One of them was the Simmerone, of Goldfield, which Mr. Macdonald offered for $1,000,000. We afterward learned that he had paid $32,000 for it. At that time there was a six-foot hole in the ground, and the whole property contained less than five acres. A stockade had been built around the workings on account of the extreme richness of the ore that had been opened at grass-roots.
Mr. Macdonald also offered for sale a lead property at Reveille and a lead-silver property at Tybo, both situated about 70 to 100 miles from a railroad. (Later these properties, along with some others, were promoted by Charles Minzesheimer & Company, a New York Stock Exchange house, as the Nevada Smelters & Mines Company and passed on to the public at a valuation of $5,000,000. The market value of the entire capitalization of this company is now less than $10,000.) These "mines" were to be put into the deal at $1,000,000 each.
Arkell wrote a dispatch to the East in the presence of our newly-made friends, describing the offering. Then he and I held a consultation, and he vouchsafed the information that we would certainly get a free automobile ride to Goldfield and have a chance to see there the new boom mining camp.
I got "cold feet." Arkell's talk of visionary millions in that bleak environment of snow-clad desert and wind-swept mountain didn't enthuse me at all. I protested against the proposed trip to Goldfield, and insisted that I should be allowed to telegraph to relatives for money with which to return to the Coast.
But Arkell persisted. He declared that the expense of the trip to Goldfield and back to Tonopah would be borne by the vendors of the mines and that our return trip to San Francisco would be delayed only one day. I left my grip, umbrella and cane in Tonopah, intending to return the same evening, and boarded the automobile for Goldfield.
Arrived in Goldfield, we were escorted to the Simmerone. Arkell appeared to be very much impressed, although he remarked to me a few minutes later that he would not give $34 for the whole layout. And therein he was wise. The Simmerone was later capitalized for 1,000,000 shares, each share of a par value of $1, ballooned on the San Francisco and Goldfield stock exchanges to $1.65 a share, and then allowed to recede to nothing bid, one cent per share asked. The rich ore "petered out."