench.
Mother Nature decided to clean house and the town suffered a number of cloudbursts, which furnished an embarrassingly large amount of water all at once, even to the point of washing outhouses into the open desert.
Ehrenberg, Arizona
Whiskey, loose women, pigs and the law were all mixed up in Tom Hamilton's life. He served some of the whiskey over the bar and drank about the same amount "to keep it from spoiling". Loose women were no problem as long as he could get enough customers for them. But his pigs caused the judge no end of trouble -- and he was the judge.
As a bartender, Hamilton set up the bottles and glasses, pawed in the money and gold dust, and took three fingers himself when anybody wanted to pay for it. And if there were fights and shootings, he was no man to stop the boys from having a little fun. Somebody was bound to end up in the calaboose and who would he face in court in the morning? Tom Hamilton, justice of the peace.
That is, if and providing the J.P. was sober enough to face anybody. If not, he was regaining his strength in bed and negligent in another duty -- looking after his pigs. The porkers had no respect for the flimsy fence around the sty and were not inclined to lead their lives in quiet desperation. They wandered, with no favoritism given to any one home, garden, or establishment.
Creede, Colorado
"Holy Moses!" was what the man said when he found the rich gold ore and that was what he named the mine. His name was Creede and the town was named after him -- the town where "Soapy" Smith caught the public eye and Bob Ford, who shot Jesse James, came to the same end.
Whatever Creede lacked in virtue it offered plenty of ways to go to hell. Every other shack was a hook joint or dance hall, or combination of both. The place was filled with "characters." Among them was the notorious Soapy Smith who got attention first by selling a bar of soap wrapped in a dollar bill, the buyer winding up with the soap and not the greenback.
Soapy's most spectacular stunt was "The Petrified Man", a human figure he made of concrete and buried in the wet gravels of Willow Creek. While it was aging, the word was passed around that a miner had accidentally stumbled upon this wonder. Soapy then led a selected party to the site, and with all due ceremony, exhumed the relic and hauled it to his saloon where he exhibited it, though not for free. At a dollar a head, profits poured in.
Soapy saw to it that the gruesome object was not closely examined by anyone. Then came word of a famous scientist on his way to inspect the archeological treasure. Overnight the "petrified man" disappeared, with Soapy's outcry at skullduggery louder then anyone's.
Nothing was heard of the concrete "corpse" again.
Blacksmith's Lament
An old blacksmith realized he was soon going to quit working so hard. He picked out a strong young man to become his apprentice. The old fellow was crabby and exacting. "Don't ask me a lot of dumb questions," he told the boy. "Just do what I tell you to do."
One day the old blacksmith took an iron out of the forge and laid it on the anvil. "Go over there and get that big hammer," he said. "When I nod my head, hit it real good and hard."
The following day an ad in the opportunity section of the town's newspaper read, "BLACKSMITH WANTED".
The Shortcut
A young city-slicker's car ran out of gas in far out suburbia and he was running to catch the morning train to the city. Trotting up to a rancher, he asked, "Say, do you mind if I take a shortcut across your field? I want to catch the 6:45."
"Sure, go right ahead, young feller," replied the rancher, "but if my white-face bull sees you, you'll catch the 6:15."
Rib Ticklers 2 Rib Ticklers 3
