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Rawhide,NV - Mineral County - September 1908 - Rawhide Fire Photographs :

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Photographic Images Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 600.00 USD
Rawhide,NV - Mineral County - September 1908 - Rawhide Fire Photographs :
Lot of 3 photographs showing the disastrous Rawhide fire September 4, 1908, all taken from Grutt Hill. 1) Shows billowing black smoke emanating from several buildings at the base of a rocky hill, with a timbered head frame close by; 2) Taken from further away than the first photo, the black smoke surrounds the top half of the photo with some of the town's scattered buildings showing on a hillside beyond; 3) A thick plume of smoke emanates from several buildings in the middle of the picture, with railroad tracks in the foreground and scattered buildings on the slope of the hill in the distance. Each photo measures 3.25 x 5.25." Rawhide's heyday was short but intense, with newcomers flocking in to what they hoped would be the next Virginia City. Jim Swanson discovered rich ore near Rawhide in December 1906; his friends Charles "Charley" Holman and Charles "Scotty" McLeod also found good deposits on Hooligan Hill. They named the new camp Rawhide and spread the word. Within two years the town had blossomed (March-June 1908), then fallen to fewer than 500 people by the end of 1910. Two unfortunate events helped push it to the point of no recovery: one was the September 1908 fire, and the second a flood almost exactly one year later. Many people did not rebuild, and some moved on to the next boomtown. George "Tex" Rickard was one of the picturesque people who immigrated to Rawhide from Goldfield. Rickard built his second Northern Saloon (second to the one he built in Goldfield) and operated it with great success until it was destroyed in the 1908 fire. He did not rebuild, but moved elsewhere and went into the business of promoting prizefights (later, in the 1920s, he built both Madison Square Garden and the Boston Gardens). Today Rawhide is the site of a Kennecott Minerals mining operation.





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