Following the success of the DC-2, newly formed American Airlines approached the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1934 about a new design, one that would combine the speed, reliability, and profitability of the DC-2 with the comfort of the sleeping berth-equipped Curtiss Condor biplane. First envisioned as a simple enlargement of the DC-2, Douglas engineers quickly realized the new airplane would need to be significantly redesigned. The fuselage became longer and wider with rounded sides, the wings and tail surfaces were enlarged and strengthened, the nose section and landing gear were modified, and new, more powerful Wright engines were installed. Despite superficial similarity to the DC-2, the DC-3 eventually shared less than 10 percent of parts with its predecessor. The first versions of the new DC-3, called Douglas Sleeper Transports, began service with American Airlines in 1936. It would become one of the most successful aircraft in history.

 

The efficient DC-3 enabled profitability and profound growth of civil air transport in the United States and worldwide. The sleeper configuration was soon joined by day transport versions, typically carrying 21 passengers. Other versions and engine choices were introduced. By 1941, DC-3s represented 80% of the U.S. airline fleet, with similar international success. During World War II, the DC-3 design was adapted for troop carrier and cargo duty, designated the C-47. It was a major contributor to the Allied global war effort. Douglas built a total of 10,654 of the rugged and reliable planes, with about 2,500 more produced by others under license. Many are still flying today.

 

The Museum's DC-3 was built in 1940 for American Airlines, delivered as NC15591. It was acquired by Transcontinental & Western Airlines (TWA) in 1942 and operated by TWA and others under lease through 1952. During this period, it appears to have been converted to a cargo configuration. It was briefly owned by Union Steel & Wrecking in 1953, then converted back to an airliner with performance enhancements such as wing root fillets, extended range fuel tanks, and passenger oxygen outlets. The refreshed aircraft was purchased by Ozark Airlines in 1954 and reregistered as N138D in 1957. The aircraft was traded to Fairchild-Hiller in 1966, and later owned by a series of Las Vegas-based sightseeing/charter operators, last acquired by Royal West in 1980.

 

After a career of over 63,000 flight hours, the DC-3 was purchased by The Museum of Flight in 1987. It now wears the livery of Alaska Airlines, which operated many DC-3s and C-47s after World War II.

Walt Disney World Resort

Epcot

Future World

The Lights of Winter

 

That is what the Disney Parks Blog called the Lights of Winter at EPCOT in its confirmation that they wouldn't be displayed this year. Obsolete technology? There were probably meetings held yesterday to come up with an official line for this, and yet this is the best that could be mustered up? Give me a break.

 

Although it won't affect me directly this year, this really grinds my gears, and is yet another example of cuts that have occurred around the holiday season for no apparent reason (Country Bear Christmas, Mickey’s Twas the Night Before Christmas, live bands in the Christmas parade, free pictures at the Christmas parties, shows in the Diamond Horseshoe, free buttons and shopping discounts for the Candlelight Dining package, etc.). Some have said these cuts have been made due to cost-savings, but I don't find that to be a compelling rationale. While no one could have expected these things to last forever (Disney is not a museum), the argument that these items have all been replaced by better holiday offerings is unpersuasive. Show me what replaced Country Bear Christmas? Nothing. Twas the Night Before Christmas? Totally Tomorrowland Christmas (need I say more?). Free picture? PhotoPass discounts. Freebies for Candlelight dining packages? Price increases to the dining packages.

 

I really don't think this is a cut stemming from anything but laziness. To me, this illustrates that Disney does not perform its due diligence before making decisions and/or tailors its research to suit its pre-determined decisions. The Lights of Winter have installation/removal, maintenance, and electricity costs. If updated to LED lights (I'm no expert, but something tells me if WDI can make Expedition Everest, converting the Lights of Winter would be no problem, and could be done in like a day), the savings in electricity would probably offset the update costs. Despite these costs, the Lights of Winter are probably profitable. Several PhotoPass photographers are stationed in the area. Additionally, the lights are a huge holiday draw to Walt Disney World. While you'll find few people who will cancel their trip this year because they won't be up, you will see a minute decrease in bookings next year. The reason for that is two-fold: disappointed guests who remember them from the past, but feel 'cheated' that the holiday offerings are being reduced, and new guests who the parks fail to capture (these guests would be 'captured' after seeing pictures of the lights on Facebook, Flickr, etc., and reading/hearing accounts of the gorgeous display--if said lights are not displayed, these new guests cannot be captured). Finally and most importantly, there is a loss in goodwill that is nearly irreparable. There is a reason there is a Disney difference that separates it from parks such as Cedar Point (Cory's favorite). At some point, if Disney continues to trim what it perceives to be 'fat' on its offerings to increase profits, it will start to cut bone.

 

Then again, maybe Disney is waiting for the LED lights to be 90% off at Wal-Mart after Christmas...

 

Check out this article on my blog if you're interested in tips for visiting Walt Disney World at Christmas or seeing tons more Christmas photos!

 

View my Disney Photo Gallery for thousands of Disney photos that aren't on Flickr!

 

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Though the trio of sellswords had been quite profitable patrons of The Stone Chalice for some time, Breaton knew he could not tolerate them brandishing their weapons within the tavern. However, after failing to convey that they were no longer welcome to stay, Breaton finally resorted to beating the drunkards from his tavern with an old broom. This was not his preference, but he was comforted as one of the mercs collapsed in the street upon exiting the tavern. Breaton reasoned with himself that they were not likely to remember the whole incident.

Seen on its first day back in service after a RTA on the Matchborough Circular at Church Hill is 32101, Redditch's only Commander. Initially on its first day in use it was on the 55/70 (which interwork). However, it broke down on the Evesham Road (A441) on the way back to town from Astwood Bank. It was then placed onto the Matchborough Circular, where it performed well (sadly didn't get thrashed at it was running on time), without breaking down, or struggling.

 

Diamond's YJ07 JDZ (32101) is seen paused at the Winyates Centre while operating a 57 Matchborough Circular back to Redditch Bus Station. The 57/58 operate up to every 8-10 minutes on each side of the circular. It is Redditch's most popular, and profitable route. YJ07JDZ was new to John Fishwick & Sons (Leyland) up until the company's operation ceased, in late 2015. The Rotala PLC bought it and painted it in Diamond blue with the black parts at the back also being painted. Sadly, 101 crashed into the railings at the bottom of Redditch Bus Station on February 17th (2018), and was then repaired. However, after that, it was then crashed into by a reckless car driver who decided to speed across the busway at Church Hill without looking. After spending a large amount of time OTR, it then returned to service on September 6th. It is a VDL SB200CS/Wright Commander.

Lahti. Lakhta ?This small village on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, about 15 km northwest of the city, is home to human settlements on the banks of the Neva. It was on the territory of Lakhta that the remains of a man’s parking site of three thousand years ago were found.

In official documents, a settlement named Lakhta dates back to 1500. The name is derived from the Finnish-speaking word lahti - "bay". This is one of the few settlements that has not changed its name throughout its 500-year history. Also known as Laches, Lahes-by, Lahes and was originally inhabited by Izhora. In the last decades of the 15th century, Lakhta was a village (which indicates a significant population) and was the center of the eponymous grand-parish volost, which was part of the Spassko-Gorodensky graveyard of the Orekhovsky district of the Vodskaya Pyatina. In the village, there were 10 courtyards with 20 people (married men). In Lakhta, on average, there were 2 families per yard, and the total population of the village probably reached 75 people.

From the notes on the margins of the Swedish scribe book of the Spassky graveyard of 1640, it follows that the lands along the lower reaches of the Neva River and parts of the Gulf of Finland, including Lakhta Karelskaya, Perekulya (from the Finnish “back village”, probably because of its position relative to Lakhti) and Konduy Lakhtinsky, were royal by letter of honor on January 15, 1638 transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickschulz general Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, a Dutchman by birth. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). With the arrival of the Swedes in Prievye, Lakhta was settled by the Finns, who until the middle of the 20th century made up the vast majority of the villagers.

On December 22, 1766, Catherine 2 granted Lakhta Manor, which was then in the Office of the Chancellery from the buildings of palaces and gardens, "in which and in her villages with courtyards 208 souls," her favorite Count Orlov. Not later than 1768, Count J.A. Bruce took over the estate. In 1788, Lakhta Manor was listed behind him with wooden services on a dry land (high place) and the villages Lakhta, Dubki, Lisiy Nos and Konnaya belonging to it also on dry land, in those villages of male peasants 238 souls. On May 1, 1813, Lakhta passed into the possession of the landowners of the Yakovlevs. On October 5, 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered into the possession of the Lakhtinsky estate, which then had 255 male souls. This clan was the owner of the estate until 1912, when its last representative got into debt and noble custody was established over the estate. On October 4, 1913, in order to pay off his debts, he was forced to go for corporatization, and the Lakhta estate passed into the ownership of the Joint Stock Company “Lakhta” of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co.

After the revolution, Lakhta was left on its own for a while, here on the former estate of the counts Stenbock-Fermorov on May 19, 1919, the Lakhta excursion station was opened, which existed there until 1932. In the early 1920s, sand mining began on Lakhta beaches, and the abandoned and dilapidated peat plant of the Lakhta estate in 1922 took over the Oblzemotdel and put it into operation after major repairs. In 1963, the village of Lakhta was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

  

At the beginning of Lakhtinsky Prospekt, on the banks of the Lakhtinsky spill, there was the village of Rakhilax (Rahilax-hof, Rahila, Rokhnovo). Most likely, under this name only one or several courtyards are designated. There is an assumption that the name of the village was formed from the Finnish raahata - “drag, drag,” because there could be a place for transportation through the isthmus of the Lakhtinsky spill (we should not forget that not only the bridge over the channel connecting the spill with the Gulf of Finland was not yet here, the duct itself was many times wider than the current one). The search book of the Spassko-Gorodensky graveyard of 1573, describing the Lakhta lands, mentions that there were 2 lodges in the “Rovgunov” village, from which we can conclude that we are talking about the village of Rohilaks, which the Russian scribes remade into a more understandable to them Rovgunovo. The village was empty in Swedish time and was counted as a wasteland of the village of Lahta.

  

On the banks of the Lakhtinsky spill, near the confluence of the Yuntolovka River, from the 17th century there existed the village of Bobylka (Bobylskaya), which merged into the village of Olgino only at the beginning of the 20th century, but was found on maps until the 1930s. It is probably the Search Book that mentions it Spassko-Gorodensky churchyard in 1573 as a village "in Lakhta in Perekui", behind which there was 1 obzh. With the arrival of the Swedes by royal letter on January 15, 1638, the village was transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickshaw General Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, a Dutchman by birth. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted Lahti lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). On the Swedish map of the 1670s, in the place of the village of Bobylsky, the village of Lahakeülä is marked (küla - the village (Fin.)). The village could subsequently be called Bobyl from the Russian word "bobyl."

The owners of Bobylskaya were both Count Orlov, and Count Y. A. Bruce, and the landowners Yakovlev. In 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered into the possession of the Lakhtinsky estate (which included the village of Bobyl). This family was the owner of the estate until 1913, when the owners, in order to pay off their debts, had to go for corporatization, and the Lakhta estate was transferred to the ownership of the Lakhta Joint-Stock Company of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co. By the middle of the 20th century, the village merged with the village of Lakhta.

  

The name Konnaya Lakhta (Konnaya) has been known since the 16th century, although earlier it sounded like Konduya (Konduya Lakhtinskaya) or just Kondu (from the Finnish kontu - courtyard, manor). Subsequently, this name was replaced by the more familiar Russian ear with the word "Horse". In the Search Book of the Spassko-Gorodensky Pogost in 1573, it is mentioned as the village "on Kovdui", where 1 obzh was listed, which indicates that there most likely was one yard. On January 15, 1638, together with neighboring villages, it was transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickschulz General Bernhard Steen von Stenhausen, of Dutch origin. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). In a deed of gift, Konduya Lakhtinskaya is called a village, which indicates a noticeable increase in its population. Later, on the Swedish map of the 1670s, on the site of the present Horse Lahti, the village of Konda-bai is marked (by - village (sv)).

The owners of Konnaya Lakhta, as well as the villages of Bobylskaya and Lakhta, were in turn Count Orlov, Count Ya. A. Bruce, and the landowners Yakovlev. In 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered the possession of the Lakhta estate (which included Konnaya Lakhta. This family was the owner of the estate until 1913, when the owners had to go to corporations to pay off their debts, and the Lakhta estate became the property of Lakhta Joint Stock Company of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co. In 1963, Horse Lahta was included in the Zhdanov (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

  

As the dacha village of Olgino appeared at the end of the 19th century and initially consisted of both Olgin itself and the villages of Vladimirovka (now part of Lisiy Nos) and Aleksandrovka. In the first half of the 18th century, this territory was part of the Verpelev palace estate, which in the second half of the 18th century was granted to Count G. G. Orlov, then it was owned by the family of landowners the Yakovlevs, in the middle of the 19th century the estate was transferred to the counts of Stenbock-Fermor. In 1905 A.V. Stenbok-Fermor, the then owner of Lakhta lands, divided the lands around Lakhta into separate plots with the intention of selling them profitably for dachas. So there were the villages of Olgino (named after the wife of Olga Platonovna), Vladimirovka (in honor of the father of the owner; the coastal part of the modern village of Lisy Nos) and Alexandrov or Aleksandrovskaya (in honor of Alexander Vladimirovich himself). It is likely that on the site of the village was the village of Olushino (Olushino odhe) - a search book of the Spassko-Gorodensky churchyard in 1573 mentions that there were 1 obzh in the village of Olushkov’s, which suggests that at least one residential the yard. On behalf of Olushka (Olpherius). Most likely, the village was deserted in Swedish time and then was already listed as a wasteland belonging to the village of Lahta. Thus, the name of the village could be given in harmony with the name of the mistress and the old name of the village.

The villages were planned among a sparse pine forest (the layout was preserved almost unchanged), so there were more amenities for living and spending time there than in Lakhta. A park was set up here, a summer theater, a sports ("gymnastic") playground, a tennis court, and a yacht club were arranged.

In the 1910s about 150 winter cottages were built in Olgino, many of which are striking monuments of "summer cottage" architecture. In 1963, the village of Olgino was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

  

Near Olgino, in the area of ​​the Dubki park, there was a small village Verpeleva (Verpelevo), which consisted of only a few yards. In the first half of the XVIII century. this territory was part of the palace estate "Verpeleva", which in the second half of the XVIII century. It was granted to Count G. G. Orlov, then passed to the Counts of Stenbock-Fermor. The village has not existed for a long time, but the entire reed-covered peninsula (barely protruding above the water of the Verpier-Luda peninsula (Verper Luda (from the Finnish luoto - “small rocky island”)) still existed, and there was another spelling the name of this island is Var Pala Ludo).

  

Kamenka. The Novgorod scribal book mentions two villages in the Lakhta region with a similar name, referring to the possessions of Selivan Zakharov, son of Okhten, with his son and 5 other co-owners. On the lands of this small patrimony, which, unlike the estate was inherited, peasants lived in 3 villages, including: the village "Kamenka in Lakhta near the sea" in 5 yards with 5 people and arable land in 1,5 obzhi, the village "on Kamenka "in 2 courtyards with 2 people and arable land in 1 obzhu. For the use of land, the peasants paid the owners of the patrimony 16 money and gave 1/3 of the rye harvest. Thus, in the 16th century on the Kamenka River (another name for the Kiviyoki River, which is the literal translation of kivi - "stone", joki - "river") there was one large village of Kamenka near its confluence with the Lakhtinsky spill and the second, smaller, somewhere upstream. On the drawing of Izhora land in 1705, a village under this name is depicted in the area of ​​the modern village of Kamenka. The village of Kamennaya in the middle reaches of Kamenka and on the map of 1792 is designated. Other name options are Kaumenkka, Kiviaja.

In the second half of the 18th century, Kamenka became a vacation spot for Russian Germans. Here in 1865, German colonists founded their "daughter" colony on leased land. Since then, the village has received the name Kamenka Colony (so called until the 1930s). In 1892, a colony near the village of Volkovo "budded" from it. The inhabitants of both colonies belonged to the Novo-Saratov parish and since 1871 had a prayer house in Kamenka, which was visited by 250 people. He maintained a school for 40 students. The house was closed in 1935 and later demolished.

Currently, Kamenka exists as a holiday village, located along the road to Levashovo. Since 1961 - in the city, part of the planning area in the North-West, from the mid-1990s. built up with multi-storey residential buildings and cottages.

  

Volkovo. The settlement is about southeast of the village of Kamenka - on the old road to Kamenka, on the bank of a stream that flows into Kamenka between the village of Kamenka and the Shuvalovsky quarry. In 1892, a German colony emerged on the territory of the village, "budding" from a nearby colony in the village of Kamenka. The origin of Volkovo is not clear, the village is found only on maps of 1912, 1930, 1939, 1943. and probably appeared no earlier than the 19th century.

  

Kolomyagi. Scribe books of the XV — XVI centuries and Swedish plans testify that small settlements already existed on the site of Kolomyag. Most likely, these were first Izhora or Karelian, then Finnish farms, which were empty during the hostilities of the late XVII century.

The name "Kolomyag" connoisseurs decipher in different ways. Some say that it came from the "colo" - in Finnish cave and "pulp" - a hill, a hill. The village is located on the hills, and such an interpretation is quite acceptable. Others look for the root of the name in the Finnish word "koaa" - bark - and believe that trees were processed here after felling. Another version of the origin of the name from the Finnish "kello" is the bell, and it is associated not with the feature of the mountain, but with the "bell on the mountain" - a tower with a signal bell standing on a hill.

The owners of Kolomyazhsky lands were Admiral General A.I. Osterman, Count A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a family of Volkonsky. In 1789, the Volkonskys sold these lands to retired colonel Sergei Savvich Yakovlev. On his estate S. S. Yakovlev built a manor and lived in it with his wife and seven daughters. The once-Finnish population of Kolomyag was “Russified” by that time - it was made up of descendants of serfs resettled by Osterman and Bestuzhev-Rumin from their villages in Central Russia (natives of the Volga and Galich) and Ukraine. Then the name "Kellomyaki" began to sound in Russian fashion - "Kolomyagi", although later the old name also existed, especially among local Finns. And not without reason the indigenous Kolomozhites associate their origin with the Volga places, and the southern half of the village is now called “Galician”.

Yakovlev died in 1818. Five years after his death, a division of the territory of the manor was made. The village of Kolomyagi was divided in half between two of his daughters. The border was the Bezymyanny stream. The southeastern part of the village of Kolomyagi beyond Bezymyanny creek and a plot on the banks of the Bolshaya Nevka passed to the daughter Ekaterina Sergeevna Avdulina.

Daughter Yakovleva Elena Sergeevna - the wife of General Alexei Petrovich Nikitin, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, who was awarded the highest military orders and twice a gold sword with the inscription "For courage", died early, leaving her daughter Elizabeth. The northwestern part of Kolomyag inherited the young Elizabeth, so this part of Kolomyag was practically inherited by the father of Yakovlev’s granddaughter, Count A.P. Nikitin, who in 1832 became the owner of the entire village. It is his name that is stored in the names of the streets - 1st and 2nd Nikitinsky and Novo-Nikitinsky. The new owner built a stone mansion on the estate’s estate - an excellent example of classicism of the first third of the 19th century, which became his country house and has survived to this day and has been occupied until recently by the Nursing Home. It is believed that this mansion was built according to the project of the famous architect A.I. Melnikov. The severity and modesty of the architectural appearance of the facades and residential chambers of the Nikitin mansion was opposed by the splendor of ceremonial interiors, in particular the two-light dance hall with choirs for musicians. Unfortunately, with repeated alterations and repairs, many details of the decor and stucco emblems of the owners disappeared. Only two photographs of the 1920s and preserved fragments of ornamental molding and paintings on the walls and ceiling show the past richness of the decorative decoration of this architectural monument. The mansion was surrounded by a small park. In it stood a stone pagan woman brought from the southern steppes of Russia (transferred to the Hermitage), and a pond with a plakun waterfall was built. Near the pond there was a "walk of love" from the "paradise" apple trees - it was called so because the bride and groom passed through it after the wedding. Here, in the shadow of these apple trees, young lovers made appointments.

Under the Orlov-Denisov opposite the mansion (now Main Street, 29), the structures of an agricultural farm were erected, partially preserved to this day, and the greenhouse. Behind the farm were the master's fields. On them, as the New Time newspaper reported in August 1880, they tested the reaping and shearing machines brought from America.

In the 19th century, the provincial surveyor Zaitsev submitted for approval the highway called the Kolomyagskoye Shosse. The route was supposed to connect the village, gradually gaining fame as a summer residence of the "middle arm", with St. Petersburg. The construction of the road ended in the 1840s, and then horse-drawn and country-house crafts became the most important articles of peasant income. In addition, peasants either built small dachas in their yards, or rented their huts for the summer. Located away from the roads, surrounded by fields, the village was chosen by multi-family citizens.

The income from the summer cottage industry increased from year to year, which was facilitated by the summer movement of omnibuses that opened on the new highway from the City Council building. They walked four times a day, each accommodated 16 people, the fare cost 15 kopecks. Even when the Finnish Railway with the nearest Udelnaya station came into operation in 1870, the highway remained the main access road through which public carriages pulled by a trio of horses ran from the Stroganov (now Ushakovsky) bridge.

The importance of the highway has decreased since 1893, when traffic began along the Ozerkovskaya branch of the Primorsky Railway, built by the engineer P.A. Avenarius, the founder of the Sestroretsky resort.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 (ESV)

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

 

SCRIPTURE—invariably in the New Testament denotes that definite collection of sacred books, regarded as given by inspiration of God, which we usually call the Old Testament (2 Tim. 3:15, 16; John 20:9; Gal. 3:22; 2 Pet. 1:20). It was God’s purpose thus to perpetuate his revealed will. From time to time he raised up men to commit to writing in an infallible record the revelation he gave. The “Scripture,” or collection of sacred writings, was thus enlarged from time to time as God saw necessary. We have now a completed “Scripture,” consisting of the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament canon in the time of our Lord was precisely the same as that which we now possess under that name. He placed the seal of his own authority on this collection of writings, as all equally given by inspiration (Matt. 5:17; 7:12; 22:40; Luke 16:29, 31).

 

M. G. Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893).

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Volvo to stop building complete buses in Europe.

 

Volvo Buses has announced that it will be ending production of complete buses and coaches in Europe as part of a new business model aimed at improving profitability and securing its long-term competitiveness. Wroclaw plant, where also electric buses are built, will be closed in Q1 2024. The manufacturer will concentrate on chassis production in Europe and leave Volvo-based bodies to others.

 

The decision comes after years of losses in the European market, and Volvo Buses plans to implement a new model already successful in other markets.

 

‘Our business in Europe has been loss-making for years. With this business model, that we already today apply successfully in many markets, we will improve profitability and secure our long-term competitiveness’ said Anna Westerberg, President of Volvo Buses.

 

According to Ms Westerberg, the company will continue to have the customer interface, offer a complete range of buses and coaches in partnership with selected external bodybuilders, and provide strong uptime service and a high standard of safety and quality. This will result in a leaner structure, improved flexibility, and the ability to better meet market requirements and customer demands.

 

Volvo Buses will continue bodybuilding manufacturing in Wroclaw until the first quarter of 2024, with orders for complete buses and coaches in Europe being delivered from the Wroclaw plant as planned. The company will also continue to give full service and support to both existing and new fleet offerings.

 

As part of the transition, Volvo Buses has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Vargas Holding, which will divest Volvo Buses’ premises in Wroclaw and re-purpose the facility for future growth. The LOI includes Vargas Holding’s aim to offer employment to parts of the Volvo employees, some as early as the third quarter of 2023.

 

The decision to end production of complete buses and coaches will affect around 1,600 positions at Volvo Buses, with approximately 1,500 of these being based in Wroclaw. Volvo Buses says it has initiated discussions with respective unions and will work with Vargas Holding, local authorities, and other parties to support affected employees in finding new employment opportunities. My thoughts do go out to the staff involved, who will be facing an uncertain future.

 

Implementation of the new business model is expected to temporarily impact Volvo’s revenues in Europe during the transition period in 2024 and 2025. A restructuring provision of approximately SEK 1.3 billion (116 millions euros) will negatively impact operating income in the first quarter of 2023. The expected negative cash flow effect is estimated to be approximately SEK 1.0 billion, with the majority impacting 2024. Once the transition is completed, the move to the new business model is expected to make the European bus operation profitable.

 

If all this seems familiar the same sort of thing happened to Leyland Bus when Volvo took it over. Firstly the bodywork production ceased, then chassis production stopped in Leyland’s United Kingdom factory and then Volvo’s Irvine plant where it moved to, Ironically some of chassis production then moved to Wrocław when Irvine shut.

 

In the United Kingdom, at present the integral buses presently offered are the 7900H (Diesel Hybrid) and 7900E (Full electric). Sales have been modest, which is a polite way of saying it’s not sold well. Lothian has taken the most of hybrid type, with a small batch also going to First Berkshire. The electric version has went to Transdev Harrogate & District and Stagecoach West Scotland. Indeed Volvo had recently launched its new electric buses, the BZL range of single and double-decker buses, in partnership with MCV in the UK. So the 7900 was probably going to die a death anyway, in the UK at least.

 

However where it leaves coaches is more interesting. Volvo had been building integral coaches for some time, although in the UK it’s only been offering these for a few years. It’s offering has been 9700 range and it’s actually done reasonably well, McGill’s have some for FLiXBUS operations and more on order. Parks of Hamilton have recently taken delivery of some too, replacing Jonckheere bodies in Park’s preference. However it would appear that this integral model is to go as well, as it’s also built in Poland too. Of course Volvo coaches are also available in UK with either Alexander Dennis owned Plaxton and also MCV bodywork.

 

So Volvo will revert to just being a chassis manufacturer in Europe for buses, having preferred partners for bodywork. For many years in the UK, it’s partners were Wrightbus and many operators chose their products. An example of this is 2230 (SF11CWJ) seen here, which is a recent addition into the Midland Bluebird fleet, albeit still in McGill’s colours. Alexander Dennis and MCV bodywork was also an option, on double-deckers certainly. However since the insolvency event suffered by Wrightbus, very very few new Volvo buses have been bodied by the ‘new’ Wrightbus. Volvo’s new main bodybuilding partner in the UK is now MCV, although Alexander Dennis is an option for double deckers, particularly with Lothian Buses.

One of the biggest surprises in 2017 was the announcement by United Airlines that they would restart flights between London Heathrow and their most profitable hub at Denver, Colorado.

The last time United Airlines served direct non-stop flights between London Heathrow and Denver was back in 2008 following the Bermuda II Agreement being abolished in favour of the EU-US Open Skies Agreement. The new flight operated with Boeing 777-200ERs but only lasted until 2010 when the flight cancelled owing to poor yields. If passengers who were wishing to fly to Denver from London Heathrow with a Star Alliance carrier, other options were fly with United with a connection in the United States, or fly with Lufthansa via Frankfurt.

Since 24th March 2018, United Airlines reintroduced direct flights between London Heathrow and Denver, their fourth largest hub in the state of Colorado. UA26/27 initially operated summer seasonally with daily flights utilising Boeing 787-8s. The same flight recommenced on 31st March 2019 for the S19 schedule.

For the W19 schedule, United made the decision to convert their Denver flight into a year-round operation which commenced from 1st November 2019. Instead of operating daily, the flight will operate 6 times a week whilst continuing to maintain Boeing 787-8s.

Currently, United Airlines operates 46 Boeing 787s, which includes 12 Boeing 787-8s, 25 Boeing 787-9s and 9 Boeing 787-10s. United Airlines have 13 Boeing 787-9s and 5 Boeing 787-10s on-order.

November Two Six Nine Zero Nine is one of 12 Boeing 787-8s in service with United Airlines, delivered new to the carrier on 27th January 2014 and she is powered by 2 General Electric GEnx-1B engines.

Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner N26909 on final approach into Runway 27L at London Heathrow (LHR) on UA27 from Denver (DEN), Colorado.

Amongst the Lufthansa Group, Swiss International Air Lines is one of the most profitable within the group, helped by the flag-carrier dominates its own hub at Zürich-Kloten, benefits from the transatlantic joint-venture between Lufthansa Group alongside United Airlines and Air Canada, and their long-haul fleet being premium-heavy with all wide-body jets even consisting of First Class cabins, now becoming a rarity.

For Swiss, their presence in Canada is somewhat limited although as already stated does benefit from the transatlantic joint-venture with fellow Star Alliance member, Air Canada. Swiss themselves only serves 2 destinations in Canada being Montréal and Toronto, with the latter destination only being served during the summer season only.

Swiss has been operating into Montréal since day one when the flag-carrier was founded following the collapse of Swissair on 31st March 2002; initially utilising Airbus A330-200s with the occasional McDonnell Douglas MD-11 before their retirements by late-2004, the carrier has consistently operated a daily flight between Montréal and Zürich ever since.

Airbus A330-300s remain the main wide-body of choice for the daily flight (LX86/87), and very likely to remain in the near future as the fleet will undergo a major refurbishment programme under the Swiss Senses moniker.

Currently, Swiss International Air Lines operates 14 Airbus A330s, all of which are Airbus A330-300s.

Juliet Hotel November is one of 14 Airbus A330-300s operated by Swiss International Air Lines, delivered new to the flag-carrier on 15th April 2013 and she is powered by 2 Rolls-Royce Trent 772B-60 engines. She is named after the Swiss municipality of Altdorf in central Switzerland, being the capital of the canton, Uri.

Airbus A330-343E HB-JHN 'Altdorf' slows on Runway 24L at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau (YUL), Quebec on LX86 from Zürich-Kloten (ZRH).

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness--that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17

 

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

 

Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its stories are true, and its decisions are immutable.

 

Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy.

 

It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

 

It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter.

 

Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of Hell disclosed.

 

Christ is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end.

 

It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

 

Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully.

 

It is a mine of wealth, health to the soul, and a river of pleasure.

 

It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

In Membrance Michaela Unbehau Photography

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Goodness

A story based on several quotes made by the incomparable Mae West

 

“There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out”

 

Lucy and Cade, a pair of giggling, exceptionally well-dressed, wealthy parent young ladies, are taking a night stroll through some gardens located outside a large party venue.

 

They spy a long blonde-haired figure milling about up in the gardens ahead. Resplendently wearing a long ghostly white satin gown, real diamonds sparkling with amazing brilliance down along her full figure.

 

Feeling by the way she is dressed that she is one of their fellow party guests, the pair approached.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Mae, sultrily taking a puff from her long thin cigarette, greets the two girls.

“Hello ladies, out for a stroll also?”

 

Lucy

“Yes we are, lovely party isn’t it, and the grounds outside are very peaceful.”

 

Reaching out her hand.

“My name is Lucy and this is my friend Cade.”

 

Mae takes up the girl’s hands in turn

“Very nice to meet you both. My name is Mae.”

 

Mae adds, whilst looking both young ladies up and down.

“If I may say, my the pair of you look just sumptuous. Those dresses you both wearing are very lovely, satin aren’t they? Absolutely Adorable.“

 

Both girls twitter

 

Lucy

“Thank you, Mae, we had a devil of a time picking and deciding what to wear this evening. Yours is very beautiful too. Is it a Doir like ours?”

 

Mae, lifting her gowns white skirt

“This old thing? I’m afraid you never heard of this designer. Arsene, I believed he was French. But Thank you for your compliments. You two are just the sweetest dolls .”

 

Cade and Lucy both blush, then begin to tell Mae how much fun they were having that evening.

 

Mae, after a few minutes of listening to the chattering girls, cuts in.

“Cade, Did I overhear you say your boyfriends are here with you two? I would love to be introduced. “

 

Cade

“Sorry Mae, I said they are not with us, they both had other plans. Lucy and I had to come alone to the party.”

 

Lucy

“Our parents don’t know we came without chaperones, otherwise they would not have wanted us to come out here on our own.”

 

Mae reassuringly

“No chaperones? Well, your secret is safe with me, have no fear of that. But why wouldn’t your parents have allowed you two to come alone my dears ?”

 

Cade giggles as she makes her dress swish.

“You know what parents are like. Afraid to let me go out alone dressed like I am, weren’t they now? Claim it attracts the wrong sort. But I’m not alone, Lucy is with me. And who really would care that I’m dressed like this?”

 

Mae,

“Good point Cade, I would have no idea who the ‘wrong sort’ are, nor why they would care how you are dressed this evening.”

 

Lucy, also giggling

“My parents were the same way also. Then, my Auntie, she said I shouldn’t ever go out alone wearing my evening jewels.

 

Mae

“Really Lucy? I wounded why your nosey Auntie would ever say such an odd thing?”

 

Lucy shrugs

“I asked her what she meant by it, couldn’t give me a reason. Silly bird. “

 

Mae

“I agree, it’s silly, jewels are made to be worn out. And I think it’s smashing that you two were daring enough not to listen to such frivolous advice and come out wearing them this fine evening.”

 

Lucy

“Parents can be such killjoys. and I’m glad too that I didn’t give Auntie a listen this time about not dressing up. I feel so very pretty.”

 

Cade shakes her pretty head in agreement.

 

Mae

“And you both are delightfully pretty this evening.”

 

Mae continued on

“Rather Sounds like you two have been having a brilliant time. I could show you around, but I would imagine your parents have also warned you about meeting up with strangers at parties.”

 

Cade sweetly

“They did, but your not a stranger. Your very sweet.”

 

Lucy chimes in

“No Mae, your not what they meant atoll to be wary of. We’re sure.”

 

Mae,

“My goodness, such dears. I really must give you both hugs for being so sweet.

 

Both girls gladly enveloped Mae in tight, all-encompassing hugs.

 

Mae

“Thank you. Never really sure why strangers are given a bad rap. You two are also strangers to me, and I have no worries.”

 

Cade

“Well said. We’re friends then. That’s decided. “

 

Lucy smiles at Cade. Brushing a rose petal off from her friend’s dress.

 

Mae, watching them

“Cade, your adorable frock is smashing. May I?”

 

Cade blushes, nodding her head.

 

Mae, caressingly stroking down along the rich satiny material of Cade’s expensive dress

“I’ve just come from the swan pond. They have the most downy soft wee ones, probably as soft and adorable as your shiny frock Cade. Would you like to see it?”

 

Cade

“Really, little baby swans? I would love to go and see them. What you say, Lucy?”

 

Lucy shakes her head, yes, magnificent diamond earrings glittering up and down their long length.

 

Mae smiling turns her head towards the dark woods.

“It’s not far. Come along you two, this will be fun!”

 

With youthful innocence, they both fall in step alongside Mae, who leads them down a winding path through the woods.

 

In their heels, progress is slow for Cade and Lucy. Mae is having no problems with her flat slipper-like shoes. After ten minutes of walking pass by...

 

Mae

“Ah, here we are, just up and around this bend. “

 

Cade

“Ooh can’t wait. This will be so such a lark.”

 

Lucy nods,

“Being out here in the woods away from everyone, this is so exciting. I could just imagine a highwayman or something is lurking about within them.”

 

Mae looks at the pair of party girls

“Lucy, you have quite the imagination, but I doubt there’s been a highwayman in the area for several hundred years. But let’s hush now, must be quiet. And yes this is quite exciting for me also. Very pleased to be out here alone with you two as company.”

 

Cade, stopping and looking around, possibly now a bit worried...

“I feel very safe out here with you Mae.”

 

Mae, patting both girls and squeezing their shoulders.

“Let’s get on with it then, my pretty ones.”

 

They turn the corner, reaching a disappointingly sinister-looking small black water pond, surrounded by deep woods.

 

Lucy, fingering the diamonds glittering along her gown’s shiny top

“Where are the baby swans?”

 

Mae puts out her cigarette on a tree.

Give it time my dears. Lucy, your earrings are amazing, may I?”

 

Lucy, holding back her hair as Mae runs them through her fingers.

“Thank you, Mae. Can’t believe my Auntie really tried not to let me wear diamonds out this evening. They make me feel like a princess. “

 

Mae

“And so you do look like one. I’m so glad you didn’t fall for your Aunties foolishness. Your earrings are just too gorgeous.”

 

Mae, turning to Cade

And you also Cade, your jewels are just the most delicious things. May I have a closer peek at those absolutely adorable rings you have on?

 

Cade, turning away from her vigil over the dark waters of the pond, obediently holds out her hand with its ring-encrusted fingers.

 

Mae looks them carefully over, taking in Cade’s flashy diamond bracelet as well.

“Cade, these are just brilliant, thank you for allowing me to look at them up close. You’re a perfect dream wearing these.”

 

Cade, blushing, placing the same hand on her shimmery necklace dripping down from along her throat

“Your welcome Mae, I feel like I’m in a dream wearing them. But for goodness sakes, what beautiful diamonds you have on, simply the cat's pajamas.”

 

Mae, smiling like the cat who got the canaries.

“Actually Cade, goodness had nothing at all to do with it !”

 

Lucy giggles nervously as she feels a chill for some unknown reason.

“Mae, that’s funny, whatever do you mean by ‘goodness had nothing to do with it ?”

 

Mae

“That’s a good question, Lucy. Would you and Cade like to hear a story I have that may explain?

 

Both Cade and Lucy nod their heads, as their diamonds flicker with amazing brilliance in the small moonlit glen.

 

Mae begins her “Goodness” tale

“Well, there was once a snooty young mother who had come from a wealthy family. She loved to dress up in fancy clothes and jewels. She had her snotty young daughters dress up in the same manner. And unlike your parents Lucy and Cade, she saw no reason that they should not be allowed out exploring alone when dressed up, even when wearing good jewellery.”

 

Mae pauses as Cade and Lucy shake their heads in agreement. Their desirable jewels twinkling out.

 

Mae continued

“And the husband and father being a member of parliament, the 3 of them were out on their own, a lot.

On the evening of my story, all three girls were attending an evening wedding reception at a venue much like this. The young mother was wearing a silk white blouse with a long shiny black skirt, her daughters, much like you two, were clad in satin evening dresses. All three were wearing real pearl jewellery. The daughters were also wearing diamond hairpieces their mum had put in, taking them from her own jewel case.

Later that evening, Ruby, the sulky youngest daughter (15) jealous that her Mum and older sister (17) are dancing, decided to go out alone to explore the gardens.

Now image a 15-year-old, formally dressed up, wearing real pearls and diamonds, outside walking alone? What would your Auntie say to that Lucy?”

 

Lucy and Cade both giggle.

 

Lucy

“She would have her knickers up, that’s for sure. When I was 15, she once insisted I change out of a silk blouse and remove my pearl necklace and ear studs before allowing me to go out to the theatre with my chums.”

 

Mae, chuckling

“That’s bollocks.”

 

Cade giggling

“ I remember her doing that, it was after your birthday party. She even tried to get me not to wear my rings as I went with you. She would have handcuffed Ruby to keep her from leaving I bet.”

 

Mae

“Well, actually the odds are in one's favor that nothing would normally have happened to Ruby. Especially as she was exploring the gardens alone, or so Ruby thought.

But then, from behind the wooded side of a hedge, she hears an odd noise, like someone is whispering for her from behind the hedge. Ruby goes around to the other side. A lady is sitting on the workman’s wood bench, staring into the woods. She dressed like she would have attended the same party as Ruby. A black velvet dress and shimmery diamonds.

The lady jumps as Ruby approached.

“My you startled me, thought I was alone with my thoughts out here. Well now, you are a pretty one. That’s a lovely red gown you have on, it almost looks like real satin.

 

Ruby

“It is real mum, my mother had it specially made for me.”

 

Lady on bench

“Hmmm, she said. Aren’t you rather young to be dressed in a real gown? I don’t know if I believe you. I suppose you’ll be telling me next your lovely pearls are real?”

 

Ruby

“But they are mum, mother said they were ir..ir..irreplaceable !”

 

Lady on bench, chuckling

“Shouldn’t be fibbing child. Next, you’ll be telling me your hairpiece is made of real diamonds.

 

Ruby, under duress, kicks a stone.

“Of course they are, came from mother’s case now, didn’t it?”

 

Lady on bench

“Listen to your stories child, and be careful of ruining those glittering red shoes you are wearing. Now come closer so I can have a good look at your supposedly real satin gown .”

And Ruby defiantly approached the lady to show her how wrong she was.

 

Mae paused and looked over at Cade and Lucy.

 

Both girls asked in unison…”What happened?”

 

Mae smiled as if she had a secret.

“Well, two hours later a pair of kitchen workers were sneaking a smoke and a beer back behind the garden hedges came upon a rather odd scene on the workman’s wood bench. A young girl, wearing only her red silk slip, was hog-tied to the bench. Gagged with her silk stockings.

Poor Ruby had not been alone in the gardens. A thief had been watching her, had set a trap to lure Ruby off the beaten path.”

 

Mae continues on with her story

“When Ruby walked up to the lady, her dress was touched and examined.”

 

Lady

“That is real satin, so that would mean you're not lying about your pearls being real also ducks?”

 

Ruby, sticking out her tongue

“Told you so, didn’t I now you twit. Mother always gives me the best!”

 

Lady

“Ruby, I once met someone dressed like you. She went out alone for a stroll and was mugged!”

 

Ruby

“Who was she?”

 

Lady, producing a small silver pistol

“It was you. Now hold still while I remove your pearls.”

 

Ruby was then held up for her jewels, had her gown and shoes stripped off, was gagged and tied up to the bench. Then after one last too thorough search of Ruby’s figure, the lady thief lit a cigarette and calmly walked off through the woods.”

 

Cade and Lucy both shudder.

 

Mae sniffs and reached inside her purse fumbling for something.

 

Lucy

“I wouldn’t have fallen for that. I’m too cautious.”

 

Cade sniffing also

“That’s a very sad story Mae. Where you perchance that young teen’s mother?”

 

Mae

“What? God no Cade. I was not that little girl's mother. That only happened a few weeks ago.”

 

Mae pulls out of her purse a small silver double barrel derringer.

 

Both girls gasped, hands flew up to their gaping mouths.

 

Mae, looking at the pistol

“No my downy duckies. I was the thief. And that teenager's clothes, shoes, pearls, and diamond hairpiece paid for some of the jewels I’m now wearing.

So you see my sweets goodness had nothing to do with my diamonds, it was wickedness that paid for them.”

 

Mae points the derringer at Cade and Lucy

“Now let’s see how high you pretties can raise up those hands!”

 

Mae steps closer, the business end of the derringer is poked into Lucy’s midriff.

Now, the pair of you bloody chippy twits will please start removing your jewellery and hand them ALL over to me!”

 

Lucy and Cade, shaking with wide-eyed disbelief, look at each other speechless, hands still up.

 

Mae, sighing deeply, points the derringer at Cade, speaking matronly to her.

“Cade, you first sweets. Lower your hands and let’s start with those rings. That’s it, my girl, gently pull them off, just lovely… now for the rest.”

 

Cade obediently does as directed, then with fumbling fingers, managed to fairly quickly remove her bracelet, necklace, earrings, and lastly the long fern leaf-shaped diamond hairpiece. Her silken reddish hair falls over her face covering one eye as it is being removed.

 

Mae looked into Cades one visibly, puppy sad eye...

“Cade this hairpiece is gorgeous. I may just keep it.”

 

Mae points the derringer at Lucy.

“Okay Lucy luv, your next.”

 

Lucy bulks at first, but the end of Mae’s derringer poking into her chest soon convinced her otherwise.

 

Mae

“Now Lucy, begin by handing over those gorgeous dangly earrings. No thief could certainly pass those up.”

 

Lucy reluctantly does so, slipping them off one by one and handing them over.

 

Mae, looking down at the earrings now in hand…

“I wanted these the moment I saw them. You have no idea how hard it was to wait.”

 

Mae looks back at Lucy

Ok ducks, I’ll have the rest.

 

Lucy obediently removed her diamond necklace, rings, and bracelets. Then steps back

 

Mae sneers, waving the derringer with her free hand.

“Oui Lucy. Forgetting something are we?”

 

Puzzled Lucy checked herself over, even feeling down along her satin dress. Cade does the same also. Both look back at Mae questioningly.

 

Mae laughing

“Just checking luvs. Thanks for the show, and thank you both for your lovely jewels. Oh, and by the way, in case you are wondering why I’m not bothering to take your purses? It’s because as we were hugging earlier, I picked them clean.!”

 

Mae, admiring the forlorn pair of girl’s glittering jewels piled up in her hand...

“Lucy, I used to do my best early work at theatres. Pearls do look so lovely with a silk blouse. Shame your Auntie is such a prude, this may have been the second time I met and robbed you. And Cade, I wouldn’t have passed on having your rings back then either. Now the pair of you, turn around and face the pond. “

 

Moving back, Mae commands them

“Now off with those glittery s shoes your wearing and toss them in the pond.”

 

As the pair of girls obediently do, Mae stuffs jewels and pistol in her purse. Then casually lights another cigarette as plops are heard coming from the pond.

“Goodness, that was too easy.”

 

Mae approached Cade and Lucy from behind.

“Raise those hands again, and don’t drop them until I say!”

 

Both girls feel their satin-clad figures being thoroughly, expertly patted down one-handed by Mae, who asks.

“Tell me something my two pretty ones. Do both your mums, and Lucy’s Auntie have jewellery this nice?”

 

Cade and Lucy unhappily both nod yes.

 

Mae, finishing up her last tempting feel of a pair of scintillatingly soft gowns, under the guise of searching for the girls' possibly hidden valuables, asks before turning to leave…

“So why don’t you have them dress up in them to come over and see me sometime?”

 

The end

  

Play theme music

  

Roll credits

  

Credits rolling

  

Credits still rolling

  

Yawn

  

Credits slowing down

  

€€€€€ The obligatory scene at the end of the credits €€€€€

  

“There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out”

 

Mae West

  

“The score never interested me, only the game.”

 

Mae West

  

As Mae walked away she heard some rather intense murmuring going on between Lucy and Cade.

  

She had just started up the small hill leading to the bend when Lucy calmly called out.

  

“Oh Mae? Did you really mean that about having my Auntie come over?”

  

Mae, curious, stops and turns around

 

“What are the two of you on about?”

  

Lucy

 

“Well, it’s like this. You have quite a substantial haul with the jewels you’ve nicked from us. Plus almost £ 800 in our wallets. Now both Cade and I would have to report them as stolen. Worse yet, my Auntie would find out and be proven right. We would never hear the bloody end if it. So you’ve got what you wanted from us, but what if there is a better prize? Would you be willing to make a bargain?”

  

Lucy stops and looks at Mae. Mae nods her head and comes back a little closer.

 

“I’m all ears .”

  

Lucy

 

“Well, it’s like this. My Auntie has always been a thorn in my bum. And I would love to see her receive some comeuppance, as opposed to Cade and I being on the receiving end.

 

So say I don’t report the robbery, my Auntie will not be put on her guard. There are several upcoming autumn balls she attends, and she will be wearing her best jewels. Which are 5 times more valuable than what you have taken from us... combined!”

  

Mae, as Lucy pauses.

 

“Sounds promising. It really does. But sorry, a bird in the hand you know. Of course, I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it, and a score never interested me, only the game.”

  

Lucy pleading

 

“Just hear us out then Mae. I know it’s a leap of faith. But you could almost retire off what Auntie would be wearing. And it would be a delicious revenge for us after what she had put us through all these years. I can almost taste it. Haven’t you ever wanted to do that to someone also ?”

  

Mae, Sighing with a nod

 

“Ok, I’ll give you 5 minutes. But remember, I also used to be Snow White like you pair, then I drifted.”

  

Lucy, speaking quickly

 

“ Ok, so my Auntie has outdoor, secluded hiding spots at several venues where she has the chauffeur hide a bottle. She has vices she thinks are her secret. At these ultra posh events, she sneaks off alone for a cigar and a nip several times during the evening. It’s always the same spots. We know cause Cade and I found them out and have been sneaking out for nips ourselves for years, never being caught.”

  

Lucy paused for a precious second.

 

“Now what I propose is that you can keep my valuable earrings you were drooling over, and the £ 800 as payment for my getting some revenge.”

  

“And keep my lovely hairpiece.” Cade chimes in

  

Lucy

 

“But we would need the rest of our jewellery back to not arouse suspicion. You see, it has to work that way.

 

As you said, a bird in hand. But there is one in the bush whose a far easier, far more profitable catch to pluck.

 

For years I always daydreamed that it would serve her justice if a thief would come across her as she is out taking her drink. And it’s that secluded it can be done easily.

 

So please, neither of us can bear to think of her welding this robbery over us...”

  

Mae, with a wicked grin, shakes her purse.

 

“Lucy luv, you tell a good story, but…

  

Lucy cuts in with a final, desperate plea.

 

“Please Mae. I am not saying it will be easy, I’m only saying it should be worth it to you, in spades.

 

Just pretend that the only jewels Cade and I were wearing were my diamond earrings and Cade’s diamond hairpiece. That would still be a sweet little haul for you, far more than what you got from that snooty brat Ruby.

 

Don’t give us a final answer yet.

 

Here take my purse and think it over as you leave. We will wait here for 30 minutes.

 

Leave my purse underneath the water fountain where you first ran into us.

 

If it’s empty we’ll have our answer, swallow our pride, and be forced to make a full report to the police and insurance company. And face Aunties music.”

  

Lucy pauses

 

“But if our jewels are inside, less earrings and hairpiece. We say nothing to ANYone about what happened. You get away easy peasey. Then we’ll know your game for it.

 

There is a pub called the Poet and Peasant in Gl…. Go there several

 

Nights during the first week of September. I’ll find a way to get to you the time and detailed instructions of hiding places at each of the parties.”

  

Mae reached out and took Lucy’s shiny silk purse, saying to herself…

 

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

  

With that said, Mae turns and walks away, thinking…

 

“Those two dames did look gorgeous wearing all that sparkly ice over shiny satin. And, a dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up. That dame is likely to succeed.”

  

Mae walks up the hill, white satin gown swishing, then turns the corner as the scene fades to black.

  

Out of the darkness comes voices.

 

“Do you think she’ll buy into it?”

 

“I don’t know, but if she did we will not be wearing our diamonds all this fall”

 

Giggling

 

“No, only nice silk blouses and sensible pearls…”

  

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Please let me know in the comments below if the silk purse under the fountain will be full or empty

  

Thank you for reading

 

Italian postcard by Albacolor, no. 604/4.

 

Voluptuous, red-haired American actress Jill St. John (1940) played countless bikini sexpot roles in Hollywood films of the 1960s. She was at her best as the tantalizing Bond girl Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

 

Jill St. John was born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim in Los Angeles, in 1940. She was the daughter of Betty Lou Oppenheim née Goldberg and Edward Oppenheim, a prosperous restaurant owner. Jill was on stage and radio from age six, prodded by a typical stage mother. She was a member of the Children's Ballet Company with Natalie Wood and Stefanie Powers. She made her TV debut as Missie Cratchett in the first full-length TV film, The Christmas Carol (Arthur Pierson, 1949) starring Vincent Price. Her mother changed Jill's name from Oppenheim to to the more Hollywood-sounding St. John when Jill was 11 and five years later, she gave her daughter a turned-up nose job so she would photograph better. Jill began blossoming and attracting attention in her late teens. In 1957, she signed with Universal Pictures at age 16 and made her film debut in the romantic comedy Summer Love (Charles F. Haas, 1958) starring then-hot John Saxon. Moving ahead, she filled the bill as an exuberant, slightly dingy teen and as well as shapely love interest in such innocuous but fun films as The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (Henry Levin, 1959) starring Cliffton Webb, and Holiday for Lovers (Henry Levin, 1959), Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (Daniel Mann, 1963) with Dean Martin, Who's Minding the Store? (Frank Tashlin, 1963) starring Jerry Lewis, and Honeymoon Hotel (Henry Levin, 1964). A part of Frank Sinatra's 'in' crowd, she co-starred with him in both the comedy Come Blow Your Horn (Bud Yorkin, 1963) and the detective film Tony Rome (Gordon Douglas, 1967). By the late 1960s she had matured into a classy, ravishing redhead equipped with a knockout figure and sly, suggestive one-liners that had her male co-stars (and audiences) panting for more. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "An incredible piece of 1960s eye candy, Jill St. John absolutely smoldered on the big screen, a trendy, cosmopolitan presence in lightweight comedy, spirited adventure and spy intrigue who appeared alongside some of Hollywood's most handsome male specimens. Although she was seldom called upon to do much more than frolic in the sun and/or playfully taunt and tempt her leading man as needed, this tangerine-topped stunner managed to do her job very, very well. (...) Whether the extremely photogenic Jill had talent (and she did!) or not never seemed to be a fundamental issue with casting agents." She co-starred with Bob Hope in the dismal Eight on the Lam (George Marshall, 1967), but the connection allowed her to be included in a number of the comedian's NBC specials over the years. She skillfully traded sexy quips with Anthony Franciosa in Fame Is the Name of the Game (Stuart Rosenberg, 1966), the engaging TV pilot to the hit series The Name of the Game (1968). St. John scored a major coup as Bond girl Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (Guy Hamilton, 1971) opposite Sean Connery. First she had been offered the role of Plenty O'Toole, but after the directors saw her, she got the bigger role as Tiffany Case. Diamonds Are Forever was a commercial success.

 

On camera, Jill St. John's glossy, jet-setting femme fatales had a delightful tongue-in-cheek quality to them. Off-camera, she lived the life of a jet-setter too and was known for her various romantic excursions with such eligibles as Frank Sinatra and even Henry Kissinger. Of her four marriages (she never had children), which included millionaire Neil Dublin, the late sports car racer Lance Reventlow, son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, and singer Jack Jones, she found her soul mate in her fourth husband, actor Robert Wagner, whom she married in 1990 following an eight-year courtship. Jill worked with Wagner decades before in the soapy drama Banning (Ron Winston, 1967) as well as the TV movie How I Spent My Summer Vacation (William Hale, 1967). Abandoning acting out of boredom, she has returned only on rare occasions. She played against type as a crazed warden in the women in prison drama The Concrete Jungle (Tom DeSimone, 1982) and has had some fun cameos alongside Wagner both on film in The Player (Robert Altman, 1992) and on TV in Seinfeld (1989). In the late 1990s they started touring together in A.R. Gurney's popular two-person stage reading of Love Letters. Jill's lifelong passion for cooking (her parents were restaurateurs) has turned profitable over the years. She has written several cookbooks and actually appeared as a TV chef on Good Morning America (1975). She also served as a food columnist for the USA Weeken" newspaper. St. John was glimpsed more recently in the films The Calling (Damian Chapa, 2002) and The Trip (Miles Swain, 2002) and she and Wagner had small roles as Santa and Mrs. Claus in the TV movie Northpole (Douglas Barr, 2014). She and husband Robert Wagner have homes in Aspen and L.A.'s Pacific Palisades.

 

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Richard Adams left his moderately profitable gunsmithing buisness to join the legendary 50th Paratrooper brigade in late 1944. When the Great Outbreak began, the 50th was dropped into Vatican City. A massive amount of people, believing the Great Outbreak to be the work of the devil, and not some demented Nazi scientist, fled to the The Vatican in hopes of finding holy refuge. The American army was stretched too thin, and was forced to leave the 50th paratroop behind as they fell back.

Abandoned, the 50th was gradually overcome, and all of the civilians they were to protect were lost to the mutants. Their numbers continued to dwindle, when finally they stumbled on a large concentration while searching for food. Adam was the sole survivor of that engagement.

Unable to escape from Vatican City, he began to search for survivors to create a resistance.

This is his personally customized weapon. It sports different sights, altered pistol grips, a 50 round drum magazine, and a sling attachment point.

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Symmetry

A plot in Motion

As excerpted from

“An Odyssey Less Taken “@

 

Tallie looked into the mirror as the bound Olivia stirred, a self-satisfied smirk lighting up her pretty face. It was time to administer the syringe containing the liquid that would render Olivia unconscious until late the next morning, giving them plenty of time. Olivia would wake thinking she had been the victim of a robbery. She should have no clue that the real reason was a simple piece of paper she had had tucked away inside her gold purse.

 

A couple of hours earlier:

 

Tallie had jogged into the upscale inn’s main lobby wearing a black running suite with her long,hair tucked up under a neoprene running cap. Playing the part of a guest who had gone out for exercise, she was also wearing thin gloves, wide wraparound sunglasses, small backpack and listening to music on her I Phone. She took up station in a corner of the inns’ huge lobby, like she was resting, while listening to her music. Ten minutes later, Olivia, whom Tallie had been shadowing, came in. Olivia had been easy to follow. An eye catching figure clad in a gold silk dress and pearls. She was carrying a shiny gold purse, and holding a bag containing a deep purple satin gown. Olivia had headed straight to the elevator, tapped her floor button and disappeared inside.

 

Tallie spent an uncomfortably anxious 10 minutes deciding what to do. Olivia had not gone to the front desk to take her jewels from the safe. Although her jewelry was not a main part of the plan, Tallie had loftier goals in mind, they did present a rather profitable bonus. Tallie decided to proceed, not wanting to blow the whole operation for a few pretty baubles. She had just risen when the elevator tinged. The doors opened, and Olivia exited into the lobby, still clad in the gold silk, and headed to the desk. There, she had the manager retrieve a black case. Showtime Tallie thought, relieved now that she had waited, watching as Olivia once again left in the elevator. Ten minutes after that, it was time to put the plan in motion. Using her I Phone, Tallie rang Olivia’s room pretending to be a hotel employee. “Someone had found something of yours in the lobby; a manager is on her way up with it.” She hung up not giving Olivia any chance for response.

  

From then, it had gone like clockwork. Tallie, with delight, watched the shocked look on Olivia’s face when she opened the door expecting a female hotel manager, but instead came face to face with a Taser wielding double of herself, Tallie! Firing the Taser, the shocked girl slumped into Tallies’ welcome arms. Kicking the door shut, Tallie pulled Olivia into the bathroom, where she was then bound and gagged. To make it look like a robbery, Tallie stripped Olivia of her pearl necklace, earrings, bracelets and rings. Then she quickly looted the apartment of any other small, but valuable items. Placing these items, along with the small backpack, into a leather clutch. Tallie then went to the dresser top and opened the black case sitting there. She whistled to herself as she savored the shiny contents. Looking them over, she made a selection, then poured the remaining jewelry into the clutch, glittering explosive fire as they went. She placed the selected diamond jewelry on the bathroom sink. Tallie found Olivia’s gold purse and opened it and pulled the ticket out. Studying, with eager eyes, the prize they had worked so hard to obtain. The small ticket was the key to the whole plot, worth potentially millions.

  

Carrying the purse to the bathroom, Tallie started to get ready. De bagging Olivia’s purple gown, she slipped it on. It poured over her curvy figure perfectly, as they had known it would. Tallie had switched her calfskin gloves for a pair of Olivia’s satin ones. It was as she had been putting on Olivia’s glittering diamonds that the tied up girl started to stir. Walking over to the groggy eyed girl, Tallie pretended to fumble with the ropes knots, and administered the hypo containing the knockout drops. After checking the heavily sedated Olivia’s Pulse, Tallie finished putting on the unlucky girls jewels.

 

Tallie admired herself in the mirror, almost not recognizing herself. She had dyed her midnight black hair blonde to match Olivia‘s and had put in blue tinted contacts. The clingy gown fitted snugly in all the right places, tightly outlining her perky breasts and nicely rounded butt. Very nice, thought Tallie beaming. After putting on Olivia’s stiletto heels, Tallie pronounced herself ready. Picking up the purse, she patted it for luck, and went into the bedroom. Tallie called the front desk, asking to have a limo called to pick her up out front, then she also ordered a wakeup call with breakfast for eleven o’clock the next morning. Hanging up the phone, Tallie still had 12 minutes left to kill. She spent it retracing her steps around the entire apartment making sure nothing had been overlooked, and then double checked that Olivia was going to stay out of the picture. When her time was up, Tallie snatched the clutch up from the satin covers of the bed, heavy now with Olivia’s valuables and her running suit and backpack. Tallie left the apartment, closing the door after hanging a do not disturb sign on the lever. Tallie entered the empty elevator , pushed the down button, and focused on the task at hand.

  

Finally, after seemingly endless months of careful plotting, preparation, rehearsals and dry runs. It was time. The whole scheme had been planned to the minutest detail, it had to be. The main prize was the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of jewels worn by the female guests attending the annual formal Casino Night by the Bay Ball. The annual black tie ball was a Republican Political Fundraiser by special invitation only and Olivia, who had been carefully selected and shadowed for weeks now, had been one of the lucky ticket holders. As a final coup de grâce , Tallie would attend the ball wearing Olivia’s luxurious gown and her brilliantly expensive diamonds, fitting right in with the other attendees. Security would be checking ID’s at the door. But Tallie now resembled Olivia almost to a T. She would fool those rent a cops easily as they checked her against Olivia‘s driver’s license for identification, bending over and showing a little bosom for added distraction. Tallie couldn’t wait to mingle and rub elbows with the galas ultra-rich patrons. She would mark her time by mingling and endearing herself to as many of the male guests as possible in the short time allotted to her. She would use her rich welsh brogue to the fullest to win over the posh male Yanks. All the while admiring the shiny gowns and scoping out the shimmering jewels that would be adorning her fellow female guests. Those jewels would include the Dahlkemper pearls, the Caboyt diamonds with the brilliant sapphires that placed the “Hope Diamond” to shame, and, of course, the famous matching waterfall diamond sets the Dempsey Twins would be wearing (Not to mention their Mother’s emeralds and rubies) . The sets, which had been presented as gifts at the twins ultra- fancy coning out ball, were insured for over 1 million dollars by the girls parents.

  

Then at the appointed hour, Tallie would slip away to a seldom used back stage door, conveniently hidden neath a stairwell. Security would not have this door covered. It was there that Tallies’ husband and his troupe of fellow masked thieves would be waiting to make their entrance. If all went to plan and it would, she was sure of that, they would proceed to hold up and rob all the guests. Relieving the lot of their fat designer purses, thick leather wallets, gold Rolexes, and of course, their jewels, Lots and lots of shimmering, pricy jewelry. Not to mention the piles of loose cash lying on the gambling tables begging to be collected. Tallie’s heart beat faster at the enticing visions.

 

After the last guest had been relieved of their valuables, Tallie’s next part of the plot would come. This was where Tallie’s experience as an actress would pay off. The thieves would grab an innocent hostage (Tallie) by knifepoint Then, while threatening the life of the frightened squirming hostage, order the rest of the guests to strip off their clothing. If Tallie had played her part well, mingling and playing the doe eyed innocent who reminded those she met as someone who they would love to protect, her fellow guests would not want to see her harmed and be obedient to the robbers threats, not wishing any harm to come to her. The guests would be threatened to not to try anything for the next hour, or they would eliminate their hostage. The gang would then leave with their loot, as well as their hapless hostage. Then they would make, what in Tallie’s opinion, was a rather brilliantly orchestrated get away.

  

This was not the first time out for Tallie and her husband’s team, but it promised to be their last. The gang had been operating in Europe and Latin America, seeking out small, but lucrative, gatherings of the privileged and ultra-wealthy. They had gotten quite adept, fine tuning a formula that successfully paid attention to even the minutest detail.

  

Tallie loved playing the part of the inside victim. Getting as close as possible to the female guests (usually by flirting with husbands and boyfriends) to get a close appraisal of their jewels. Then, after letting her husband and crew loose, observing the well-dressed guests being herded to line up along the wall with raised hands. Usually creating a colorful array of swishing lace, satin, silk , velvety gowns and dresses, all flowing along forlorn figures. It was a thrill to watch their facial and body expressions and reactions. Especially of the women and girls present, as they were forced to hand over their flashy gemstones, their Shiny gold and silver, opulent pearls and other assorted fine jewelry were handed over reluctantly from about their persons.

 

Then would come the part that really aroused Tallie. The thieves would reach her and tell her to “fork over the jewels miss,” and depending on her mood, would do so, either acting defiant and forcing them to take them off her, or frightened(especially if the thief was her husband) , and timidly handing them over. She would be squirming inside with a deep, delicious delight as she took off , or had the thief wrench off, each precious piece. It was a reaction she did not fully understand, but just knew and accepted it as a scintillating feeling. Tallie, shivered, licking her lips at past memories of being a robbery “victim”.

  

The band had no qualms about was fair game, boldly invading Weddings, Receptions, Fancy dress dances and even the upscale prom or mansion party. All had been meticulously planned, all had been very lucrative. Their last raid had been carried out on a coming out party for an English Earl/ Minister and his titled wife’s only daughter. It had occurred at the minister’s isolated country manor located deep in the moors. Where, in addition to the jewels worn by the guests that ill-fated Saturday evening, the manor’s many bedroom safes yielded a dazzling array of cases of unworn jewelry brought by the guests for the four day weekend.

  

Tallie fondly remembered that raid. She had gained access to the family by going as the guest of a rather vain bachelor she had “happened to make an acquaintance with,” in London. The dinner gatherings and nightly parties that had led up to the night of the debutante’s ball had been all over the top, as only very old money can pull off. Tallie had almost suffered a system overload by observing the bounty of rich offerings at her fingertips. Beckoning jewels so very close, and as of yet, so very far. The Saturday evening ball could not have come soon enough. But come it did, and the minister’s daughter did not disappoint, nor did her mother or any other of their female guests. The young debutante had made her grand entrance in a long slinky blood red gown and matching gloves. Among the child’s perfect jewels was included an authentic family heirloom tiara, dripping with pristine diamonds, holding up the wavy curls of her silky fawn hair.

  

Tallies mouth had watered as she kept stealing looks, keeping her eyes glued to the precocious miss all evening. She inwardly was squirming with anticipation, up until the delightful moment when the begowned debutante limply removed and handed over the tiara, along with the rest of her gleaming diamonds and pearls to one of the gang of masked robbers who had had the “audacity “ to crash the party..

  

Now, Tallie was traditionally allowed to keep one piece of jewelry from the loot taken from each job as part of her take if she so desired. She always enjoyed picking out pieces she would like to have as she mingled with her fellow guests before her husband’s gang charged in. In the coming out party it had been the sad puppy faced debutante‘s cascading diamond earrings that Tallie had claimed for her own from the minute she first saw them dangling from the pretty girl’s delicate ears. Tallie had subsequently worn and been “robbed” of those earrings several times on jobs since then.

  

After the Manor house’s guests had been relieved of their valuables, the gang had made its getaway, seemingly vanishing into the moors misty air. The mechanics of that escape would form the basis of their getaway attempt after this evening’s robbery of the wealthy guests attending the “By the Bay Ball” Actually the symmetry of the two events did not stop there. The profit realized by the take from the Earl’s family and guests had given the gang the seed money for the enormous expense in planning tonight’s complex raid. And tonight’s successful raid on the ball, appropriately enough, its diamond jubilee, would be splashed over all of the countries newspapers, like the Manor raid had been. And like after the Manor raid, Tallie and her husband would be reading those papers in the safty of their isolated island retreat.

 

******************

 

As Tallie dwelt on that remembrance, the elevator completed its long, uninterrupted journey by tinging its 1st floor arrival. Showtime! Tallie thought with wry amusement as she stepped into the now crowded lobby. Tonight would be more of the same tingling robbery experiences, only ten times better and since it may very well be her last time , Tallie was going to savor every delicious minute.

 

Tallie left the elevator and moved quickly towards the sitting area she had occupied when watching for Olivia to come in. In one of the chairs sat a young man wearing wraparound sunglasses reading a blue covered novel. She swished by him, allowing her satin clad leg to brush along his. She watched with enticement as he straightened, uncomfortably, in his chair, his reaction to her teasing pleasing her immensely . Going around him, she placed her clutch on the chair behind him before turning and primping herself in front of one of the long mirrored walls that lined the sitting area. Seeing that no one as of yet was looking her way, she smiled to herself and swished her way back into the main lobby, leaving behind her clutch. She again passed the young man, who, even with the sunglasses, bore a striking resemblance to a young Sidney Poitier! No signal passed between them. The blue novel meant everything was going as planned, a red novel would have meant danger. The clutch on the chair behind him signaled the young man she had teased, Jessie by name , that everything was a go on Tallies end. After she left, Jessie would retrieve the clutch and rejoin Tallies husband and the rest of his gang.

  

With the prearranged signals exchanged, Tallie happily made her way to the fancy Glass doors where a uniformed Doorman was opening for arriving and departing guests. She could feel more than one pair of jealous eyes following her as she weaved her way through the crowd, her long gown swishing deliciously along her pretty figure. The pretty blond in the purple satin and shimmering diamonds was soon lost to sight, as she exited the doors to the misty street below. Those watching her were totally oblivious that the pretty blonde passing them was setting into motion the complex wheels of a rather ingenious scheme. Meanwhile in a ballroom some miles away a large group of extremely well dressed and decked out guests attending a certain excessively extravagant Ball , were innocently mingling, jewels sparkled with a frenzied riot of colours! These heavily gem encrusted guests were also totally oblivious as to what fate had in store for them in a few hours.

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@ Chatwick University extends its compliments to the unknown artist whose worthy photo and captivating title proved to be the spark that ignited the genesis of our Tallies Odyssey….

 

Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.

 

As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.

 

Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.

 

Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.

 

On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.

 

The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.

 

During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

 

In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

 

California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.

 

The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.

 

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.

 

Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.

 

The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.

 

Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.

 

The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.

 

The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.

 

After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.

 

Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.

  

The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.

During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.

 

During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.

 

In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.

 

From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.

 

One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.

 

After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.

 

In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.

 

The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

 

Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.

 

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.

 

In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.

 

The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.

 

In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.

 

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.

 

At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.

 

Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.

 

In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

 

Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.

 

Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.

 

In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.

 

Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.

 

To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.

 

Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.

 

In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.

 

Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.

 

In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.

 

Until the mid-1920s, American commercial airplanes were built for mail, not people. A passenger flying in Boeing's earlier Model 40 was in for an uncomfortable trip. People were a secondary consideration, packed like sardines into the cold and noisy fuselage. Nevertheless, the Model 40 demonstrated that carrying a passenger or two in addition to mail could be profitable. Boeing thus turned its attention to its first aircraft specifically designed for passenger operations, the Model 80. The 80 first flew in August 1928 and was working along Boeing Air Transport's route two weeks later. The 12-passenger Model 80 and the more-powerful 18-passenger 80A (re-designated 80A-1s when the tail surfaces were modified in 1930) stayed in service until 1934, when they were replaced by the all-metal Boeing Model 247. A total of 16 of the Model 80 series were produced.

 

Along with the Ford, Fokker, and Stinson Tri-Motors, the 80 was a new breed of passenger aircraft, introducing some comfort to travel. The 80A had room for 18, a heated cabin, and leather seats. There were individual reading lights and the lavatory featured hot and cold running water. Although the 80 had a relatively luxurious interior, flying was tough by today's standards: the cabin wasn't pressurized, flights occurred in the turbulent lower atmosphere, engine noise made conversation difficult, and despite heaters, the cabin was sometimes very cold.

 

In 1930, Ellen Church, a student pilot and registered nurse, convinced Boeing management to hire female cabin attendants for their Model 80 flights. Until then, it had been the co-pilot's duty to pass out box lunches, serve coffee, and tend to the passenger's needs. Church reasoned that the sight of women working aboard the Boeing 80s would alleviate the passenger's fear of air travel. She and seven others, all registered nurses, became America's first "stewardesses." Serving on a trial basis, they were very popular and became a permanent part of commercial aviation.

 

The Museum's Model 80A-1, equipped with three Pratt & Whitney 525-horsepower "Hornet" engines, was the last 80 retired from service with United in 1934. The airplane was later privately owned for several years, barnstorming and conducting joy rides in the Pacific Northwest. It was also used as a flying electric billboard for night advertising in Southern California. In 1941, it became a cargo aircraft with a construction firm in Alaska. To carry large equipment, including a massive 11,000-pound (4,950 kg) boiler, a cargo door was cut into the plane's side and structural reinforcements added.

 

After the war, the hard-working 80 was stored and then discarded. It was recovered from an Anchorage dump in 1960 and eventually brought to Seattle for restoration via a U.S. Air Force C-124. The Model 80A-1 restoration project served as a catalyst for establishment of the Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation, which later became The Museum of Flight. It is the only surviving example of the Boeing Model 80 series, and is now a centerpiece of the Museum’s collection in the Great Gallery.

Symmetry

A plot in Motion

As excerpted from

“An Odyssey Less Taken “@

 

Tallie looked into the mirror as the bound Olivia stirred, a self-satisfied smirk lighting up her pretty face. It was time to administer the syringe containing the liquid that would render Olivia unconscious until late the next morning, giving them plenty of time. Olivia would wake thinking she had been the victim of a robbery. She should have no clue that the real reason was a simple piece of paper she had had tucked away inside her gold purse.

 

A couple of hours earlier:

 

Tallie had jogged into the upscale inn’s main lobby wearing a black running suite with her long,hair tucked up under a neoprene running cap. Playing the part of a guest who had gone out for exercise, she was also wearing thin gloves, wide wraparound sunglasses, small backpack and listening to music on her I Phone. She took up station in a corner of the inns’ huge lobby, like she was resting, while listening to her music. Ten minutes later, Olivia, whom Tallie had been shadowing, came in. Olivia had been easy to follow. An eye catching figure clad in a gold silk dress and pearls. She was carrying a shiny gold purse, and holding a bag containing a deep purple satin gown. Olivia had headed straight to the elevator, tapped her floor button and disappeared inside.

 

Tallie spent an uncomfortably anxious 10 minutes deciding what to do. Olivia had not gone to the front desk to take her jewels from the safe. Although her jewelry was not a main part of the plan, Tallie had loftier goals in mind, they did present a rather profitable bonus. Tallie decided to proceed, not wanting to blow the whole operation for a few pretty baubles. She had just risen when the elevator tinged. The doors opened, and Olivia exited into the lobby, still clad in the gold silk, and headed to the desk. There, she had the manager retrieve a black case. Showtime Tallie thought, relieved now that she had waited, watching as Olivia once again left in the elevator. Ten minutes after that, it was time to put the plan in motion. Using her I Phone, Tallie rang Olivia’s room pretending to be a hotel employee. “Someone had found something of yours in the lobby; a manager is on her way up with it.” She hung up not giving Olivia any chance for response.

  

From then, it had gone like clockwork. Tallie, with delight, watched the shocked look on Olivia’s face when she opened the door expecting a female hotel manager, but instead came face to face with a Taser wielding double of herself, Tallie! Firing the Taser, the shocked girl slumped into Tallies’ welcome arms. Kicking the door shut, Tallie pulled Olivia into the bathroom, where she was then bound and gagged. To make it look like a robbery, Tallie stripped Olivia of her pearl necklace, earrings, bracelets and rings. Then she quickly looted the apartment of any other small, but valuable items. Placing these items, along with the small backpack, into a leather clutch. Tallie then went to the dresser top and opened the black case sitting there. She whistled to herself as she savored the shiny contents. Looking them over, she made a selection, then poured the remaining jewelry into the clutch, glittering explosive fire as they went. She placed the selected diamond jewelry on the bathroom sink. Tallie found Olivia’s gold purse and opened it and pulled the ticket out. Studying, with eager eyes, the prize they had worked so hard to obtain. The small ticket was the key to the whole plot, worth potentially millions.

  

Carrying the purse to the bathroom, Tallie started to get ready. De bagging Olivia’s purple gown, she slipped it on. It poured over her curvy figure perfectly, as they had known it would. Tallie had switched her calfskin gloves for a pair of Olivia’s satin ones. It was as she had been putting on Olivia’s glittering diamonds that the tied up girl started to stir. Walking over to the groggy eyed girl, Tallie pretended to fumble with the ropes knots, and administered the hypo containing the knockout drops. After checking the heavily sedated Olivia’s Pulse, Tallie finished putting on the unlucky girls jewels.

 

Tallie admired herself in the mirror, almost not recognizing herself. She had dyed her midnight black hair blonde to match Olivia‘s and had put in blue tinted contacts. The clingy gown fitted snugly in all the right places, tightly outlining her perky breasts and nicely rounded butt. Very nice, thought Tallie beaming. After putting on Olivia’s stiletto heels, Tallie pronounced herself ready. Picking up the purse, she patted it for luck, and went into the bedroom. Tallie called the front desk, asking to have a limo called to pick her up out front, then she also ordered a wakeup call with breakfast for eleven o’clock the next morning. Hanging up the phone, Tallie still had 12 minutes left to kill. She spent it retracing her steps around the entire apartment making sure nothing had been overlooked, and then double checked that Olivia was going to stay out of the picture. When her time was up, Tallie snatched the clutch up from the satin covers of the bed, heavy now with Olivia’s valuables and her running suit and backpack. Tallie left the apartment, closing the door after hanging a do not disturb sign on the lever. Tallie entered the empty elevator , pushed the down button, and focused on the task at hand.

  

Finally, after seemingly endless months of careful plotting, preparation, rehearsals and dry runs. It was time. The whole scheme had been planned to the minutest detail, it had to be. The main prize was the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of jewels worn by the female guests attending the annual formal Casino Night by the Bay Ball. The annual black tie ball was a Republican Political Fundraiser by special invitation only and Olivia, who had been carefully selected and shadowed for weeks now, had been one of the lucky ticket holders. As a final coup de grâce , Tallie would attend the ball wearing Olivia’s luxurious gown and her brilliantly expensive diamonds, fitting right in with the other attendees. Security would be checking ID’s at the door. But Tallie now resembled Olivia almost to a T. She would fool those rent a cops easily as they checked her against Olivia‘s driver’s license for identification, bending over and showing a little bosom for added distraction. Tallie couldn’t wait to mingle and rub elbows with the galas ultra-rich patrons. She would mark her time by mingling and endearing herself to as many of the male guests as possible in the short time allotted to her. She would use her rich welsh brogue to the fullest to win over the posh male Yanks. All the while admiring the shiny gowns and scoping out the shimmering jewels that would be adorning her fellow female guests. Those jewels would include the Dahlkemper pearls, the Caboyt diamonds with the brilliant sapphires that placed the “Hope Diamond” to shame, and, of course, the famous matching waterfall diamond sets the Dempsey Twins would be wearing (Not to mention their Mother’s emeralds and rubies) . The sets, which had been presented as gifts at the twins ultra- fancy coning out ball, were insured for over 1 million dollars by the girls parents.

  

Then at the appointed hour, Tallie would slip away to a seldom used back stage door, conveniently hidden neath a stairwell. Security would not have this door covered. It was there that Tallies’ husband and his troupe of fellow masked thieves would be waiting to make their entrance. If all went to plan and it would, she was sure of that, they would proceed to hold up and rob all the guests. Relieving the lot of their fat designer purses, thick leather wallets, gold Rolexes, and of course, their jewels, Lots and lots of shimmering, pricy jewelry. Not to mention the piles of loose cash lying on the gambling tables begging to be collected. Tallie’s heart beat faster at the enticing visions.

 

After the last guest had been relieved of their valuables, Tallie’s next part of the plot would come. This was where Tallie’s experience as an actress would pay off. The thieves would grab an innocent hostage (Tallie) by knifepoint Then, while threatening the life of the frightened squirming hostage, order the rest of the guests to strip off their clothing. If Tallie had played her part well, mingling and playing the doe eyed innocent who reminded those she met as someone who they would love to protect, her fellow guests would not want to see her harmed and be obedient to the robbers threats, not wishing any harm to come to her. The guests would be threatened to not to try anything for the next hour, or they would eliminate their hostage. The gang would then leave with their loot, as well as their hapless hostage. Then they would make, what in Tallie’s opinion, was a rather brilliantly orchestrated get away.

  

This was not the first time out for Tallie and her husband’s team, but it promised to be their last. The gang had been operating in Europe and Latin America, seeking out small, but lucrative, gatherings of the privileged and ultra-wealthy. They had gotten quite adept, fine tuning a formula that successfully paid attention to even the minutest detail.

  

Tallie loved playing the part of the inside victim. Getting as close as possible to the female guests (usually by flirting with husbands and boyfriends) to get a close appraisal of their jewels. Then, after letting her husband and crew loose, observing the well-dressed guests being herded to line up along the wall with raised hands. Usually creating a colorful array of swishing lace, satin, silk , velvety gowns and dresses, all flowing along forlorn figures. It was a thrill to watch their facial and body expressions and reactions. Especially of the women and girls present, as they were forced to hand over their flashy gemstones, their Shiny gold and silver, opulent pearls and other assorted fine jewelry were handed over reluctantly from about their persons.

 

Then would come the part that really aroused Tallie. The thieves would reach her and tell her to “fork over the jewels miss,” and depending on her mood, would do so, either acting defiant and forcing them to take them off her, or frightened(especially if the thief was her husband) , and timidly handing them over. She would be squirming inside with a deep, delicious delight as she took off , or had the thief wrench off, each precious piece. It was a reaction she did not fully understand, but just knew and accepted it as a scintillating feeling. Tallie, shivered, licking her lips at past memories of being a robbery “victim”.

  

The band had no qualms about was fair game, boldly invading Weddings, Receptions, Fancy dress dances and even the upscale prom or mansion party. All had been meticulously planned, all had been very lucrative. Their last raid had been carried out on a coming out party for an English Earl/ Minister and his titled wife’s only daughter. It had occurred at the minister’s isolated country manor located deep in the moors. Where, in addition to the jewels worn by the guests that ill-fated Saturday evening, the manor’s many bedroom safes yielded a dazzling array of cases of unworn jewelry brought by the guests for the four day weekend.

  

Tallie fondly remembered that raid. She had gained access to the family by going as the guest of a rather vain bachelor she had “happened to make an acquaintance with,” in London. The dinner gatherings and nightly parties that had led up to the night of the debutante’s ball had been all over the top, as only very old money can pull off. Tallie had almost suffered a system overload by observing the bounty of rich offerings at her fingertips. Beckoning jewels so very close, and as of yet, so very far. The Saturday evening ball could not have come soon enough. But come it did, and the minister’s daughter did not disappoint, nor did her mother or any other of their female guests. The young debutante had made her grand entrance in a long slinky blood red gown and matching gloves. Among the child’s perfect jewels was included an authentic family heirloom tiara, dripping with pristine diamonds, holding up the wavy curls of her silky fawn hair.

  

Tallies mouth had watered as she kept stealing looks, keeping her eyes glued to the precocious miss all evening. She inwardly was squirming with anticipation, up until the delightful moment when the begowned debutante limply removed and handed over the tiara, along with the rest of her gleaming diamonds and pearls to one of the gang of masked robbers who had had the “audacity “ to crash the party..

  

Now, Tallie was traditionally allowed to keep one piece of jewelry from the loot taken from each job as part of her take if she so desired. She always enjoyed picking out pieces she would like to have as she mingled with her fellow guests before her husband’s gang charged in. In the coming out party it had been the sad puppy faced debutante‘s cascading diamond earrings that Tallie had claimed for her own from the minute she first saw them dangling from the pretty girl’s delicate ears. Tallie had subsequently worn and been “robbed” of those earrings several times on jobs since then.

  

After the Manor house’s guests had been relieved of their valuables, the gang had made its getaway, seemingly vanishing into the moors misty air. The mechanics of that escape would form the basis of their getaway attempt after this evening’s robbery of the wealthy guests attending the “By the Bay Ball” Actually the symmetry of the two events did not stop there. The profit realized by the take from the Earl’s family and guests had given the gang the seed money for the enormous expense in planning tonight’s complex raid. And tonight’s successful raid on the ball, appropriately enough, its diamond jubilee, would be splashed over all of the countries newspapers, like the Manor raid had been. And like after the Manor raid, Tallie and her husband would be reading those papers in the safty of their isolated island retreat.

 

******************

 

As Tallie dwelt on that remembrance, the elevator completed its long, uninterrupted journey by tinging its 1st floor arrival. Showtime! Tallie thought with wry amusement as she stepped into the now crowded lobby. Tonight would be more of the same tingling robbery experiences, only ten times better and since it may very well be her last time , Tallie was going to savor every delicious minute.

 

Tallie left the elevator and moved quickly towards the sitting area she had occupied when watching for Olivia to come in. In one of the chairs sat a young man wearing wraparound sunglasses reading a blue covered novel. She swished by him, allowing her satin clad leg to brush along his. She watched with enticement as he straightened, uncomfortably, in his chair, his reaction to her teasing pleasing her immensely . Going around him, she placed her clutch on the chair behind him before turning and primping herself in front of one of the long mirrored walls that lined the sitting area. Seeing that no one as of yet was looking her way, she smiled to herself and swished her way back into the main lobby, leaving behind her clutch. She again passed the young man, who, even with the sunglasses, bore a striking resemblance to a young Sidney Poitier! No signal passed between them. The blue novel meant everything was going as planned, a red novel would have meant danger. The clutch on the chair behind him signaled the young man she had teased, Jessie by name , that everything was a go on Tallies end. After she left, Jessie would retrieve the clutch and rejoin Tallies husband and the rest of his gang.

  

With the prearranged signals exchanged, Tallie happily made her way to the fancy Glass doors where a uniformed Doorman was opening for arriving and departing guests. She could feel more than one pair of jealous eyes following her as she weaved her way through the crowd, her long gown swishing deliciously along her pretty figure. The pretty blond in the purple satin and shimmering diamonds was soon lost to sight, as she exited the doors to the misty street below. Those watching her were totally oblivious that the pretty blonde passing them was setting into motion the complex wheels of a rather ingenious scheme. Meanwhile in a ballroom some miles away a large group of extremely well dressed and decked out guests attending a certain excessively extravagant Ball , were innocently mingling, jewels sparkled with a frenzied riot of colours! These heavily gem encrusted guests were also totally oblivious as to what fate had in store for them in a few hours.

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@ Chatwick University extends its compliments to the unknown artist whose worthy photo and captivating title proved to be the spark that ignited the genesis of our Tallies Odyssey….

Turn of a Friendly Card

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Based on a true adventures of a rogue active in the waning years of the 1930’s as discovered in the criminal archives of Chatwick University.

 

Act 1

I begin my tale in the present…

 

That afternoon a soiree was given as part of the purchase price of the tickets for the annual Autumn Charity Ball to be presented later that evening at the manor’s great house. Since I was alone, I just went mainly for the free food and to rub my elbows with the wealthy guests who would be in happy attendance there, and at the Ball. I was alone, but certainly not bored. There was a game I enjoyed playing to pass the time at these affairs that entailed scoping out by their dress and day jewels worn, those ladies whom would be most likely to be wearing the better costumes and sparklers that evening. It often proved to be a most beneficial insight into the actions and mannerisms of the very rich. I walked amongst the cheerful guests, eying one here ( a lady in satin and pearls) and another there( a high spirited girl with a diamond pin at the throat of her frilly silken blouse). It was as I was passing the latter that the friend she had been talking too (dressed like a vamp), bumped up against me. I caught her, steadying her as they both giggled. I didn’t mind, for the lassie’s too tight satin sheath tea dress had been an enticement to hold, and the gold bracelet that had been dangling from her gloved wrist had been a pleasure to observe. I kissed her gloved hand, rings glittering, as I apologized gallantly for my clumsiness. Her eyes were bright, almost as bright as the twin necklaces of gold that hung swaying down pleasantly from between her ample bosom. I left them, moving on to greener pastures, and it was very green, all of it….

 

It was then that I detected another pretty lassie. It was her long fiery red hair with falling wispy curls that first captured my attention. She was wearing a fetchingly smart white chiffon party dress that commanded me to acquire a closer examination. She appeared to be a blithe spirit, seemingly content with just being by herself and roaming about with casual elegance, the extensive grounds of the manor proper. I began to discreetly follow her at a distance. Although she did not wear any jewelry, her manner and the eloquent way she moved is what attracted me the most. It would be very interesting to seek her out later that evening and she what she would have chosen to decorate herself with. I followed her as she sojourned into the depths of a traditional English garden with a maze of lushly green trimmed 8 foot high hedges

 

As I strolled through the hedgerows in her wake I allowed my mind to wander its own course. Suddenly I straightened up, my reverie broken by an epiphany of sorts. I allowed myself to grin and the lady whose enchantment I was swollen up in, at that moment turned, and seeing my beaming smile assumed it was for her and gave me a rather cute nod of her head. I answered in same, as I headed en route to a nearby stone garden bench to allow my thoughts to think through themselves.

 

But before I go on, allow me the pleasure to sojourn and reminisce about an incident that occurred several years prior:

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I was still working unaided in those days, travelling on to a new next quest that would take me just outside of Surrey.

I had just purchased my train ticket and had seen my luggage safe on board when I decided to rest in the lounge, it being some 45 minutes before allowed to enter personally aboard. Being so early the lounge was almost deserted, only one other occupant. I assumed she was waiting for someone on an incoming train due to the fact she carried no luggage. She was obviously well off, well dressed in satins and lace, and her jewels shone magnificently in the dim lights. Especially one of her rings, noticeably lying loosely around a finger, it sparkled with an expensive brilliance. I had seen one like it in a tiffanies store, worth almost 250 pounds. But she did not appreciate the show her jewelry was putting on under the lounge lights, for she was fast asleep.

 

I circled around her, aiming for a seat next to her, eyeing her and her possessions carefully. I noticed her purse had fallen off her lap and lay on the floor. An idea popped into my head, and I picked the purse up, and looked around carefully, before placing my plan into action. But I was thwarted as an older, matronly lady was spotted heading our way. I slipped the purse into my jacket and moved off before I was noticed. Of course she came in and took the empty seat across form the sleeping princess, and soon busied herself with knitting. As the older lady had sat down, not quietly, the wealthy lady stirred waking up at the noise. I went into a corner and sat, waiting. The two ladies soon fell into conversation; the minute’s ticked by excruciatingly slow. Soon I noticed we even had more company.

He was a lad of only fourteen, but with a devilish look about him that marked him a kindred spirit to meself, and his quick eyes were darting about taking it all in as he stood outside the paned glass window.

 

It was as the first announcement of boarding the train that I saw a chance for opportunity to strike.

The older lady folded up her knitting and clinching her bag, bid adieu to her new friend,( befuddled a little by the old ladies constant stream of gossip), and headed to the train. I was twenty steps ahead of her and was standing behind the youth as she left the lounge. I tapped him on the shoulder; he looked around at me suspiciously, and then caught sight of the shilling I was holding in front of his nose. I quickly whispered a few words into his ear on how he could earn it, and his grin spread as he bought into my story. I still held onto the shilling as he darted around and inside the lounge. I watched as he ran up behind the lady, circling her, then running in front of her he tripped over her leg, as she helped him up, her hand with the ring reaching down, he turned and spat onto the wrist and sleeve of that hand, than standing he ran away. Running alongside me, I handed him the shilling in passing as he ran off, disappearing in to the street.

 

I went inside and approached the astonished lady, as she was looking for her purse to get a handkerchief, confused as to its absence, while she held up her soiled hand( ring glittering furiously) in utter disbelief. I approached, catching her attention by the soothing words I uttered to her. I took her hand, unbelieving with her at just had happened, and I as I apologized for the youth of today I produced my own silk handkerchief and starting with her silky sleeve, began to wipe it off, continuing my tirade of displeasure and contempt at what had just occurred to the dear lady as I did so. As I finishing wiping her down, ending with her warm slender fingers, I kissed them, just as the last boarding announcement came over (perfect timing!) I let her go, explaining that I must catch my train. I turned and without looking back made the train just as it was letting off steam before chugging off.

 

I gained my private carriage just as the train began to lurch away. It wasn’t until after the train began its journey that I casually removed my silk handkerchief from my pocket and unwrapped it carefully, admiring up close the shimmering, valuable tiffany ring that was lying inside. I pocketed it, and then remembered the purse. I took it out and examined its contents: coin and notes equaling a handsome amount, a gold (gilded) case, embroidered lacy handkerchief, small silver flask of perfume, and ( of all things)a large shimmering prism , like one that would have dangled from a fancy crystal chandelier. A prism?, I questioned with interest as I examined it. It was pretty thing, about the circumference of a cricket ball, but shaped like a pendulum, it shimmered and glittered like the most precious of jewels. Why she had it in her purse? I couldn’t guess, and I saw no value in it, so I pocketed it and allowed it to leave my mind.

 

As I settled into my seat I began to think of the lad I had just met, I had been right on the money as far as his eagerness for mischief. Actually he reminded me of myself at that age, and I wondered if that lad with the shifty eyes would also turn out to follow the same course I had explored.

 

Which Begs the question, what had I turned out to become. And since I’m still reminiscing

I’ll give little background material about me, hopefully I don’t come across as being too conceited about my self-taught skills..

 

I had never been one to take the hard road, and even at a young age I was always looking for angles, or short cuts to make some money.

Once, while watching for some time a street magician and his acts. I observed a pick pocket working the crowd. He approached a pair of well-dressed ladies in shiny clothes, and standing behind them bided his time and then lifted a small pouch from one velvet purse, and a fat wallet from a silken one, then he moved on. Now both ladies were wearing shiny bracelets, one with jewels. I thought that he could have realized a greater profit if he had nicked one or both of the bracelets first, than try for the contents of their purses. The bracelets’ alone would have realized a far greater profit than what he lifted from their purses. It further occurred to me that by mimicking some of the sleight of hand tricks and misdirection that the magician was using on his audience, it could be accomplished. A hand placed on the right shoulder and as the lady turned right, whisk off the bracelet from her left wrist, and excuse oneself, that sort of thing.

 

So, I practiced (on my sisters, who proved to be willing accomplices to “my game”) and learned to pick their purses and pockets. I than moved onto their jewelry, starting by lifting bracelets and slipping away rings, before advancing to the brooches, necklaces and earrings they were wearing. After I was satisfied at my skill level, I went out and worked the streets. Sometimes using my one sister who was also hooked on what I was doing as a willing partner.

But I found myself still not being satisfied, in the back of my mind I thought there had to be a more lucrative way to turn a profit.

 

I’d found my answer when an attractive lady in a rustling satin gown zeroed in on me while I was “visiting” a ballroom. She was jeweled like a princess right up to the diamond band she wore holding up her piles of soft locks like a glimmering crown. The more she drank, the closer she got and I decided that her necklace would definitely help pay my expenses more than the contents of her purse (although I had already lifted the fat wallet from her small purse), and I did have very expensive tastes to pay for. So I took her onto the dance floor.

 

I was amazed at how easily I had been able to open the necklace’s clasp , slipping it over her satiny shoulder, lifting it off and placing it safely in my pocket with almost no effort. Then she decided to be playful once the song ended and brushed up against me. She felt the necklace in my pocket and before I could act she had her hand in and pulled it out.

 

The silly naive twit thought I was teasing her and told me that for my penance I had to go up to her suite in order to put it back on for her. I kept up the charade as best as I could.

 

And that’s where we ended up. A little bit of light fondling began as I placed the necklace back around her throat. I began to tease her, plied her with more and more alcohol as I tried to keep my distance, and virginity. Finally she passed out in a drunken stupor, but not before I had learned where she hid her valuables by suggesting she should lock her jewels up for the night..

 

With her safely unconscious, I began to strip her clean off all her jewels, reclaiming the necklace first. Then I visited all her jewelry casket and began looting it. I even took her small rhinestone clutch with the diamond clasp; of course I already had liberated its small wallet.

 

When I’d left her lying happily asleep in bed, still in her satin gown( the only item left to her that shined), I knew I had found a much more profitable line of “work”

 

So I began making circuits around to the haunts of the very rich, I still kept may hand in pickpocketing, so to speak, but centered only on those “pockets” containing mainly jewelry. I also began to carefully explore new ways of acquiring jewels” in masse”, so to speak.

 

Soon I had accumulated many tricks and tools, having them at my disposal to put into action once required, and for the remaining years up till the present had managed to live quite comfortably off of the ill-gotten gains using them allowed me to acquire.

 

Which brings me back to the train ride, my prism, and the rest of my background story before I retun to the present tale. Please be patient.

*****

So, anyway, I reached Surry without any further incident and disembarking, made my way out to the large country house where I would be staying to take a short rest, vacation if you will. But, pardon the play on words, for there is never any rest for the wicked, is there?

 

I had become acquainted with a servant of the old mansion ( almost a small castle, really) , that was about a mile off. I managed to learn a great deal, and soon found myself, on the pretense of visiting her, exploring the grounds. There was to be a grand ball taking place a couple of weekends away , and the maid had filled my ears with the riches that would be displayed by the multitude of regal ladies making an appearance. I began to think about trying to make a little bit of profit from my vacation. I am not sure how the idea developed, but the prism that I still had in my possession, came up centrally into my plans.

 

Late on the evening of the regal affair, I snuck over, covered head to toe in black, with my small satchel off tools by my side. I set up a candle behind an old stone ivy covered wall in a far corner of the rather large and intricate English garden that surrounded the inner circle around the mansion. I than strung the jewel-like prism in front of it. Standing behind the wall, I would strike the prism with a long stick I was holding whenever I observed sparkles emanating from silkily gowned ladies walking in the distance, solitary or in pairs. The prism would flash fire, sort of like a showy lure being used when fishing in a crooked trout stream. Only I was fishing for far sweeter game than trout. My objective was to trick certain types of jeweled ladies (scatterbrains some may call them) by luring them down onto the path beyond the wall, using their natural curiosity to my advantage.

 

I had at least two strikes rise up to my lure in the second hour.

On was a pretty lady in flowing green satin number, decorated with plenty of emeralds, which, hidden in the shadows, I observed were probably paste. I let her wonder about; as she looked and played with the shiny toy, remaining hidden until she grew bored and wandered off.

The second was a slender maiden wearing a long sleek black gown with long ivory silk gloves. I had never before seen a lady so decked out in jewels, literally head to toe. With the exception of the rhinestones adorning her heels, the rest of the lot was real, so valuably real that I could feel my mouth salivating at the thoughts of acquiring her riches. Now in Edwardian times only older, married ladies would be allowed the privilege of wearing a diamond Tiara. But in these modern times, it had become culturally acceptable for any well-to do lady, single or otherwise, to wear one out in society. Even so, they were still rarely worn, and seldom seen outside the safety of large gatherings. But there it was, a small, delicately slender piece of intricate art that glistened from the top of her head like some elegant beacon. That piece alone was probably worth more than I had made all the last four months combined!

I began to skirt around in the shadows, placing myself in position to cut off her retreat. Her diamonds blazed as she approached, eyeing the swinging prism with total concentration. Which was unfortunate, because as I was about to leave the shadows, she walked into the thorns of a rose bush, screeching out, and attracting the notice of a pair of gentlemen who had just crossed the path quite a ways off, called out when they heard the commotion. She started to become chatty with them, obviously coming on to her rescuers, my prism all but forgotten. Than before I knew it, in a swishing of her long gown, she was gone, “swimming” off before I was able to set me ”hook”.

 

Which I was able to do on the third strike, almost an hour later, just as I was beginning to ponder wither I should call it off and head back home..

 

They were a pair of young damsels in their young twenties. They may have been sisters, or cousins at the least. I still remember how my heart leapt into my throat as they observed my colourful prism and turned down the old flagstone path. I had not seen anyone out and about for some time, so I knew they would be no would be rescuers around to come to their aid

And, best of all, they were both dressed for the kill!

One, the blonde, was clad in a black velvet number that one could cannily describe as quite form fitting. As were the small ropes of pearls that hung from all points of interest, pretty with a matching pricelessness.

But her cousin, as I will refer to her, out shone black velvet quite literally.

This one, a stunning raven haired beauty, wore a long streaming gown of liquid ivory satin. A diamond brooch sparkled as it held up a fold of the gown to her waist. The fold allowed her to show a rather daring amount of a slender bare calf. The brooch was not paste, but a real jewel that had been added for the nights festivities ( To be successful, one learns to read these signs accurately) Her ears and neckline were home to a matching set of pure white diamonds. A wide diamond bracelet graced a bare right wrist ,so she must be left handed I instinctively thought, an observation that would have aided me if I were planning on having a go for slipping the bracelet from her wrist, but tonight I was planning a much more daring attempt to empty the entire jewel casket, so to speak.

 

They went to the prism, playing with it a bit, I had begun to circle around, when I noticed black velvet pointing out with multiple ringed fingers, to something further down the path past the wall.

 

With a clicking of heels I let the pair pass, they apparently wanted to see what was on the other side of the wall. I followed; it was not hard, because the necklace the raven haired one wore, diamonds fully encircling her throat, rippled and sparkled from their perch, caught in the full harvest moon’s cast, giving me more than enough light to shadow them quietly .

 

After a while they caught on that something/someone was following them, but as they turned they could see nothing. I was in black, and hooded, invisible to them in the shadows of the trees. They whispered amongst themselves, now worried, realizing that there were dangers lurking beyond the pale, in their case, the safety of the gardens , especially for ones decked out as they were. They then turned and headed right back from where they had come, right into my waiting arms.

 

It is interesting what good breeding does for young, poised ladies. For, as I stepped out of the shadows, a finger of my right hand to my lips, my Fairborn in my left hand, its black blade glinting wickedly in the moonlight , they did not scream out or shout for help. Instead the pair merely let out small gasps, and then they both, in a quite charming synchronized display of disbelief, place each one hand over their open mouths, and the other upon their perspective necklaces.

 

And as I flourished my wicked looking Fairbairn–Sykes blade in their direction, they unquestioningly reached around and undid those pretty necklaces, tremblingly handing them out to me, like actresses following a well-read script. I took the little pretties and after stuffing them into my satchel, held out again my free hand, my fingers beckoning. Not a word was spoken between us, as the frightened pair of young ladies began removing their shimmering jewels and added them in a neat little growing pile along my open palm. The raven haired girl even undid her brooch without me having to command her to do so. Once I had stashed it all away, I motioned for them to turn back around, than with a little helpful prodding on my part, they began moving forward back down the hill, away from the garden. The one in white hobbling a little now as she kept tripping over the hem of her dress, now no longer held up by the stolen brooch.

 

After we had traveled about 200 meters I had them stop, and take off their high heels. Then picking the pretty things up, I motioned them to turn back around and made them walk back the way we had come in their bare feet, watching the pair awkwardly hobble barefooted down the wooded path. They would be quite a while on their journey back, allowing me more than ample time to make me escape. I threw their shoes off to the side and went briskly the other way, reaching the place was staying at , gaining my room without notice. But not before I had hidden the jewels inside an old stump to retrieve them at a later date. I never really heard so much as a whisper of the incident, other than from the pretty lips of my friendly maiden. The wee hours of the morning before my early departure for the train station found me revisiting the stump and retrieving my satchel and its precious cargo. After hiding it all in a false bottom of my case I laid my head on the pillow and drifted off to sleep as I wondered what had happened to the little prism, marveling at how useful it had ended up proving to be.

 

So, how does this story (journey rather) relate to the one I had already started? Please read on, and enrich your curiosity… my dear readers.

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Act 2

 

So, with apologies for my lengthy elucidation, but I now return you back to the garden party I was now attending on that warm fall day. But, as you will see, my prism story needed to be told in order to add a bit of flavor to what was about to unfold.

 

As I sat on the garden bench I formulated my plans. I should be able to acquire the main piece tonight at the Ball, I would have time this afternoon to retrieve my ever handy satchel and its array of tools and have it hidden at the spot I had already selected. It was perfect, located at the end of the path I had found, or rather the charming lady in the smart chiffon dress had found for me. A gas lamp would provide adequate light for my “lure”, and it led to a back wood where I could lead any victims away and liberate them of their valuables before making my escape. I rose, just enough time to walk my escape route, before setting up and then be dressed for the evening’s festivities. I looked around, I was alone now, my lady in white had disappeared, following her own course, whatever it may have been.

 

The Autumn Ball that evening was in full swing by the time I arrived. Being a cool fall day, most of the women were wearing long gowns and dresses, and that, for whatever the reason, usually meant they were decked out with more layers of jewelry than say , if it had been the middle of summer. In order to put my plan in action I need and intrinsic piece of the trap, a prism. The one I had once had was long ago lost, a minor pawn in a game to take a pair of princesses.

 

I knew exactly the type of prism required for my plan, and so began mingling amongst the guests with that in mind.

 

I started out by walking through to the chamber like ballroom where a full orchestra was starting to play. The first person I saw from the garden party was the little tramp who had been wearing the too tight satin tea dress. That dress had been replaced with a long silky gown, her gold jewelry replaced with emeralds; including a thin bracelet that had taken the place of the gold one that she had so obligingly dangled in my larcenous path. I decided to avoid her In principle, and in doing so spied someone quite interesting.

 

That someone was a pretty lady in a long velvet gown standing off to one side, idly watching the many dancers out on the floor. The dancing couples were forming an imagery of a rainbow coloured sea of slinky swirling gowns and with erupting fireworks of sparkling jewels, ignited by pair of immensely large chandeliers that hung over the dance floor, setting them off. I made my way, skirting the dance floor to reach her, my eyes on her jewels, which were making pretty fireworks of their own. I happened to walk up just as a waiter with a tray of drinks was passing by. Plucking off a drink I offered it to the lady with one hand, my other hand placed on her back as If to steady myself. She laughed prettily, and taking the drink I met her eyes, as she was focused on reaching and holding the glass in her slippery gloved hand, mine was on the ruby and diamond necklace. My hand behind her had flicked open the simple hook and eye clasp of the antique piece and was in the process of lifting it up and whisking it away from her throat. As I said a few words to her, I pocketed it, while also taking in the rest of her lovely figure and its shiny decorations, before biding adieu. She smiled, her pale bare neckline now quite glaringly extinguished of its fire.

 

It was about an hour later, after spotting, but unable to make inroads with several likely candidates, that I finally struck gold (figuratively). It came in the form of a young couple arguing between themselves in a far corner of the chamber. She was lecturing a rather handsome man in a tux, her jeweled fingers flying in his face. If she hadn’t been moving about in such an animated fashion as she lectured, I may not have even noticed her. But as it happened I did, especially noticeable was the sanctimonious lady’s wide jeweled bracelet that was bursting out in a rainbow of colorful flickers as her hand was emphatically waving, as her long gown of silk swished around with every movement she made. Perfect. I watched for a bit, and sure enough they moved off, the man heading for the patio leading outside, the wealthy girl following him, still giving him lashes with her tongue. I moved and managed to have her bump into me simply by stepping on the hemline of her long gown. For a few seconds I was the one on the receiving end of her wrath, but I took it like a man, I could see in the eyes of her tongue lashed husband, that he was grateful for the respite. I was also grateful; grateful for the quite wide, very shimmering, bracelet that I had removed from her wrist and now was residing in my pocket.

 

I began to leave the patio, but was stopped by a matronly lady in ruffles, laces and pearls, her breath heavy with alcohol. She started to question me on what the couple had been on about. Then without waiting for an answer she launched herself into a tirade of her own, her gem encrusted, silken gloved fingers, waving in my face for emphasis. It was almost ten minutes before I was able to make my escape. Which I did, but not before slipping off one of the lecturing ladies vulgarly large cocktail rings.

 

I headed onto the patio; the time was getting ripe for my plan, which I was now ready to put into motion, now having acquired its most essential piece. I went to the end of the large patio, weaving in and out of the by now well liquored guests whom had assembled there. Across the way I saw a lady tripping over her own gown. By the time I reached her she had fallen down, giggling merrily. Two of us rushed to her aid, she was busy gushed her thanks to the rescuer she knew, while ignoring the one she didn’t! Which was unfortunate on her part, for by ignoring me, she also was ignorant of the fact that I was busy lifting the small stands of black pearls from her wrist. I left unnoticed, much like a shadow fading out of the light, or at least that’s how it seemed. Finally I reached the patios outer edge without further incident, or gain. I went on the grass and turned a corner with the intention of going, post haste around the house to reach the gardens by the long way, hoping not to be seen by anyone. But I no sooner turned the corner, when I realized that it was not to be the case.

 

It was my blithe spirit in white chiffon from the garden party, pardon me, soiree. She was unescorted, looking up at the moon above a stone turret with one lit window, so intently that my presence had not been noticed. I had been absolutely correct in my observation of her as far as what she would be wearing for the evening. For what she had lacked in ornaments at the soiree, she had more than made up for in the evening festivities. She was absolutely gorgeous, resplendent in as beautiful a silvery satin gown that I had ever witness. It was just pouring down, shimmering along her delightful figure. Her long blazing red hair was still curling down and free, but now a pair of long chandelier earrings cascading down from her earlobes, were peeking out every now and then as they swayed with her every movement. Her blazingly rippling necklace was all diamonds, dripping down the front of her tightly satin covered bosom, twinkling iridescently like an intensively glimmering waterfall. Her slender gloved wrists were home to a pair of dangling diamond bracelets that were almost outshone by her many glistening rings. All in all she was quite a lure all too herself

 

I came up to her, starling her from her reverie. Taking up her hand, I looked into her startled, suddenly blushing face. I complimented her on the fine gown she wore. She thanked me, and I could see I that she suddenly remembered she me as the chap who she thought smiled to her in the garden. She seemed to accept my compliment quite readily. I chanced it( although Lord knows I was short on time) and asked her to a dance. I did not think she would agree, so it was with a little bit of surprise, hoping she would politely decline and walk off, leaving me free to go about my business unobserved. But she accepted, and I will admit that my heart leapt as she agreed (although in the back of my mind I knew I should be off if my plan was to work). The music had stopped so we made small talk as we slowly walked back to the ballroom. Her name was Katrina. It seems she was waiting for someone, which suited my plans, but he was late and so she had time. Which may have sounded dismissive, but from the apologetic way she said it, it was anything but the sort.

 

The orchestra started to tune back up as we entered, and taking her offered hand up, was soon lost in the elegance of my appealing partner. It was a long dance, and a formal one, but I could tell she was subtly anxious to be off on her meeting, as I was to be off to my own adventure. But Katrina did not really allow it to show, which was very uncharacteristic of her someone with her obvious breeding. So I was ready when the by the end of the music she begged her condolences and took flight. I watched her as she fluidly moved away, her jewels sparkling, all of them. On her mission to meet Mr. X I thought, for whom I was already harboring a quite jealous dislike. I should be off I thought to meself.

 

But I stood, still as stone; totally mesmerized by the way Katrina’s swirling silvery satin gown was playing out along her petite, jewel sparkling figure. It wasn’t till the last of her gown swished around a corner out of sight that I moved, but not without having to shake my head to clear the thoughts of her out of it. Well old son, focus. For by now the guests were starting to wander a bit afield in the waning hours of the Autumn Ball, and my small window of opportunity was closing fast. If my little plan was going to have any chance of success it would have to be now.

 

I walked out and made my way to one of the outside exist of the garden wall. Reaching into my pocket as I did so, fingering the bracelet, now cold, that had belonged to the quarrelsome lady,and soon would be playing another role, far from one its former mistress would ever have dreamed off. I also felt my new acquisition, still warm from my dance partner’s body. I will admit that I had felt a twinge of regret for taking it from a lady I had found to be most charmingly captivating. But slipping off the diamonds up and away from her throat had been as temptingly easy as it had been automatic. I had advantageously made use of the sleekness of her scintillatingly silky gown, and with the distractions created by the movements of the dance, successfully managed to keep Katrina’s attention safely diverted from the reality of why my fingers were ever so gently, caressingly sliding along her slippery gowns neckline. The truth was I had originally placed my hand there because it had felt so right, and I was a little startled when my fingers had subconsciously started playing with her necklaces clasp. Before I knew it, they had flicked open the gemstone clasp of her obviously expensive diamond necklace, and had lifted up. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, almost like I was a spectator, as opposed to being the perpetrator, I saw the chain move up and over her shoulder; its diamonds sparkling with is as the necklace disappeared from view behind her back.

It was a favored technique that I had perfected to the point that by this stage of my career I nearly always acquired my objective. But, as odd as it sounds, I was not happy with myself on this occasion.

 

But I did not long dwell on my mixed feelings on taking the charming lass’s diamonds, for by now I had reached my place of ambush. It was in one of the farthest reaches of the garden, at a bend on the end of a long path that, with a gas lamp at its beginning just off the patio, would allow me to see from some distance off. Behind me was a break in the hedge wide enough for a person to walk through comfortably. It was here, off a tree limb, underneath a second ornate cast iron gas lamp, which was now lit, that I hung the shimmering bracelet that I had sought out and acquired for just that reason

 

I walked around and saw that it could be seen flickered off in the distance from the woods, Perfect! Earlier I had hidden my satchel with a hood and knife and bit of rope in the hollow of an old tree. I now retrieved them, and after getting ready, found my position and waited. At 10 minutes past the first hour of my wait, with nary a single glimpse of anyone, I started to fidget. My corner may be just a bit too desolated I was beginning to admit to myself. It seemed that most of the guests were staying by the patio. I was starting to think that I should pack it in, possibly rejoining the guests for one last parting( of someone from her Jewelry). I was just reaching down to pick up my satchel when I suddenly saw something flash under the gas lamp at the beginning of the path, and my senses immediately perked up. I watched as the wisps of rich shimmery satin moved closer, I stiffened, drooling with anticipation, the game was afoot.

  

I could see clearly the flickering jewels she wore, and by their blazing sparkles of rippling fire, I knew that my long vigil would not have been in vain. As the lady drew I recognized her gown of silvery satin! I knew who was making those tantalizing flashes of appealing treasures. Katrina!

 

I watched as she approached, in all her glittering elegance. My heart and conscious was in turmoil, but I knew I probably would not get a second chance. I could not let her get away unscathed. Beside, from the shock of being confronted with a masked scoundrel wielding a wicked blade, she would be in no shape to recognize her assailant. She stopped, apprehensively looking back towards the bright lights of the Manor, Then turning back I saw she had a self-satisfied smile creeping upon her face. She reached up, and undoing her hair, shook it down, curls of softness cascading down, hanging loosely down. It was as she performed this provocative act, that I saw her eyes open wide in curiosity; she had spied my pretty little “prism”. The charming fish was hooked.

 

I waited, watching her approaching ever closer to fate, and from my concealment, I basked in her glow. My heart beating fast, my adrenaline pumping, for the remaining jewels (I thought of her necklace in my custody) that she possessed I already had witnessed were quite valuable. She passed my hiding spot and went to the hanging, shimmering object. As she reached up, looking around, she failed to see me approaching in the shadows. I came up from behind, jabbing a finger in her back as I reached her, I gruffly in no uncertain terms, snarled for her to freeze and make no sound. She stiffened under my touch, but made no move or outcry. I went around; pointing my knife in her direction, looking into her sad doe wide eyes as she realized what was going to happen next. She was trembling; from fear I guessed, and knew I had her right where I wanted. As I made my demands upon her, gimme them jewels sister, she, not surprisingly, was very compliant in giving them up to me. She reached for her necklace last, and looked entirely shocked to find her throat bare, as she searched the neckline of her gown I saw her look into my hand, now dripping with her precious jewelry, almost as if to see if she had not already removed it. She looked apologetically into my eyes, startled; almost pleading that she didn’t know what had happened to it. I just played dump. She than spoke for the first time, sir, may I ask to keep my purse? Her words would have instantly melted even the coldest chunk of ice, I looked down at the little silvery clutch hanging from her arm on its rhinestone chain, I nodded, indicating that she could, and saw relief wash over her face. I told her she now needed to turn around and walk off into the woods ahead of me. She hesitated, and I told her no harm would befall her, I had no intentions along those lines.

 

About 5 meters in I stopped her, and had her remove her shoes, as she bent over to undo the high heels rhinestone clasps I watched her gown tightly outlining her figure. She tripped on the hem of her gown, and as she attempted to keep her balance, accidently let her purse slip off her shoulder. Without thinking I reached down to pick it up for her as she tried reached for it simultaneously

 

The small purse was far heavier than it should have been. Curious I opened it, finding that it contained a rather extensive array of mismatched jewelry, glittering in unbelievably expensive fire . I looked into Katrina’s horror struck eyes dumb founded, as she looked guiltily into mine. The gig was up. The jewels belonged to the lady of the manor, my muse in silver was a thief, a female version of me very self.

 

Aye, what’s this than luv? I questioned her as she looked into my eyes, hers large with a mixture of fright and disbelief. She melted before me, fainting, I caught her in my arms, and it was no ruse. I held her as she came to, holding her warm, silky figure lovingly to mine. I did not know what to think. Nor could I ever explain what possessed me to do what I did next. As she came to, her eyes opened, and I removed my mask, looking back into them deeply.

 

Oh, she gasped, I’m glad it was you, startled that she had said the words out loud. She than started to coyly blushes, quite demurely. Something sparked in me, and unless she was an incredibly good actress, it did also for Katrina. Our eyes both looked into the others, melting away in the lust of the moment. We embraced, deeply, and I held her squirming warm slick figure tight in my enveloping arms. I looked over her shoulder, eyeing the glistening bracelet hanging from its branch. To catch a thief, the thought suddenly opened in my mind, what a great title for a novel I thought to myself, as I buried my nose into Katrina’s luxuriously soft hair.

 

We talked for a bit, walking off into the woods, then she looked into my eyes again, a coy, look that melted me on the spot, and that was the end of it, we embraced again, and wholly gave ourselves to one another. What about your man I asked suddenly remembering, my man she questioned , than oh, you mean the Lord, I was waiting for him to come down from smoking in his tower study, that’s where the lady’s jewels are kept. She broke into an Irish brogue as she said the last bit, and that I guessed was her natural tongue. she laid a hand on the side of my face, thanks for being jealous though, me lad.

I should collect my lure I said, which made her smile; it was such an enticing smile at that. We started to head back and watched as it dangled in front of us flickering. With a far off look in her green eyes, Katrina spoke as if in deep though.

 

The daughter of the house, she has a bracelet on like the one you have dangling, a bracelet of diamonds that I had taken a fancy to, wishing it had been in the safe along with the rest of the ladies of manors jewelry. I knew who she was talking about. The one in green taffeta I asked? Aye lad, that’s the one. Actually her necklace would be just as easy, and worth more I said. Just then her bright green eyes gleamed, Give me about a half an hour, she told me, we will put your little lure to use again. She noticed my hesitation, don’t worry luv she said soothingly placing a gloved hand to my cheek, no longer was it sparkly with its stolen bracelet and rings. I’ll leave my purse with you, can’t very well be carrying it around now can I? I nodded my consent, my mind burning with the thoughts she had alluringly placed there.

  

She turned, and then hesitated; turning back she said I probably should not go back in naked luv. I smiled, reaching in I pulled out her necklace and placed it around her throat. With a little gasp she blurted, so it was you, I was wondering who and when it had happened. It’s not the first time I’ve had me jewels lifted, but it’s a bloody annoyance to have to let them get away with it, crawls under my skin to have pretend not to notice so that I don’t draw any attention to me self before making my move to steal the posh ones jewels.

 

But you, mister, I never felt as much as a prickling. I was ready to assume my pretties had been a victim of a broken clasp this time. I gave a little nod in acceptance. That wasn’t exactly a compliment lad, she said in what I hopped was a subtle jest. Just last summer some clumsy bugger slipped of me earrings, my favorite pearls, as we were danc… she stopped, seeing the guilt in my eyes. Men! As thieves you are all of the same skin she spat out angrily, or attempted to sound angry, for the look in her eyes to me she wasn’t. I best be off, before I change me mind about out little endeavor.

 

With that she swirled around on her heels, and started off, but not before turning and giving me an extremely coy look of interest. As she swirled back around I heard her say loud enough for my ears, I’ll learn me self to be a picker of pockets, see how males like to be taken advantage of in their vulnerabilities! She nodded to herself as she said it. Then suddenly she stopped, than twirled on her heels, her gown swirling enticingly along her figure. Looking me dead in the eye she said, “Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie” !

 

What does that mean? I questioned in a low voice, perplexed.

 

Maybe, Mon Cheri, someday I will tell you… And with that she turned on her heel, her gown once again swirling about, and went, determinedly, swishing her way back up the path. I just watched. I had never heard anyone speak French with an Irish Brogue and I had found it to be rather provocative!

 

I watched as she swished and swayed her way back through the hedge and regained the path leading back to the manor. Her plan was simple; she would lead the daughter of the house to my corner and as she had done, go out with her to look at the swinging charm. I would then make my appearance, rob both ladies of their finery, and telling the daughter to wait until I released her friend, walk off with Katrina as a hostage, and we would both take off and make good our escape. A simple plan, so simple it should actually work.

 

So, there I was. Holding a purse with a small fortune in jewels, my pocket full of more jewels worth an additional pretty farthing, and her charms were wearing off by her leaving. And my thieving nature coming back, reawakened from the spell they had been under!

 

The devil of my conscious crept out on my shoulder, the angel markedly absent from the other.

 

Look mate, she may not be all she seems, and possibly has some other game in mind. Maybe she does have a male confidante helping her out… and was actually on her way to fetch him. He said in my inner ear. And, after all, you took her diamonds twice, didn’t ye now? Do you really think shell forgive you of that me lad?

 

And there is no honor amongst thieves, as the saying goes, he added as a closing argument...

 

I rolled it over in my mind…I could leave, absconding with it all, book a cruise to the states or down under where there lay untried fertile grounds to ply my trade. Not to mention working over my fellow passengers aboard the cruise ship while they attended the fancy affairs that were always going on, or so the brochures always seemed to show……

 

Then In the distance I caught a wisp of Katrina’s long silvery gown. She was coming, and not only with the daughter of the manor, but also with a spare. For I could see a purple coloured gown swishing alongside with the prey in rustling green taffeta.. I watched as all three ladies, resplendent with the rippling fiery gems they all possessed, came up the path, gowns sweeping out , shimmery from the now misty distance.

 

The thought of making my escape with all the loot continued to haunt me, there was still time now to take off without notice, or I could rob all three, and leave with purple silk as my hostage, Katrina would not be able to say anything on chance of giving up her part of the game, or I could just be a good lad and sty with the script that Katrina had written. Take a chance, roll the dice and believe that she was all she had me believing she could ever be.

 

As they came closer I knew my time was running out. The thoughts of just looking out for myself kept coming up playing the devil with my conscience as the precious seconds ticked away…

 

No honor amongst thieves…

What will it be, old boy I challenged myself,

What will you have it be?........

To see what his decision ultimately was, and the eventual path it led to, see the album question answered)

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Life is not about waiting out the storm, but about learning to dance in the rain.

Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie .

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Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives

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One of New England's smaller and more obscure operations is the Milford and Bennington Railroad. It is a one locomotive and one customer operation.

 

The M-B's sole operating locomotive is MBRX #901, an SW900 built for the CN as #7250 in Mar 1958. They do own one other derelict locomotive that hasn't run in decades that may be restored someday. Their SW9 #1423 is appropriate to the line having been built in May 1953 for the Boston and Maine as #1228.

 

The little pike owns 10 open top hoppers and a caboose and is about the simplest operation one could imagine. Under normal circumstances the train is never uncoupled and only two switches are handled over the course of their 10 mile round trip. Starting from the Granite State Concrete batch plan in Milford in the morning the train pulls out of the unloading track on to Pan Am's Hillsboro Branch and then reverses direction. They shove slowly west about 3 miles on Pan Am trackage to Wilton where they pause to open the derail to proceed further out the line on their own (state owned) trackage about 2 more miles to South Lyndeborough where they shove up a dead end spur into the quarry where the train is loaded. After about an hour of loading they pull back out and reverse the process to Milford with the loco now leading. Two or sometimes three trips are made each weekday during construction season, and in the winter the line is completely shut down and the state owned portion is given over to snowmobilers.

 

So a bit of history. For most of the branch's service life the terminus was Hillsboro, NH 40 miles from Nashua and a connection with B&M's Northern mainline west via Milford, Wilton and Greenfield and then turning north at Elmwood Jct. thru Bennington and on to Hillsboro.

 

But as the old mile markers still dotting the mine attest, at one time this route continued due west 56 miles to Keene (therefore the "K") some 25 miles past Elmwood Jct. The history of these south central Granite State branches is complicated and looking at a map of the Boston & Maine in the early 1920s it's almost unfathomable how many different thru routes there were.

 

Never particularly useful or profitable the line west of Elmwood was severed by a flood in 1934 and never operated again. Within 5 years it was formally abandoned.

 

Today Pan Am owns 16.38 miles of the branch (its longest remaining in NH) from downtown Nashua just north of the yard and right where Nashua Union Station once stood. B&M cropped the 8 miles from Bennington to Hillsboro in 1979 but continud to serve the small paper mill in the former town into the early Guilford era. When Guilford petitioned to abandon the line beyond Wilton the state bought the remaining 16 miles and to this day it is intact to Bennington. However, regular operations extend only two miles beyond Wilton to the quarry in South Lyndeborough and the M&B runs very rare special excursions (usually once a year) another six miles to Greenfield. That's a bit of a primer on the route and a lot more can be found in Robert M. Lindsell's "The Rail Lines of Northern New England."

 

Here is a look at the first run of the day shoving west now on the state owned trackage. They are crossing Stony Brook near about MP 17.5. This rural wooded location is only about a mile and a quarter from the Wilton depot and less than a mile from the quarry at the end of their run.

 

Wilton, New Hampshire

Friday June 19, 2020

Profitable house of the peasant Frolov (1910-1914), Baumanskaya street, Basmanny, Moscow, Russia.

Россия, Москва, Басманный, Бауманская ул., доходный дом крестьянина Фролова (1910–1914).

Lifting light vague

 

-This tale is a fairly reasonably accurate description of a true event that occurred during a Welsh wedding reception some time ago...

 

-Mention must be made that the expensive looking attire worn by this particular young lady may have helped falsely enhance her jewelry’s appeal as a tempting target.

 

-Regardless of whether the nicking had been done to tease, or for a hoped for profit !

 

-Which leads us to the story below: the tone of which is deliberately ambiguous.

 

It is a retelling: either from the viewpoint of one sibling playing a trick upon another sibling, or the viewpoint of a scoundrel who seeks out profitable opportunities at fancy dress- up affairs.

 

It is for you, the reader, to guess out....

  

Title :

 

Perils of a Living Doll

  

She was certainly that, a living doll, scurrying about in her fluidly flowing,shiny in the lights, fancy party attire:

 

An eye catching ensemble made up of a rather glistening emerald green button up back thicke satin blouse with a high ruffled neckline with long sleeves ending in matching ruffles. A long flowing pleated black satin skirt quite nicely completed the darling ensemble.

 

But very few dolls ever wore jewelry like her’s:

 

A surprisingly full complement of gleaming white pearls dangle deliciously along her lithe, youthfully curved figure, with her long flowing hair, and a wide eyed doe like curiosity of living life glowing from her pretty face.

 

Though I had other more pressing business to attend, I kept an eye out on her, relishing each time I caught her in view.

 

Those baiting pearls kept popping up in my mind when she was out of my sight, making it hard to concentrate fully on anything else!

 

It was quite in the realm of possibility that those smooth pearls of Her’s were as valuable as they were pretty!

 

Also knowing the fact that the female in possession of them was quite youthfully gullible, added up to make for an all to tempting target to easily be subtracted from her lustrous possessions !

 

Being a tad bit assured that somebody else may do the math, and might actually happen to make that subtraction was the reason I waited,with baited breath, to again catch a lingering look to see that she still was in possession of all of them !

 

Then at the end of another successful work day, as I slipped away, I caught an unexpected final sighting of the girl.

 

The poor thing had exhausted herself from the busy agendas of her long day looking like a princess,and all that doing so will entail!

 

Dead Asleep now, peacefully snuggled in on a couch corner, quite isolate, however, not quite alone!

 

For a girl whom I knew to be her cousin, sat dozing next her.

 

A girl her age incredibly pretty in a long sleek peach gown, enchantingly wearing what looked like rhinestones, earrings and bracelet, (surprisingly no necklace)! She had now opened her eyes and was looking around incredibly bored.

 

As I watched she rubbed her eyes, then tugged at the sleeping Lass who did not budge. She rose with a visible sigh and skipping off , her pretty peach colored gown winningly fluttering along her eye catching figure!

 

Failing to notice me standing nearby in the shadows as she swished past still rubbing her eyes!

 

Silently I thanked her for being so quite accommodating in leaving her sleeping cousin , and her delectably appealing pearls, quite behind !

 

It was prime time for that mathematical subtracting I had mentioned earlier!

 

But then subtracting had always been my best subject, something I was rather keen at doing!

  

Again on the hunt, I stalked up behind my prey!

I crouched down looked her over from behind.

 

Her reflection showing up Clearly enough in the polished glass vase on the coffee table in front of her as I silently had treaded in from behind!

  

Amazingly it appeared, she had made it though the gauntlets of the day with all her pearls in place.

 

Even when she and her cousin , the girl in peach satin, had startlingly snuck outside to swing on a nearbye schools playground, they had fortunately come back in unscathed!

 

Untouched by the rather dark lurking elements that sometimes will creep in from societies shadowy outer fringe to feed upon the richly dressed unwary!

 

Since I won’t deny my desires probably made me a loosely connected part of that rather unconventional brotherhood at times, I still took a personal interest in making sure she came to no distress .

 

And so I had taken the time to lecture them for taking on such perils , whilst secretly harboring a desire to lift away the very pearls I was scolding her for taking a risk on losing by playing outside!

  

I now, of course gently sat down on the opposite end of the couch, watching her and the surroundings, planning my strategy.

 

For this type of subtracting, the distraction for the victim was her sleep.

 

I only had to make sure my moves along her figure were as nimble as can be and used the lest amount of pressure to work off what I was after!

 

Also a rule was to keep an eye on any subtle changes in her breathing or movement as I worked!

 

This would tip me off that it was time to leave with what jewels of hers I had in hand , regrettably leaving the rest perched in place as she was waking!

 

I saw her cousin quite aways off, she did not appear to be concerned or coming back anytime soon, leaving me a window opened for opportunity!

 

So I gently, with growing anticipation, slowly inched closer, my earlier desires now sharply reawakening!

 

Finally Reaching her sleep warmed figure, I ventured in to gently caress her arm, tingling encased in her emerald satin sleeve with its daintily ruffled end.

 

The young darling did not stir at my cool fingers touch as I eyeballed her wrists bracelet and ringed fingers!

 

Normally I would have gone for her necklace first, followed by her earrings, since in that order they are usually the most valuable of the jewels a lady would wear!

 

A procedure I had observed a thief carry out on two different ladies at the same venue! It was watching his moves that had effectively whetted my appetite for this game!

 

But , in this one’s case, I had an inkling that her bracelets and rings(especially the diamond one on her left pinky) that as a whole, may be the more advantageous route to proceed in case I had to face an early retreat !

  

I moved my fingers tingling down the sleeve of her right arm that lay upon her lap, carefully peeling back the ruffles to reach the pearled bracelet.

 

I then moved that bracelet up over her sleeve before lifting it, than delicately slipping it around until the diamond studded clasp was exposed.

 

Licking my lips I snapped it open, leaving the ends dangle as I moved my hand away and sat looking at her from the corner of my eye!

 

She kept on breathing heavily with no tell tale signs of waking up soon!

 

No one was paying our little corner any heed!

 

I reached over and taking up the bracelets end used the smoothness of her sleeve and her satin skirt between which it was sandwiched, and easily peeled it away !

 

I Let it lay on her lap, drooling over the pretty thing !

 

Then I reached down in again, curling my fingers around hers. Ever so delicately, one by one, slowly slipped off her shimmering rings from along each nuckle, feeling my heart beating with exhlileration, until they each were worked free ,laying them one by one on her black pleated satin clad lap till they all lay in a glittery group together!

 

Her left arm was at her side, and I gingerly grasped it and lifted it limply onto her lap to join her other.

 

I sat back for a minute, she wasn’t stirring, the cousin was still a distance away.

 

I went back to work.

 

Carefully I slipped off her other bracelet, laying it over my growing take. Then I lifted her pinky, where a glittery ring set with 3 dainty diamonds had been sparkling merrily as she had scurried about!

 

I easily worked it off , having it join in with the collection I had already neatly slipped off from her.

 

I took a deep exhale of breath of the air I had been holding, then reaching in, scooped them all up from her downy soft lap inside my cupped hand in one fluid motion.

 

As I pocketed them I watched her necklace do it’s dangly dance.

  

A fine double strand of glistening perfection laying their ever so elegantly up against the sheer front of her lush emerald green satin blouse.

 

Both strands dripping down from beneath her blouses’ elegantly ruffled neckline !

 

The matched strands dangled together just below her heaving chest. Held together by a round diamond set pin about halfway up on the right side.

 

The rich material of her form fitted blouse pleasurably outlined her petite young curves, with the enticingly baiting pearls adding a very nice accent to the overall picture.

 

It almost was a shame to relive her neck of the richly gleaming burden.

 

Almost....

 

Before making my move I delicately reached over and slipping my fingers underneath the strands, feeling her chest rise up and down in its gently moving heaves, lifted them up for the second time that day , I again drooled over them a bit before making my move...

 

I slid in daringly closer, placing my arm so it lay on the couch around behind her back.

 

As I watched around us from the front my fingers worked hidden from behind, locating the jeweled clasp , then prying it open, looking down at her I let the loose ends slither down along her shoulders. The pearls slipped away with an almost silent swish down the front of her slick blouse where they curled up in a dainty nestling pile upon her sleepy shiny lap.

 

I froze, ready to exit, but she did not stir from her dreams!

 

Far too exhausted to be awakened by my practiced subtle extraction of her jewelry !

 

I studied the piled up pearls for a few satisfying seconds,congratulating me on a job well done, well half done actually!

 

Then I reached in and neatly plucked the gleaming double strand free from where they lay nestled in to finish it!

 

As I was doing so I now felt something sharply hard inside her skirt against the back of my hand.

 

I looked it over as I pocketed her pearls and spied a pocket of her own in the side of her skirt, hidden in the pleats .

 

Wondering what it held, I eagerly pried it open and reached inside and surprisingly came away with a glittery rhinestone necklace !

 

“Whats this then luv?” I thought silently questioning her as I admire the pretty sparklers.

 

A necklace as pretty as this belonged around the throat of a girl dressed up fancy, like the one wearing the luxurious peach gown who had been sitting next to her !

 

Looking up at her angelic face I wondered what games of her own this pretty miss had been up to as I pondered vexingly whether to keep or return her sparkling trophy?

 

As I made my decision I saw her earrings peeping out .

 

That was all that was left to take, her pearled earrings with the diamond clasp ! Fortunately her delicate ears were not pierced, which may have been more of a sticky wicket encumbering their removal!

 

But still this might be tricky enough, her long silky soft hair held them for the most part safely inside.

 

I looked around then got up and went behind her and put the mirrored vase to use.

 

Picking up a strand of her hair I watched as I tickled her nose with it. She stirred, and without really waking, pulled her hair back away from her ears Nicely exposing her beautiful twin pearled earrings for an easy lift.

 

With a touch as delicate as any surgeon’s I reached around and gently pulled as I slipped off each one in turn.

 

Amazed at how easily they freely slipped off each slightly sweat glistened earlobe!

  

I cheerfully pocketed them.

 

Then spent some time watching her figure in my safe haven behind her, making good use of the mirror to assure myself nothing of value had been missed or overlooked !

  

Her tightly fitting attire still was glistening shiny, but starkly bear naked now that her gleaming jewels had been all been nicked clean away.

 

This had been almost too easy, not that I was complaining, for it had been a most enjoyably scintillating , guiltily pleasurable, game of it!

 

I looked around, planning my exit.

 

Then I spied something glittering in a far corner!

 

I recognized it as the diamond bracelet being regally worn by her errant cousin! I decided on following in to capture a better last look at the satin peach clad vixen!

 

Perhaps I may have to ‘bump’ into her and take the ‘opportunity’ to, with feeling, compliment her on her fetchingly pretty attire!

  

Toodles I endearingly said in silence to the sleeping doll’s shimmery figure still snuggled into the couch,biding her a fond adieu as I walked away, feeling my pockets nicely weighted down with her still warm purloined pearls!

 

Still finding amazement over the quantity and apparent quality of the jewelry that my victim had been allowed to wear out daringly alone this particular evening !

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Not much later the girl did stir, stretching and yawning. Then laid her hands back onto her Lap, covered as it was in her midnight black pleated satin skirt.

 

She flexed her fingers along its luxurious length, relishing in the skirts satiny feel.

 

She looked around. Something was not quite right. Where was her cousin?

 

As she thought this she reached up to rub her eyes, than gasped...

 

She was looking at her hands, shocked , her bracelets were gone, and her rings, including her small one set with diamonds!

 

In her bewilderment she still was feeling cobwebbed from sleep as she, with a puzzled frown, reached up and ran her fingers through her long hair...

 

Hold on, where are my bloody earrings. Then she felt at her throat! Her necklace of pearls were no longer there, she felt down the front of her shiny blouse to confirm that the strands we’re no longer dangling down!

 

With a sinking feeling she realized that her pearls, all of them were gone!

 

And she had a pretty good idea of who had the Gaul to have spirited them away like this

  

The wanker she hissed under her breath as she mentally pictured her twin brother who liked to play lifting games and picking off items from her, like her jewelry.

 

He has been up to no good again, even though he had promised he would be in best behaviors after she caught him earlier!

 

For he had already lifted the rhinestone necklace of thier similarly aged girl cousin wearing a pretty gown of peach satin.

 

Taking it as he had danced with her!

  

She had seen him, and demanded he had hand it back to her!

 

Sulking over being caught and scolded out, he had given it to his twin and tasked her to be the one to somehow sneak it back to their cousin!

 

Which she had forgotten to do and her hand darted inside her silky skirts pocket to feel for the rhinestone necklace.

 

Nope it was still there, so she still had that job to do also!!!

 

She actually did not mind his games , rather the opposite actually! Just had felt a bit jealous he had danced with their cousin over her first !

 

And now she believed he had lifted her pearls in retaliation for her scolding him!

 

Of all the bloody Cheek!

  

That her brother had his eyes her pearls, and the downy softness of her sleekly pretty party outfit was no mystery!

 

She knew this because he had kept teasingly prodding her, touching at her pearls, on the long drive here as both had been sitting wedged in the back seat of papa’s small sports car.

 

Though she had also been an antagonist herself, intentionally giving him reasons to grasp her As she squirmed away, knowing full well it was triggering the desires to lift her jewelry that he was trying so hard to suppress with their parents seated up front!

 

Mum had only to tell them once to settle down, turning around to scold them, the diamonds in her earrings glittering as madly as she was only pretending to be at her children!

 

Those earrings were very pretty, too pretty to be kept at home. Papa had to go to a bank to get them, along with my pearls!

 

Thinking the word “bank” made her jump to her feet, as suddenly a cold realization swept over her!

 

The razor thin feelings that divided between the delicious chills of guilty pleasure that her pearls had been nicked and the cold stark reality of the punishment she would get for losing them if the parents saw her first before she got them back!

 

No matter how they had been lost!

 

Now fully wide awake, with a straightening of her glittering long shiny midnight black pleated skirt, she hurried off to call him out !

 

Or at least that is what she down deep hoped that was all she had to do to get them from him!

 

For an unsettling inkling was now forming queasily in her gut that it just conceivably may not have been her brother who had lifted her pearls.

  

For her mum had not really been happy with her insisting to wear them out this evening.

 

Thinking she may be a bit too young to be wearing them without her parents presence!

 

For mum and papa were a part of the bridal party and would not be able to keep close eyes themselves on her and her brother!

 

And it was only with her brothers suspiciously eager promise to keep an eye on her, that she was given permission!

 

Her mum also had not known about the small diamond ring she had smuggled out of the house to put her on finger once when her parents were finally not around!

  

She had been lectured to take great care of her fine jewelry, which of course she hadn’t , playing around like she was back at home and not attending a posh reception!

 

Then she had snuck off to the playground with their cousin, without her brothers knowledge !

 

And her brother had lectured her when she had admitted to him where she had disappeared off too. Probably mad because he would have like to have been included in!

 

And then....

 

Speaking of being scolded...!

 

She suddenly remember the icy stern lady in a red silk dress , whom she had not recognized, but apparently had seen the girls sneaking off outside to play!

 

Chillingly she recalled the penetrating look she her and her girl cousin had receive from that strange lady with severe hair and eyes who had caught them sneaking back in after being outside at the playground!

 

She had admonished them for going off alone dressed like they were!

 

As she scolded she pawed at the slick fabrics of the girls fancy dress attire caressing them over with clammy fingers, then had lifted my pearl necklace up like she was going to take it for safe keeping.

 

She doesn’t of course, but it had been a very unsettling experience for both of the startled doe eyed young girls !

 

But that lady had so unnervingly acted like my pearls belonged with her, she remembered with unsettling clarity!

 

But of course she was being silly, only men would have a desire to take a girl’s jewels, right!?

 

That’s the way it appeared on the telle show they had watched once!

 

But there had been plenty of men there, strangers who had stopped what they were doing and look them over as she and her cousin darted in and out amongst them

In the crowded ballroom.

 

Most had commented how pretty the pair looked, others just turned away with thoughtful looks on their smug mugs.

 

Now with a fast growing bit of nagging anxiety , pensively still feeling her still naked ears and the chillingly bare neckline of her ultra-soft satin blouse for still peskily non existent pearls , she urgently sought out her twin brother.

 

Needing to be assured that he had been indeed up to his tricks and would reunite her with them.

 

And in doing so, to be relived of her new concerns over the worrisome idea someone else may actually have been responsible for her missing bank vault worthy pearls!

 

Some unknown individual whose intentional reasons for nimbly lifting them off as she had slept would probably not involve giving them back to her!!

 

With these uncomfortable swirling thoughts she looked with suspicion through the crowd of handsomely attired guests!

 

Spotting the peach satin gown her cousin was wearing, she quickly swished to catch up and enlist her help!

 

“””””””””””””””””

 

As she did so, the one who had a small cache of guests jewels hidden away in a deep pocket, was watching , with a secret grin, this recent victim’s shiny green and black attired figure’s worried progress from her couch, while standing a reassuringly safe distance away!

 

Watching with a wicked smirk as she was reaching the equally prettily attired young girl clad so elegantly in peach satin .

 

The one who had deserted her cousin from the couch leaving her unguarded as she slept.

 

The one who had turned away blushing,so winningly as the person had so eloquently complimented her while holding her arm to give added meaning to a false sincerity !

 

The one who in a matter of minutes was probably about to realize that her cousin was not the only one to have had several of her jewels mysteriously taken from her elegantly clad person!

 

Smirking at these thoughts, with a rather proud cockiness over this evenings accomplishments, shown in a happily haughty demeanor!

 

The person standing in the shadows slowly moved in , mulling over that in addition to subtracting, there was nothin like a good old fashion game of cat and mouse!

 

Fini

 

Now, not everyone likes an open ending to a story...

 

So If anyone would like to know what the real life solution was to the mystery of who took her jewelry, and whether she got it back , please ask in the comments section and I will privately email the answer

 

The Ed’s...

 

Otherwise known as....The Midas Touch

 

Meaning

1. The term “Midas touch” is used to refer to an ability to make anything potentially profitable.

 

2. Someone has a Midas touch which allows him or her to succeed where others fail.

 

Another meaning refered to having the Midas Touch as being able to turn things into gold and money and teasures(into profit), but that its not a good thing b/c in the actual story, having the "golden Touch" backfired on Midas b/c EVERYTHING he touched turned into gold, food, clothes, people etc....so he couldn't really eat anything nor wear clothes b/c they became too heavy and all his loved ones...well turned into gold statues....

 

This image was a challenge to myself....b/c I usually add so much color (or adjust the color that is already there) to an image...It just comes automatically to me to do that.....but for this image I wanted a dream-like, airy feeling...to focus on having "the Golden Touch"......so hopefully I captured what I was going for....

 

© ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED That means its not yours to use in ANY way, shape, or form w/o my permission.

Scotswood Bridge is one of the main bridges crossing the River Tyne in North East England. It links the west end of Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank of the river with the MetroCentre and Blaydon in Gateshead on the south bank. It is situated 5.2 km (3.2 mi) upstream of the better-known city centre bridges.

 

The Chain Bridge

Scotswood Bridge over River Tyne Act 1829

The first bridge across the river at this location was the Old Scotswood Bridge, or "The Chain Bridge" as it was known locally. It was a suspension bridge with two stone towers, from which the road deck was suspended by chains. An act to authorise the building of the bridge was passed by Parliament in 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. x) and designed by John Green, with construction beginning that year. It was opened on 16 April 1831.

 

The toll to cross the bridge was abolished on 18 March 1907. In 1931 the bridge needed to be strengthened and widened. The width was increased from 17 ft (5.2 m) to 19.5 ft (5.9 m) with two 6 ft (1.8 m) footpaths. The suspension cables and decking were also strengthened, allowing the weight limit to be raised to 10 tonnes (9.842 long tons; 11.02 short tons). The bridge eventually proved too narrow for the traffic it needed to carry and its increasing repair costs proved too much. After standing for 136 years, it was closed and demolished in 1967 after its replacement had been completed.

 

Current bridge

Scotswood Bridge Act 1962

A replacement for the Chain Bridge had been proposed as early as 1941. Permission was finally granted in 1960, and authorised by an act of Parliament, the Scotswood Bridge Act 1962. A new bridge was designed by Mott, Hay and Anderson and built by Mitchell Construction and Dorman Long. Construction commenced on 18 September 1964. It was built 43 m upstream of the Chain Bridge, which continued operating during the new bridge's construction. The bridge was opened on 20 March 1967. It is a box girder bridge, supported by two piers in the river and carries a dual carriageway road. Combined costs for demolition of the old bridge and construction of the new one were £2.5 million.

 

Scotswood Bridge carried the traffic of the Gateshead A69 western by-pass from 1970 up until the construction of Blaydon Bridge and the new A1 in 1990. Between June 1971 and January 1974 traffic on the bridge was limited to single file to enable strengthening work to take place, which was needed to address design concerns. It has required further strengthening and repairs a number of times since; between 1979 and 1980, in 1983 and in 1990.

 

Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.

 

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

 

The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.

 

Roman settlement

The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

 

The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.

 

Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.

 

Anglo-Saxon development

The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.

 

Norman period

After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.

 

In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.

 

Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.

 

Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.

 

The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.

 

Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.

 

In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.

 

In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.

 

Religious houses

During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.

 

The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.

 

The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.

 

The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.

 

The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.

 

The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.

 

All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

 

An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.

 

Tudor period

The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.

 

During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).

 

With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.

 

Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.

 

The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.

 

In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.

 

Stuart period

In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.

 

In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.

 

In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.

 

In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.

 

In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.

 

A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.

 

Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.

 

In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.

 

In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.

 

Eighteenth century

In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.

 

In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.

 

In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.

 

Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.

 

The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.

 

In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.

 

A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.

 

Victorian period

Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.

 

In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.

 

In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.

 

In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.

 

In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.

 

Industrialisation

In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.

 

Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:

 

George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.

George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.

 

Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.

 

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.

 

William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.

 

The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:

 

Glassmaking

A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Locomotive manufacture

In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.

 

Shipbuilding

In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.

 

Armaments

In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.

 

Steam turbines

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.

 

Pottery

In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.

 

Expansion of the city

Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.

 

Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.

 

Twentieth century

In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.

 

During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.

 

In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.

 

Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.

 

As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.

 

In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.

 

As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.

 

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.

 

Recent developments

Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.

Sir Thomas Brisbane:

 

Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (1773-1860), governor, was born on 23 July 1773 at Brisbane House, near Largs, Ayrshire, son of a family of ancient Scottish lineage. He was educated by tutors and attended both the University of Edinburgh and the English Academy, Kensington. In 1789 he was commissioned an ensign in the 38th Regiment, which next year he joined in Ireland; there he struck up a long and profitable friendship with a fellow subaltern, Arthur Wellesley. From 1793 to 1798 he served in Flanders as a captain, from 1795 to 1799 in the West Indies as a major, and from 1800 to 1803 he commanded the 69th Regiment in Jamaica as a lieutenant-colonel, earning high praise from the governor, Sir George Nugent. From 1803 to 1805 he served in England, but when the 69th was ordered to India went on half-pay in Scotland because of his health.

 

He then was able to indulge his interest in astronomy, which he developed after nearly being involved in a shipwreck in 1795, and in 1808 he built at Brisbane House the second observatory in Scotland. In 1810 he was promoted colonel and elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1812 at Wellington's request he was promoted brigadier-general. He commanded a brigade which was heavily engaged in the battles of the Peninsular war from Vittoria to Toulouse, and continued to practise his astronomy so that in Wellington's words, he 'kept the time of the army'. In 1815 he was created a K.C.B., received the thanks of parliament, and commanded a brigade in the American war. From 1815 to 1818 he commanded a division in the army of occupation in France and in 1817 he was created a K.C.H. (G.C.H., 1831). He returned to England in 1818 and next year married Anna Maria, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Hay Makdougall of Makerstoun, Scotland, whose surname he added to his own by letters patent on 14 August 1826. In 1815 he applied for appointment as governor of New South Wales, but the post was not then vacant; in November 1820 on Wellington's advice Brisbane, then in command of the Munster district in Ireland, was appointed. He arrived in the colony on 7 November 1821 and took over from Governor Lachlan Macquarie on 1 December.

 

Brisbane's policies for the colony were usually sensible answers to pressing problems, based on Commissioner John Thomas Bigge's report and the instructions derived from it, modified by his own impressions. Though he was on good terms with Macquarie he condemned the latter's 'system' and told Earl Bathurst later that he had changed New South Wales in so many ways that if Macquarie had returned 'he would not have recognised the place'.

 

When Brisbane arrived 340,000 acres (137,593 ha) of promised grants had still to be located and there were many confused permissive occupancies and nebulous promises. Lands were occupied and transferred without legal title, and boundary disputes seemed never ending. Proper survey was essential for a workable policy of alienation to be evolved, and the Ripon regulations of 1831 were made to a large extent possible by the practical development of the policies which Brisbane had implemented.

 

In 1822 he issued tickets-of-occupation which enabled land to be immediately occupied without a preliminary survey and graziers to be given security against trespass without the land being permanently alienated. Additional assistant surveyors were appointed to reduce arrears in the surveying and granting of land, but Brisbane promised land only to those with the inclination and ability to use it productively, forbade the acceptance of chits signed by irresponsible persons as valid titles, and gave tickets-of-occupation only when extra stock had actually been obtained. He granted land to sons of established settlers only if their fathers' properties had been considerably improved, and to immigrants in proportion to their capital. He was reluctant to make grants to his newly-appointed officials, even though this subjected him 'to a most unpleasant feeling'. In order to promote settlement of the colony by settlers who really wanted to improve the land and to deter speculators with fictitious capital, he insisted that grantees should maintain one convict labourer, free of expense to the Crown, for every 100 acres (40 ha) they were given, and he maintained this rule against criticism from the Colonial Office that it would hamper settlement. Brisbane insisted that although the regulation had been temporarily unpopular genuine settlers did not oppose it, for convict servants were coming to be looked on as a boon. It would help to control the intense demand for land, though even that check would not be sufficient. 'Not a cow calves in the colony but her owner applies for an additional grant in consequence of the increase in his stock', he wrote. 'Every person to whom a grant is made receives it as the payment of a debt; everyone to whom one is refused turns my implacable enemy'. He asked the British government 'to fix an invariable proportion of land to be cultivated in every grant' and to appoint a Commission of Escheat, for without it, since a judgment by Barron Field, the 'clearing and cultivating clauses' in the grants had become 'a dead letter'. The instructions on the disposal of crown lands which were sent from London in January 1825 owed so much to Brisbane's advice that he found 'great satisfaction' in noticing 'the very prominent similarity' between them and the practice he had been following in New South Wales.

 

Acting on one of Bigge's suggestions Brisbane in 1824 had begun selling crown lands, at 5s. an acre. 'While the system of free grants exists, there is little chance of extensive improvement taking place generally in the colony, as the improver of land can never enter the market in competition with the individual who gets his land for nothing', Brisbane told Bathurst. Between May and December 1825 more than 500,000 acres (202,345 ha) were sold. In land policy Brisbane had recognized the need to encourage men of capital, though at the same time opposing over-lavish land grants. Seeing the need for consolidation rather than expansion, and for more accurate surveys of the settled areas, he gave less encouragement to land exploration than either his predecessors or successors, but he continued, as instructed, to organize coastal surveys.

 

Brisbane received from Bathurst full instructions on convict affairs, derived from Bigge's report. These were based on the belief that Macquarie had been too lenient and too extravagant, and Brisbane conscientiously carried them out. He rigidly adhered to the rules against the premature granting of tickets-of-leave. He reduced the number of road-gangs, whose members often indulged in dissipation and crime, and the numbers employed on public works in Sydney, and organized in their place gangs to clear land for settlers in return for payment to the government; this greatly speeded up the rate of clearing. He ordered convict mechanics to be hired instead of being assigned; this brought in revenue and made for a more efficient distribution of labour. He established new centres of secondary punishment as Bigge had recommended, first at Moreton Bay and later at Bathurst's suggestion on Norfolk Island, and he sent educated convicts to be confined first at Bathurst and later at Wellington valley, but he opposed excessive corporal punishment, reprieved many prisoners sentenced to death and was criticized by Bathurst for his improvidence in granting pardons.

 

Brisbane set up an agricultural training college and was the first patron of the New South Wales Agricultural Society, founded in 1822, which among other activities, financed the importation of livestock. On Bathurst's instructions, he drastically reduced the assistance given to new settlers and so, by making it virtually impracticable to begin farming without capital, helped to improve production. He conducted experiments in growing Virginian tobacco, Georgian cotton, Brazilian coffee and New Zealand flax, but unfortunately without much success.

 

Brisbane looked forward to getting the 'Colony on to its own Resources' and regarded the achievement of economy in government expenditure as one of his major successes. In 1822, on the advice of Frederick Goulburn, colonial secretary, and William Wemyss, deputy commissary general, he initiated currency reforms by which commissariat payments were to be made in dollars at a fixed value of 5s. or about one-eighth above their intrinsic value. This attempt to set up a dollar standard was intended both to reduce expenditure and to provide the colony with a coinage which would prevent a repetition of the issue of store receipts as practised by the former commissary, Frederick Drennan, and it would discourage imports by depreciating the local currency. But the system was not a success and after the terms on which the dollars would be received had been modified the dollar standard was replaced by a sterling exchange standard on instructions sent from London in July 1825. In 1823 all commissariat supplies were called by tender, though the introduction of price competition hurt small farmers and favoured the larger ones; when only three month's grain was bought by tender, instead of a year's at a fixed price, a minor depression occurred, but this was partly due to the suddenness of the change.

 

Brisbane was devout and broadminded in religious matters, and prepared to support any sect that did not threaten the state. He encouraged Wesleyan societies, advocated and gave financial aid to the Roman Catholics, but opposed what he regarded as extravagant demands by the Presbyterians, considering them wealthy enough to build their own church. He supported Bible and tract societies. He attempted to encourage education by appointing a director-general of all government public schools, but this was quashed by the Colonial Office. He believed that clergy, like government officials, should not indulge in private trade, which of course made him unpopular with Samuel Marsden. His policy towards Aboriginals was ambivalent. On one occasion he ordered some to be shot; on another he imposed martial law beyond the Blue Mountains because of 'the aggressions of the Native Blacks'. However, he favoured compensating them for lost land, and in 1825 granted the London Missionary Society 10,000 acres (4047 ha) as an Aboriginal reserve.

 

Like other governors, Brisbane found the emancipist-exclusive quarrel a major difficulty, and the success of many of his policies was vitiated because some of his officials ignored him and favoured the exclusives. Brisbane himself did not have great faith in the future of a colony based on emancipists; but though he preferred the large-scale immigration of free settlers, especially those with capital, his cautious liberalism was to the emancipists' tastes. Unlike the exclusives, they gave him a warm farewell. Brisbane appears to have believed, as he said at a public meeting just before he left, that free institutions could be safely established in New South Wales. In 1824 he did not apply any censorship when William Charles Wentworth's Australian began publication, and ended control of the Gazette by government officials. He ordered the holding of Courts of Quarter Sessions at which there would be trial by jury, an experiment which Chief Justice (Sir) Francis Forbes reported to have been very successful; they were abolished by the Act of 1828, but not before the exclusives had grossly misused them at Parramatta in their vendetta against Henry Grattan Douglass. The Legislative Council set up by the New South Wales Act of 1823, which began meeting in August 1824, operated calmly under his rule and began the process of reducing the powers of the governor from the autocracy of the past.

 

At first Brisbane had too few men to do the work of government; by 1824 he found himself with a number of departmental heads appointed independently of him, varying in ability, at odds with each other and the government. He thought Judge Barron Field and Judge-Advocate (Sir) John Wylde responsible for much of the party feeling in the colony, and was heartily glad to see them go in 1824, but John Oxley, Saxe Bannister and Frederick Goulburn were also sources of trouble. Men like George Druitt, John Jamison, Marsden, John Dunmore Lang, the Macarthurs and the Blaxlands frequently made vicious misrepresentations in London about Brisbane's administration. They gave the governor much to contend with and, though he 'evinced a forbearance amounting to Stoicism', in the end he felt compelled to remove some 'exclusive' magistrates for grossly improper behaviour. It was partly to counter their misrepresentations that he sent Dr Douglass to London in February 1824, but his patronage of Douglass, who was in trouble with the War Office, in the end contributed to his recall. Brisbane did not find Goulburn easy to work with and in January 1824 asked for an assistant-secretary. Goulburn refused to carry out some of Brisbane's instructions; he suppressed letters or answered them without reference to the governor; on 19 April 1824 he even claimed that the governor's proclamations and orders were invalid unless they went through his department. Such conduct Brisbane clearly could not countenance and he protested to the Colonial Office; the reply in December was the recall of both governor and secretary, and in November 1825 Brisbane departed.

 

Brisbane did not concern himself with all the details of his administration; but a governor could no longer attend to everything. The colony had expanded in size in recent years, and Macquarie had ruined his health and peace of mind by a concern with every administrative detail and petty squabble as Governor (Sir) Ralph Darling was soon to do also. Brisbane had worked well with Lieutenant-Governors William Sorell and (Sir) George Arthur in Van Diemen's Land, which was still under his jurisdiction, and he had no trouble there. Unfriendly contemporaries, Marsden, Archdeacon Thomas Scott and the Macarthurs, found Brisbane amiable, impartial but weak. His enemies accused him of a lack of interest in the colony, but this was untrue. Judge Forbes, whom he found 'a great blessing', praised his work; an emancipist address on his departure spoke of 'a mild, an unpartial, and a firm administration'; but soon afterwards John Dunmore Lang was to make what became the standard comment on his governorship; 'a man of the best intentions, but disinclined to business, and deficient in energy'. Of the quality of his intentions there is little doubt: highly patriotic, and regarding New South Wales as being of considerable moral, political and strategic value to the United Kingdom, he was genuinely concerned in its future progress. The stock criticisms, that he was weak and lacked interest in administrative detail, either because he was lazy or more concerned with 'star-gazing', are very misleading. 'In place of passing my time in the Observatory or shooting Parrots, I am seldom employed in either. And Altho' I rise oftener at 5 o'clock in the Morning than after, I cannot get thro' the various and arduous duties of my Government', he wrote. Brisbane had been a very respected and successful soldier, as indicated by Nugent's admiration and Wellington's occasional recorded praise and continued championship. Brisbane's dispatches are permeated with bitter realism about the greed and duplicity of leading colonists, and his policies for the colony were usually sensible. He was ready to delegate work to subordinates who were too often untrustworthy, but he was extremely diligent in the duties which he undertook himself as pertinent to his office. Sensitive, respectful to others, and never vindictive, he was rather out of his element when surrounded by the arrogance of the New South Wales magistracy, the disloyalty and factiousness of officials and the explosive rifts in colonial society. At the same time a more forceful man, living in Sydney not Parramatta, who ignored his wife and infant family (two of whom were born in the colony and a third on the voyage home), would probably have had more success in overcoming his difficulties. It was an unhappy period in Brisbane's life and, as Wellington commented on his recall, 'there are many brave men not fit to be governors of colonies'.

 

His astronomical activities had continued in Australia and indeed were probably a reason for his seeking the appointment. He built an observatory at Parramatta and made the first observations of stars in the southern hemisphere since Lacaille's in 1751-52 of which he published an account. 'Science' was 'not allowed to flag'. When he departed he left his astronomical instruments and 349 volumes of his scientific library to the colony, as he wanted his name to be associated with 'the furtherance of Science'; but he had had to leave most of his observatory work to Christian Rümker. There is little reference to astronomy in his letters after 1823, but he kept up his interest and in 1828 reported on the subject to the Royal Society, London. His astronomical achievements indeed brought him as much fame as his military and vice-regal career. When in 1823 Oxford University made him a D.C.L. he wrote that 'no Roman General ever felt prouder of the Corona Triumphatus … than I do on this occasion'. In 1826 he built another observatory at Makerstoun. Later he became president of the Edinburgh Astronomical Institution and did much to make the Edinburgh Royal Observatory highly efficient. In 1832 he was elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in succession to Sir Walter Scott. In 1836 he was created a baronet, in 1837 awarded a G.C.B. and in 1841 promoted general. In 1826 he had been given command of the 34th Regiment; in 1836 he was offered the command of the troops in the North American colonies, but refused on grounds of ill health, as he did in 1838 when offered the Indian command. In 1858, when he was 'the oldest officer in the Army' he twice sought a field-marshal's baton; but though asked for without emolument it was refused. Much of his later life was occupied in paternal works at Largs. He improved its drainage, endowed a parish school and the Largs Brisbane Academy. Predeceased by his four children, he died on 27 January 1860, after enjoying locally great popularity and respect. The city of Brisbane, Queensland’s capital since 1859, was founded as a convict settlement in 1824, and it and its river were named for the governor at the suggestion of the explorer Oxley, the first European to survey the area. Brisbane himself visited the new settlement that year. It was declared a town in 1834 and opened for free settlement in 1839.

 

Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography.

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Such quest would give a potion that would give the farmer a profitable harvest every year, something useful for him to return to his old life. A usual quest like many before, it turned out wrong when Kefi opened the wrong door and released the final boss to the world... With no warrior at level enough to fight it!

Fortunately, the boy had the armor and weapons needed, and Aigara a very skilled warrior Doll as a cousin. Unfortunately, the armor required a soul to be active, something the Doll Slayer didn't have.

So the poor boy had the most terryfing and epic moment of his life sharing armor with Sali while her fighted and defeated the final boss. The boy got his legend to stay written for all the eternity, but oh he had enough adventure for the rest of his life.

Aigara asked Kefi to not open more dungeon doors without her permission, just in case.

 

Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.

 

As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.

 

Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.

 

Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.

 

On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.

 

The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.

 

During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

 

In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

 

California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.

 

The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.

 

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.

 

Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.

 

The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.

 

Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.

 

The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.

 

The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.

 

After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.

 

Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.

  

The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.

During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.

 

During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.

 

In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.

 

From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.

 

One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.

 

After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.

 

In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.

 

The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

 

Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.

 

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.

 

In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.

 

The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.

 

In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.

 

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.

 

At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.

 

Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.

 

In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

 

Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.

 

Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.

 

In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.

 

Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.

 

To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.

 

Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.

 

In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.

 

Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.

 

In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.

 

SN/NC: Anacardium Occidentale, Anacardiaceae Family

 

The cashew tree is a tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew nut and the cashew apple. It can grow as high as 14 m (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 m (20 ft), has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.

The cashew nut, often simply called a cashew, is widely consumed. It is eaten on its own, used in recipes, or processed into cashew cheese or cashew butter. The shell of the cashew seed yields derivatives that can be used in many applications from lubricants to paints. The cashew apple is a light reddish to yellow fruit, whose pulp can be processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink or distilled into liquor.

The species is originally native to northeastern Brazil. Major production of cashews occurs in Vietnam, Nigeria, India, and Ivory Coast.

 

De cashewboom is een tropische groenblijvende boom die de cashewnoot en de cashewappel voortbrengt. Hij kan wel 14 m hoog worden, maar de dwergcashew, die tot 6 m groeit, is meer winstgevend gebleken, met een eerdere rijpheid en hogere opbrengsten.

De cashewnoot, vaak simpelweg cashewnoten genoemd, wordt veel geconsumeerd. Het wordt op zichzelf gegeten, gebruikt in recepten of verwerkt tot cashewkaas of cashewboter. De schil van het cashewnotenzaad levert derivaten op die in veel toepassingen kunnen worden gebruikt, van smeermiddelen tot verven. De cashewappel is een licht roodachtige tot gele vrucht waarvan het vruchtvlees kan worden verwerkt tot een zoete, adstringerende fruitdrank of kan worden gedestilleerd tot likeur.

De soort komt oorspronkelijk uit het noordoosten van Brazilië. De belangrijkste productie van cashewnoten vindt plaats in Vietnam, Nigeria, India en Ivoorkust.

 

Es también conocido como cajú, anacardo, nuez de la india, castaña de cajú, marañón, caguil o merey es un árbol originario de la región amazónica del nordeste de Brasil y casi toda Venezuela. Muchos de sus componentes son utilizados en la elaboración de productos diversos, como por ejemplo dulces, cosméticos y medicamentos.

 

O caju é muitas vezes tido como o fruto do cajueiro quando, na verdade, trata-se de um pseudofruto.

O que entendemos popularmente como "caju" se constitui de duas partes: o fruto propriamente dito, que é a castanha; e seu pedúnculo floral, o pseudofruto, um corpo piriforme, amarelo, rosado ou vermelho.

Na língua tupi, acaiu (caju) significa noz que se produz.

Na tradição oral sabe-se que acayu ou aca-iu refere-se a ano, uma vez que os indígenas contavam a idade a cada floração e safra.

O pseudofruto e fruto

Cajueiro frutificando no município de Cascavel, no Ceará, um dos grandes produtores de caju no estado

O caju, o pseudofruto, é suculento e rico em vitamina C e ferro. Depois do beneficiamento do caju, preparam-se sucos, mel, doces, como cajuada, caju passas, rapadura de caju. Como seu suco fermenta rapidamente, pode ser destilado para produzir uma aguardente o cauim. Dele também são fabricadas bebidas não alcoólicas, como a cajuína.

Muito antes do descobrimento do Brasil e antes da chegada dos portugueses, o caju já era alimento básico das populações autóctones. Por exemplo: os tremembé já fermentavam o suco do caju, o mocororó, que era e é bebido na cerimônia do Torém.

Existe uma variedade enorme de pratos feitos com o caju e com a castanha de caju.

De suas fibras (resíduo/bagaço), ricas em aminoácidos e vitaminas, misturadas com temperos, é feita a "carne de caju"

 

Nó còn được gọi là điều, điều, điều, điều, điều, caguil hoặc chỉ là một loại cây có nguồn gốc từ vùng Amazon phía đông bắc Brazil và gần như toàn bộ Venezuela. Nhiều thành phần của nó được sử dụng trong sản xuất các sản phẩm khác nhau, chẳng hạn như đồ ngọt, mỹ phẩm và thuốc.

 

Es ist auch bekannt als Cashew, Cashew, Cashew, Cashew, Cashew, Caguil oder Merey. Es ist ein Baum, der im Amazonasgebiet im Nordosten Brasiliens und in fast ganz Venezuela heimisch ist. Viele seiner Komponenten werden zur Herstellung verschiedener Produkte wie Süßigkeiten, Kosmetika und Medikamente verwendet.

 

Conosciuto anche come anacardi, anacardi, anacardi, anacardi, anacardi, caguil o semplicemente, è un albero originario della regione amazzonica del nord-est del Brasile e di quasi tutto il Venezuela. Molti dei suoi componenti sono utilizzati nella produzione di vari prodotti, come dolci, cosmetici e medicinali.

 

On l'appelle également noix de cajou, noix de cajou, noix de cajou, noix de cajou, noix de cajou, caguil ou merey.C'est un arbre originaire de la région amazonienne du nord-est du Brésil et de presque tout le Venezuela. Beaucoup de ses composants sont utilisés dans la production de divers produits, tels que des bonbons, des cosmétiques et des médicaments.

 

تُعرف أيضًا باسم الكاجو أو الكاجو أو الكاجو أو الكاجو أو الكاجو أو مجرد شجرة موطنها الأصلي في منطقة الأمازون في شمال شرق البرازيل وكل فنزويلا تقريبًا. تستخدم العديد من مكوناته في إنتاج منتجات متنوعة مثل الحلويات ومستحضرات التجميل والأدوية.

Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.

 

As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.

 

Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.

 

Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.

 

On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.

 

The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.

 

During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

 

In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

 

California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.

 

The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.

 

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.

 

Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.

 

The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.

 

Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.

 

The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.

 

The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.

 

After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.

 

Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.

  

The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.

During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.

 

During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.

 

In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.

 

From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.

 

One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.

 

After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.

 

In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.

 

The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

 

Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.

 

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.

 

In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.

 

The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.

 

In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.

 

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.

 

At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.

 

Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.

 

In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

 

Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.

 

Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.

 

In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.

 

Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.

 

To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.

 

Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.

 

In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.

 

Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.

 

In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.

 

German collectors card in the series E - Filmstars der Welt 2. Band by Greilings-sammelbilder, no. 162. Photo: Hamann / Meyerpress.

 

Petite and glamorous Sonja Henie (1912-1969) was one of the greatest figure skaters in history, the ‘Pavlova of the ice’. She won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater. At the height of her acting career, the Norwegian figure skater and film star was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. She had a shrewd business sense and was immensely successful next with a series of ice revues.

 

Sonja Henie was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway in 1912. She was the only daughter of Wilhelm Henie, a Norwegian fur wholesaler and his wife Selma Lochmann-Nielsen. In addition to the income from the fur business, both of Henie's parents had inherited wealth. Wilhelm Henie had been a one-time World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. As a girl, Henie was ranked Norway's third best tennis player, and she was also a skilled swimmer and equestrienne. She initially showed talent at skiing, and then followed her older brother Leif to take up figure skating. She received her first skates from her father on the Christmas after her sixth birthday. Once Henie began to train seriously as a figure skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world to transform his daughter into a sporting celebrity. She studied ballet with Tamara Karsavina a former teacher of Anna Pavlova, and eventually she combined skating and ballet on ice. She won the children's figure skating championship of Oslo when she was 8, and two years later, in 1923, she won the figure skating championship of Norway. She then placed eighth in a field of eight at the 1924 Winter Olympics, at the age of eleven. Henie won the first of an unprecedented ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 at the age of fourteen. That year she also made her film debut with a small part in the romantic comedy Syv dager for Elisabeth/Seven Days for Elizabeth (1927, Leif Sinding). Henie went on to win first of her three Olympic gold medals the following year. She defended her Olympic titles in 1932 and in 1936, and her World titles annually until 1936. She also won six consecutive European championships from 1931 to 1936. Henie's unprecedented three Olympic gold medals haven't been matched by any ladies single skater since; neither are her achievements as ten-time consecutive World Champion. Henie was the first figure skater to adopt the short skirt costume in figure skating, wear white boots, and make use of dance choreography. Henie also had great spinning ability. She incorporated 19 different spins into her programs, and she could spin nearly 80 revolutions. Her innovative skating techniques and glamorous demeanor transformed the sport permanently and confirmed its acceptance as a legitimate sport in the Winter Olympics. Towards the end of her career, she began to be strongly challenged by younger skaters. However, she held off the competition and went on to win her third Olympic title at the 1936 Winter Olympics. Henie travelled widely and was much in demand as a performer at figure skating exhibitions in both Europe and North America. She became so popular that police had to be called out for crowd control on her appearances in various cities.

 

After the 1936 World Figure Skating Championships, Sonja Henie gave up her amateur status and took up a career as a professional performer in acting and live shows. As a girl, Henie had decided to try to become a movie star when her competitive days were over. In 1936, following a successful ice show in Los Angeles orchestrated by her father to launch her film career, Hollywood studio chief Darryl Zanuck signed her to a long term contract at Twentieth Century Fox. It made her one of the highest-paid actresses of the time. Her first film, One in a Million (1936, Sidney Lanfield) with Adolphe Menjou, was a box-office smash. She continued to make profitable light comedies throughout the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Each film had several ice skating sequences. These films included Thin Ice (1937, Sidney Lanfield) with Tyrone Power, Second Fiddle (1939, Sidney Lanfield) again with Power, and Sun Valley Serenade (1941, H. Bruce Humberstone) with John Payne and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Henie became increasingly demanding in her business dealings with Zanuck, and insisted on having total control of the skating numbers in her films. In addition to her film career at Fox, Henie formed a business arrangement with Arthur Wirtz, who produced her touring ice shows under the name of ‘Hollywood Ice Revue’. Wirtz also acted as Henie's financial advisor. At the time, figure skating and ice shows were not yet an established form of entertainment in the United States. Henie's popularity as a film actress attracted many new fans and instituted skating shows as a popular new entertainment. Throughout the 1940’s, Henie and Wirtz produced ice skating musicals with lavish costumes and spectacular routines at Madison Square Garden, attracting millions of ticket buyers. At the height of her fame, her shows and touring activities brought Henie as much as $2 million per year. She also had numerous lucrative endorsement contracts, and deals to market skates, clothing, jewelry, dolls, and other merchandise branded with her name. These activities made her one of the wealthiest women in the world in her time. In 1948 she made her last film, The Countess of Monte Cristo (1948, Frederick De Cordova). Henie broke off her arrangement with Wirtz in 1950 and for the next three seasons produced her own tours under the name ‘Sonja Henie Ice Revue’. It was an ill-advised decision to set herself up in competition with Wirtz, whose shows now featured the new Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott. Since Wirtz controlled the best arenas and dates, Henie was left playing smaller venues and markets already saturated by other touring ice shows such as Ice Capades. The collapse of a section of bleachers during a show in Baltimore, Maryland in 1952 compounded the tour's legal and financial woes. In 1953 Henie formed a new partnership with Morris Chalfen to appear in his European Holiday On Ice tour. This was a great success. She produced her own show at New York's Roxy Theatre in January 1956. However, a subsequent South American tour in 1956 was a disaster. Henie was drinking heavily at that time and could no longer keep up with the demands of touring, and this marked her retirement from skating.

 

Sonja Henie's connections with Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials made her the subject of controversy. During her amateur skating career, she performed often in Germany and was a favourite of German audiences as well as of Hitler personally. As a wealthy celebrity, she moved in the same social circles as royalty and heads of state and made Hitler's acquaintance as a matter of course. Controversy appeared first when Henie greeted Hitler with a Nazi salute during an exhibition in Berlin some time prior to the 1936 Winter Olympics; she was strongly denounced by the Norwegian press. She did not repeat the salute at the Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but after the Games she accepted an invitation to lunch with Hitler at his resort home in nearby Berchtesgaden. Hitler presented Henie with an autographed photo with a lengthy inscription. After beginning her film career, Henie kept up her Nazi connections, for example personally arranging with Joseph Goebbels for the release of her first film, One in a Million, in Germany. During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, German troops saw Hitler's autographed photo prominently displayed in the Henie family home. As a result, none of Henie's properties in Norway were confiscated or damaged by the Germans. Henie became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1941. Like many Hollywood stars, she supported the U.S. war effort through USO and similar activities, but she was careful to avoid supporting the Norwegian resistance movement, or making public statements against the Nazis. For this, she was condemned by many Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans. After the war, Henie was mindful that many of her countrymen considered her to be a quisling. However, she made a triumphant return to Norway with the Holiday on Ice tour in 1953 and 1955. Her autobiography Mitt livs eventyr/Wings on My Feet (1938-1940) was republished in a revised edition in 1954. Henie was married three times, to Dan Topping (1940 - 1946), Winthrop Gardiner Jr. (1949 - 1956) and the wealthy Norwegian shipping magnate and art patron, Niels Onstad (1956 - 1969). After her retirement in 1956, Henie and Onstad (nicknamed ‘the Onassis of Norway’) settled in Oslo and accumulated a large collection of modern art. In 1968 they opened the Henie Onstad kunstsenter (Henie-Onstad Art Centre) at Høvikodden, about 10 km from Oslo. At the time of her death, Henie was planning a comeback for a television special that would have aired in January 1970. In the mid 1960’s, Henie was diagnosed with leukemia. She died of the disease in 1969 during a flight from Paris to Oslo. She was 57, and one of the ten wealthiest women in the world when she died. Sonja Henie is buried with her husband in Oslo on the hilltop overlooking the Henie-Onstad Art Centre. After her death her brother Leif published with Raymond Strait the biography ‘Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie’ (1990). According to her brother, Henie was obsessed with money and sex, had a vile temper when crossed, and used her family and others shamelessly to advance her own ends. However, Henie is inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1976) and the International Women's Sport Hall of Fame (1982), and the signature of her ice skate blades adorns the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

 

Sources: Jone Johnson Lewis (Women’s History Guide), The New York Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Harvested produce was washed, stored & cooled in the small rock building on the floodplain below. The produce was hauled out of the canyon by wagon & sold to the communities in the surrounding area.

The wagon road roughly follows Forest Road 600 & was extremely slow-going as well as dangerous to man & animal. To speed the process, Mills attempted to haul the produce to the rim by way of cable with a lift bucket, He reluctantly agreed not to ride to the top with the first load; Mills narrowly escaped death as a cable failed & the bucket came crashing down the canyon.

One the floodplain below are the remnants of the Mills Canyon Enterprise, Established in 1881 by Melvin Mills, an influential attorney & political figure in New Mexico. The orchard covered hundreds of acres along the Canadian River. Thousands of fruit trees produced tons of peaches, pears, apples, plums, apricots, cherries, walnuts, chestnuts, & almonds.

In the fall of 1904 the Rio Grande, & Candian Rivers flooded. Agricultural fields & even some small towns were destroyed. The Mills Canyon Enterprise was one of the casualties. Effort to make it profitable again failed & the last harvest was in 1912.

Bodie (/ˈboʊdiː/ BOH-dee) is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

History

 

Discovery of gold

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

Boom

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city, but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880.[19] The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

Districts and amenities

 

s a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.

 

As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.

 

Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.

 

Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.

 

On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.

 

Mining town

 

The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned about 1930). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.

 

During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

 

In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.

 

Decline

 

Historical population

Census Pop. %±

18805,417—

1890779−85.6%

190096523.9%

1910698−27.7%

1920110−84.2%

1930228107.3%

194090−60.5%

19500−100.0%

1951-2018 (est.)0

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there.[ In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942.

 

Ghost town and park

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter.

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2019, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

 

In fiction

 

Bodie was the setting for the young reader's novel Behind the Masks, by Susan Patron.

Kathleen Haun's historical novel No Trees for Shade (2013) is set in Bodie in 1880.

Key incidents in Chapter One of James Rollins' tenth Sigma Force novel, The Sixth Extinction (2014), span nearby Mono Lake, the secret military testing site neighboring Bodie Park, and the ghost town itself, where terrorists attack a National Park Service Ranger and details unfold about both the area's significance to the rest of the plot.

Bodie is the setting for the Kristiana Gregory book Orphan Runaways (1998).

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Bodie ist eine Geisterstadt in Kalifornien östlich der Sierra Nevada an der Grenze zu Nevada in den Vereinigten Staaten. Sie entstand nach 1859 als Goldgräbersiedlung und wurde in den 1930er Jahren aufgegeben. Dank der geringen Luftfeuchtigkeit blieben viele Gebäude, Gerätschaften und Autos relativ gut erhalten. Das Ensemble gilt heute als besterhaltene Geisterstadt der USA.

 

Aufstieg

 

William S. Bodey (manche Quellen sprechen auch von Waterman S. Bodey) hatte 1859 in Mono County in der Sierra Nevada, ca. 20 Meilen nördlich des Mono Lake, Gold gefunden. Noch im selben Jahr starb er vermutlich bei einem Schneesturm, nachdem er sich in die nächste Stadt aufgemacht hatte, um neue Materialien und Lebensmittel zu holen. Seine Familie jedoch gründete an dieser Stelle die Stadt Bodie und begann 1861 mit dem Goldabbau. Die geänderte Schreibweise war beabsichtigt, um eine falsche Aussprache als „Body“ (= Leiche) zu vermeiden.

 

Die Geologie der Region ist geprägt durch Andesit mit großflächigen Brekzie-Gängen mit hohem Silicium-Anteil und schmalen Quarzit-Gängen. In beiden Strukturen ist freies Gold in feinen Anteilen gemischt. Weitere Mineralien sind Pyrit und ein relativ hoher Silber-Anteil. Nachdem die Standard Company, die die Goldmine in Bodie betrieb, 1876 auf eine sehr profitable Goldader gestoßen war, wuchs die Stadt rasant an. Nur vier Jahre später lebten bereits 10.000 Einwohner in Bodie.

Karte der Stadt und der Bergwerksansprüche von 1879

 

Die Stadt entwickelte sich westlich unterhalb der Hügelkette, in der die Bergwerke entstanden. Das größte Bergwerk wurde von Standard Mines betrieben und unterhielt eine Seilbahn vom Schachtausgang in den Hügeln an den Stadtrand zum firmeneigenen Erzbrecher. In Bodie gab es während dieser Blütezeit der Stadt 65 Saloons entlang der Hauptstraße, zahlreiche Bordelle, ein Chinesenviertel mit einem taoistischen Tempel und einer Opiumhöhle, eine Eisenbahn, mehrere Zeitungen, sieben Brauereien und Kirchen verschiedener Religionen.

 

Aber auch das Verbrechen hielt Einzug. Morde, Überfälle und Postkutschenraub waren beinahe an der Tagesordnung. Bodie genoss einen schlechten Ruf und galt in dieser Zeit als eine der wildesten und gesetzlosesten Städte des Westens.

 

Überliefert ist das Zitat eines kleinen Mädchens, das mit seinen Eltern nach Bodie ziehen sollte und in sein Tagebuch schrieb: „Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie!“ („Auf Wiedersehen Gott, ich ziehe nach Bodie!“).

 

Die erfolgreichsten Bergbau-Unternehmen in Bodie waren Standard mit $18.000.000, Syndicate mit über $1.000.000, Bodie Tunnel mit über $200.000, Bechtel Cons. mit rund $200.000 und Mono mit $122.000.

 

Niedergang

 

Nach wenigen gewinnbringenden Jahren warf die Mine kaum noch Profit ab, auch weil der Goldpreis stark gefallen war und sich der Betrieb so immer weniger lohnte. Der große kalifornische Goldrausch, der 1849 begonnen hatte, war vorüber. Weil Bodie sonst keine Einnahmequellen zu bieten hatte, sank die Bevölkerungszahl in der Folgezeit rapide.

 

Um die Jahrhundertwende gab es noch einmal einen kleinen Aufschwung, der jedoch den Niedergang nicht aufhalten konnte. 1917 wurde die einzige Eisenbahnlinie demontiert und die Schienen wurden verschrottet. Bodie hatte aber immer noch einige wenige Einwohner bis in die Mitte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts.

 

Nach einem Großbrand im Jahre 1932, der zahlreiche Häuser, bis auf die wenigen, bis heute verbliebenen Gebäude, zerstörte, war das Schicksal der Stadt jedoch besiegelt. Das Geschäftsviertel im Stadtzentrum wurde von dem Brand völlig zerstört. Das 1877 eröffnete Postamt schloss 1942.

 

Die Mine wurde in den folgenden Jahren zunächst noch weiter betrieben; die Arbeiter kamen aus den Nachbarstädten. In den sechziger Jahren wurde dann der Goldabbau vollständig aufgegeben und die Mine geschlossen.

 

Die gleichnamige Goldgräberstadt Bodie im Okanogan County, (US-Bundesstaat Washington), in der die Bodie Mine betrieben wurde, ereilte das gleiche Schicksal. Von dieser Geisterstadt sind nur noch wenige zerfallene Häuser erhalten.

 

Bevölkerungsentwicklung

 

Der explosionsartige Aufstieg und der rapide Niedergang von Bodie werden anhand der amtlichen Einwohnerzahlen deutlich, die der Bezirk Mono County regelmäßig erhoben hat:

Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Bodie

1860 2

1876 30

1877 500

1878 1500

1879 7000

1880 10000

1881 3000

1882 2000

1887 1500

1888 500

1890 595

1900 965

1910 698

1920 120

1921 30

1926 50

1932 100

1940 20

1962 10

 

Bodie State Historic Park

 

Seit 1962 ist Bodie ein State Park. Es sind noch ungefähr 170 Gebäude vorhanden, die das große Feuer von 1932 verschont hat, u. a. eine Kirche, die Schule, ein Bankgebäude aus Ziegelsteinen, eine Bar, ein Laden und mehrere Wohnhäuser sowie das große Minengebäude.

 

Viele der Einrichtungsgegenstände stehen noch unverändert da, als hätten die Bewohner den Ort gerade erst verlassen. Auf dem kleinen Friedhof vor der Stadt sind die Grabsteine ehemaliger Bewohner zu sehen. Die Zapfsäulen einer alten Tankstelle sind ebenso noch vorhanden wie ein paar rostende Autowracks aus den 30er Jahren. Einige Gebäude können betreten werden. Für die alte Mine werden Führungen angeboten.

 

Die Parkverwaltung sorgt für eine behutsame Erhaltung des Originalzustandes. Es ist strengstens untersagt, Dinge aus dem Park mitzunehmen.

 

National Historic Landmark

 

Der Bodie Historic District ist seit 4. Juli 1961 ein National Historic Landmark.

 

California Historical Landmark

 

Der Rest der Kleinstadt ist ein California Historical Landmark.

 

Lage und Anfahrt

 

Die Ortschaft liegt nördlich des Mono Lake an einer etwa 20 Kilometer langen Stichstraße, die zwischen Lee Vining und Bridgeport vom U.S. Highway 395 abzweigt. Für die Erhaltung von Bodie verlangt die Parkverwaltung einen kleinen Betrag von den Besuchern. Da im Bodie State Park keinerlei Geschäfte existieren, wird die Mitnahme von Getränken im Sommer empfohlen.

 

Die letzten fünf Kilometer der Anfahrt vom Highway 395 nach Bodie sind nicht mehr asphaltiert und führen über eine Schotterstraße. Die Sommer in der Sierra Nevada sind heiß und die Winter sehr kalt mit sehr viel Schnee. Im Winter sind die Zufahrtswege oft so hoch verschneit, dass Bodie nur auf Skiern oder mit Schneemobilen erreichbar ist. Selbst Allradfahrzeuge mit Schneeketten bleiben Jahr für Jahr stecken.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

This is an informed, important article about the inner workings of the oil industry, present & past governments in the U.S. & abroad, & the secret manipulations of markets that are always touted as 'free' by the very thieves whose hands are picking our pockets & whose propaganda is ruining our minds. And it's a tale about the greed of the oil men - the Bush family among them - & their handy dandy, immensely & cleverly profitable war in Iraq.

 

- Urgent & brilliant reading.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Text below from: www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061406J.shtml

 

Keeping Iraq's Oil in the Ground

By Greg Palast

AlterNet

 

Wednesday 14 June 2006

 

World oil production today stands at more than twice the 15-billion a-year maximum projected by Shell Oil in 1956 - and reserves are climbing at a faster clip yet. That leaves the question, Why this war?

 

Did Dick Cheney send us in to seize the last dwindling supplies? Unlikely. Our world's petroleum reserves have doubled in just twenty-five years - and it is in Shell's and the rest of the industry's interest that this doubling doesn't happen again. The neo-cons were hell-bent on raising Iraq's oil production. Big Oil's interest was in suppressing production, that is, keeping Iraq to its OPEC quota or less. This raises the question, did the petroleum industry, which had a direct, if hidden, hand, in promoting invasion, cheerlead for a takeover of Iraq to prevent overproduction?

 

It wouldn't be the first time. If oil is what we're looking for, there are, indeed, extra helpings in Iraq. On paper, Iraq, at 112 billion proven barrels, has the second largest reserves in OPEC after Saudi Arabia. That does not make Saudi Arabia happy. Even more important is that Iraq has fewer than three thousand operating wells... compared to one million in Texas.

 

That makes the Saudis even unhappier. It would take a decade or more, but start drilling in Iraq and its reserves will about double, bringing it within gallons of Saudi Arabia's own gargantuan pool. Should Iraq drill on that scale, the total, when combined with the Saudis', will drown the oil market. That wouldn't make the Texans too happy either. So Fadhil Chalabi's plan for Iraq to pump 12 million barrels a day, a million more than Saudi Arabia, is not, to use Bob Ebel's (Center fro Strategic and International Studies) terminology, "ridiculous" from a raw resource view, it is ridiculous politically. It would never be permitted. An international industry policy of suppressing Iraqi oil production has been in place since 1927. We need again to visit that imp called "history."

 

It began with a character known as "Mr. 5%"- Calouste Gulbenkian - who, in 1925, slicked King Faisal, neophyte ruler of the country recently created by Churchill, into giving Gulbenkian's "Iraq Petroleum Company" (IPC) exclusive rights to all of Iraq's oil. Gulbenkian flipped 95% of his concession to a combine of western oil giants: Anglo-Persian, Royal Dutch Shell, CFP of France, and the Standard Oil trust companies (now ExxonMobil and its "sisters.") The remaining slice Calouste kept for himself - hence, "Mr. 5%."

 

The oil majors had a better use for Iraq's oil than drilling it - not drilling it. The oil bigs had bought Iraq's concession to seal it up and keep it off the market. To please his buyers' wishes, Mr. 5% spread out a big map of the Middle East on the floor of a hotel room in Belgium and drew a thick red line around the gulf oil fields, centered on Iraq. All the oil company executives, gathered in the hotel room, signed their name on the red line - vowing not to drill, except as a group, within the red-lined zone. No one, therefore, had an incentive to cheat and take red-lined oil. All of Iraq's oil, sequestered by all, was locked in, and all signers would enjoy a lift in worldwide prices. Anglo-Persian Company, now British Petroleum (BP), would pump almost all its oil, reasonably, from Persia (Iran). Later, the Standard Oil combine, renamed the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco), would limit almost all its drilling to Saudi Arabia. Anglo-Persian (BP) had begun pulling oil from Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1927 and, in accordance with the Red-Line Agreement, shared its Kirkuk and Basra fields with its IPC group - and drilled no more.

 

The following was written three decades ago:

 

Although its original concession of March 14, 1925, cove- red all of Iraq, the Iraq Petroleum Co., under the owner- ship of BP (23.75%), Shell (23.75%), CFP [of France] (23.75%), Exxon (11.85%), Mobil (11.85%), and [Calouste] Gulbenkian (5.0%), limited its production to fields constituting only one-half of 1 percent of the country's total area. During the Great Depression, the world was awash with oil and greater output from Iraq would simply have driven the price down to even lower levels.

 

• Plus ça change... [the more things change, the more they remain the same]

 

When the British Foreign Office fretted that locking up oil would stoke local nationalist anger, BP-IPC agreed privately to pretend to drill lots of wells, but make them absurdly shallow and place them where, wrote a company manager, "there was no danger of striking oil." This systematic suppression of Iraq's production, begun in 1927, has never ceased. In the early 1960s, Iraq's frustration with the British-led oil consortium's failure to pump pushed the nation to cancel the BP-Shell-Exxon concession and seize the oil fields. Britain was ready to strangle Baghdad, but a cooler, wiser man in the White House, John F. Kennedy, told the Brits to back off. President Kennedy refused to call Iraq's seizure an "expropriation" akin to Castro's seizure of U.S.-owned banana plantations. Kennedy's view was that Anglo-American companies had it coming to them because they had refused to honor their legal commitment to drill.

 

But the freedom Kennedy offered the Iraqis to drill their own oil to the maximum was swiftly taken away from them by their Arab brethren.

 

The OPEC cartel, controlled by Saudi Arabia, capped Iraq's production at a sum equal to Iran's, though the Iranian reserves are far smaller than Iraq's. The excuse for this quota equality between Iraq and Iran was to prevent war between them. It didn't. To keep Iraq's Ba'athists from complaining about the limits, Saudi Arabia simply bought off the leaders by funding Saddam's war against Iran and giving the dictator $7 billion for his "Islamic bomb" program.

 

In 1974, a U.S. politician broke the omerta over the suppression of Iraq's oil production. It was during the Arab oil embargo that Senator Edmund Muskie revealed a secret intelligence report of "fantastic" reserves of oil in Iraq undeveloped because U.S. oil companies refused to add pipeline capacity. Muskie, who'd just lost a bid for the Presidency, was dubbed a "loser" and ignored. The Iranian bombing of the Basra fields (1980-88) put a new kink in Iraq's oil production. Iraq's frustration under production limits explodes periodically.

 

In August 1990, Kuwait's craven siphoning of borderland oil fields jointly owned with Iraq gave Saddam the excuse to take Kuwait's share. Here was Saddam's opportunity to increase Iraq's OPEC quota by taking Kuwait's (most assuredly not approved by the U.S.). Saddam's plan backfired. The Basra oil fields not crippled by Iran were demolished in 1991 by American B-52s. Saddam's petro-military overreach into Kuwait gave the West the authority for a more direct oil suppression method called the "Sanctions" program, later changed to "Oil for Food." Now we get to the real reason for the U.N. embargo on Iraqi oil exports. According to the official U.S. position:

 

Sanctions were critical to preventing Iraq from acquiring equipment that could be used to reconstitute banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

 

How odd. If cutting Saddam's allowance was the purpose, then sanctions, limiting oil exports, was a very suspect method indeed. The nature of the oil market (a cartel) is such that the elimination of two million barrels a day increased Saddam's revenue. One might conclude that sanctions were less about WMD and more about EPS (earnings per share) of oil sellers.

 

In other words, there is nothing new under the desert sun. Today's fight over how much of Iraq's oil to produce (or suppress) simply extends into this century the last century's pump-or-control battles. In sum, Big Oil, whether in European or Arab-OPEC dress, has done its damned best to keep Iraq's oil buried deep in the ground to keep prices high in the air. Iraq has 74 known fields and only 15 in production; 526 known "structures" (oil-speak for "pools of oil"), only 125 drilled.

 

And they won't be drilled, not unless Iraq says, "Mother, may I?" to Saudi Arabia, or, as the James Baker/Council on Foreign Relations paper says, "Saudi Arabia may punish Iraq." And believe me, Iraq wouldn't want that. The decision to expand production has, for now, been kept out of Iraqi's hands by the latest method of suppressing Iraq's oil flow - the 2003 invasion and resistance to invasion. And it has been darn effective. Iraq's output in 2003, 2004 and 2005 was less than produced under the restrictive Oil-for-Food Program. Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in output has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002. That suggests an interesting arithmetic equation. Big Oil's profits are up $89 billion a year in the same period the oil industry boosted contributions to Mr. Bush's reelection campaign to roughly $40 million.

 

That would make our president "Mr. 0.05%."

 

• A History of Oil in Iraq

 

Suppressing It, Not Pumping It

 

1925-28 "Mr. 5%" sells his monopoly on Iraq's oil to British Petroleum and Exxon, who sign a "Red-Line Agreement" vowing not to compete by drilling independently in Iraq.

 

1948 Red-Line Agreement ended, replaced by oil combines' "dog in the manger" strategy - taking control of fields, then capping production-drilling shallow holes where "there was no danger of striking oil."

 

1961 OPEC, founded the year before, places quotas on Iraq's exports equal to Iran's, locking in suppression policy.

 

1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Iran destroys Basra fields. Iraq cannot meet OPEC quota. 1991 Desert Storm. Anglo-American bombings cut production.

 

1991-2003 United Nations Oil embargo (zero legal exports) followed by Oil-for-Food Program limiting Iraqi sales to 2 million barrels a day.

 

2003-? "Insurgents" sabotage Iraq's pipelines and infrastructure.

 

2004 Options for Iraqi OilThe secret plan adopted by U.S. State Department overturns Pentagon proposal to massively in crease oil production. State Department plan, adopted by government of occupied Iraq, limits state oil company to OPEC quotas.

--------

 

This article is excerpted from Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse (Dutton Adult, 2006).

 

###

 

As usual in my political posts, updates will be added below as appropriate.

 

Sir Thomas Brisbane:

 

Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (1773-1860), governor, was born on 23 July 1773 at Brisbane House, near Largs, Ayrshire, son of a family of ancient Scottish lineage. He was educated by tutors and attended both the University of Edinburgh and the English Academy, Kensington. In 1789 he was commissioned an ensign in the 38th Regiment, which next year he joined in Ireland; there he struck up a long and profitable friendship with a fellow subaltern, Arthur Wellesley. From 1793 to 1798 he served in Flanders as a captain, from 1795 to 1799 in the West Indies as a major, and from 1800 to 1803 he commanded the 69th Regiment in Jamaica as a lieutenant-colonel, earning high praise from the governor, Sir George Nugent. From 1803 to 1805 he served in England, but when the 69th was ordered to India went on half-pay in Scotland because of his health.

 

He then was able to indulge his interest in astronomy, which he developed after nearly being involved in a shipwreck in 1795, and in 1808 he built at Brisbane House the second observatory in Scotland. In 1810 he was promoted colonel and elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1812 at Wellington's request he was promoted brigadier-general. He commanded a brigade which was heavily engaged in the battles of the Peninsular war from Vittoria to Toulouse, and continued to practise his astronomy so that in Wellington's words, he 'kept the time of the army'. In 1815 he was created a K.C.B., received the thanks of parliament, and commanded a brigade in the American war. From 1815 to 1818 he commanded a division in the army of occupation in France and in 1817 he was created a K.C.H. (G.C.H., 1831). He returned to England in 1818 and next year married Anna Maria, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Hay Makdougall of Makerstoun, Scotland, whose surname he added to his own by letters patent on 14 August 1826. In 1815 he applied for appointment as governor of New South Wales, but the post was not then vacant; in November 1820 on Wellington's advice Brisbane, then in command of the Munster district in Ireland, was appointed. He arrived in the colony on 7 November 1821 and took over from Governor Lachlan Macquarie on 1 December.

 

Brisbane's policies for the colony were usually sensible answers to pressing problems, based on Commissioner John Thomas Bigge's report and the instructions derived from it, modified by his own impressions. Though he was on good terms with Macquarie he condemned the latter's 'system' and told Earl Bathurst later that he had changed New South Wales in so many ways that if Macquarie had returned 'he would not have recognised the place'.

 

When Brisbane arrived 340,000 acres (137,593 ha) of promised grants had still to be located and there were many confused permissive occupancies and nebulous promises. Lands were occupied and transferred without legal title, and boundary disputes seemed never ending. Proper survey was essential for a workable policy of alienation to be evolved, and the Ripon regulations of 1831 were made to a large extent possible by the practical development of the policies which Brisbane had implemented.

 

In 1822 he issued tickets-of-occupation which enabled land to be immediately occupied without a preliminary survey and graziers to be given security against trespass without the land being permanently alienated. Additional assistant surveyors were appointed to reduce arrears in the surveying and granting of land, but Brisbane promised land only to those with the inclination and ability to use it productively, forbade the acceptance of chits signed by irresponsible persons as valid titles, and gave tickets-of-occupation only when extra stock had actually been obtained. He granted land to sons of established settlers only if their fathers' properties had been considerably improved, and to immigrants in proportion to their capital. He was reluctant to make grants to his newly-appointed officials, even though this subjected him 'to a most unpleasant feeling'. In order to promote settlement of the colony by settlers who really wanted to improve the land and to deter speculators with fictitious capital, he insisted that grantees should maintain one convict labourer, free of expense to the Crown, for every 100 acres (40 ha) they were given, and he maintained this rule against criticism from the Colonial Office that it would hamper settlement. Brisbane insisted that although the regulation had been temporarily unpopular genuine settlers did not oppose it, for convict servants were coming to be looked on as a boon. It would help to control the intense demand for land, though even that check would not be sufficient. 'Not a cow calves in the colony but her owner applies for an additional grant in consequence of the increase in his stock', he wrote. 'Every person to whom a grant is made receives it as the payment of a debt; everyone to whom one is refused turns my implacable enemy'. He asked the British government 'to fix an invariable proportion of land to be cultivated in every grant' and to appoint a Commission of Escheat, for without it, since a judgment by Barron Field, the 'clearing and cultivating clauses' in the grants had become 'a dead letter'. The instructions on the disposal of crown lands which were sent from London in January 1825 owed so much to Brisbane's advice that he found 'great satisfaction' in noticing 'the very prominent similarity' between them and the practice he had been following in New South Wales.

 

Acting on one of Bigge's suggestions Brisbane in 1824 had begun selling crown lands, at 5s. an acre. 'While the system of free grants exists, there is little chance of extensive improvement taking place generally in the colony, as the improver of land can never enter the market in competition with the individual who gets his land for nothing', Brisbane told Bathurst. Between May and December 1825 more than 500,000 acres (202,345 ha) were sold. In land policy Brisbane had recognized the need to encourage men of capital, though at the same time opposing over-lavish land grants. Seeing the need for consolidation rather than expansion, and for more accurate surveys of the settled areas, he gave less encouragement to land exploration than either his predecessors or successors, but he continued, as instructed, to organize coastal surveys.

 

Brisbane received from Bathurst full instructions on convict affairs, derived from Bigge's report. These were based on the belief that Macquarie had been too lenient and too extravagant, and Brisbane conscientiously carried them out. He rigidly adhered to the rules against the premature granting of tickets-of-leave. He reduced the number of road-gangs, whose members often indulged in dissipation and crime, and the numbers employed on public works in Sydney, and organized in their place gangs to clear land for settlers in return for payment to the government; this greatly speeded up the rate of clearing. He ordered convict mechanics to be hired instead of being assigned; this brought in revenue and made for a more efficient distribution of labour. He established new centres of secondary punishment as Bigge had recommended, first at Moreton Bay and later at Bathurst's suggestion on Norfolk Island, and he sent educated convicts to be confined first at Bathurst and later at Wellington valley, but he opposed excessive corporal punishment, reprieved many prisoners sentenced to death and was criticized by Bathurst for his improvidence in granting pardons.

 

Brisbane set up an agricultural training college and was the first patron of the New South Wales Agricultural Society, founded in 1822, which among other activities, financed the importation of livestock. On Bathurst's instructions, he drastically reduced the assistance given to new settlers and so, by making it virtually impracticable to begin farming without capital, helped to improve production. He conducted experiments in growing Virginian tobacco, Georgian cotton, Brazilian coffee and New Zealand flax, but unfortunately without much success.

 

Brisbane looked forward to getting the 'Colony on to its own Resources' and regarded the achievement of economy in government expenditure as one of his major successes. In 1822, on the advice of Frederick Goulburn, colonial secretary, and William Wemyss, deputy commissary general, he initiated currency reforms by which commissariat payments were to be made in dollars at a fixed value of 5s. or about one-eighth above their intrinsic value. This attempt to set up a dollar standard was intended both to reduce expenditure and to provide the colony with a coinage which would prevent a repetition of the issue of store receipts as practised by the former commissary, Frederick Drennan, and it would discourage imports by depreciating the local currency. But the system was not a success and after the terms on which the dollars would be received had been modified the dollar standard was replaced by a sterling exchange standard on instructions sent from London in July 1825. In 1823 all commissariat supplies were called by tender, though the introduction of price competition hurt small farmers and favoured the larger ones; when only three month's grain was bought by tender, instead of a year's at a fixed price, a minor depression occurred, but this was partly due to the suddenness of the change.

 

Brisbane was devout and broadminded in religious matters, and prepared to support any sect that did not threaten the state. He encouraged Wesleyan societies, advocated and gave financial aid to the Roman Catholics, but opposed what he regarded as extravagant demands by the Presbyterians, considering them wealthy enough to build their own church. He supported Bible and tract societies. He attempted to encourage education by appointing a director-general of all government public schools, but this was quashed by the Colonial Office. He believed that clergy, like government officials, should not indulge in private trade, which of course made him unpopular with Samuel Marsden. His policy towards Aboriginals was ambivalent. On one occasion he ordered some to be shot; on another he imposed martial law beyond the Blue Mountains because of 'the aggressions of the Native Blacks'. However, he favoured compensating them for lost land, and in 1825 granted the London Missionary Society 10,000 acres (4047 ha) as an Aboriginal reserve.

 

Like other governors, Brisbane found the emancipist-exclusive quarrel a major difficulty, and the success of many of his policies was vitiated because some of his officials ignored him and favoured the exclusives. Brisbane himself did not have great faith in the future of a colony based on emancipists; but though he preferred the large-scale immigration of free settlers, especially those with capital, his cautious liberalism was to the emancipists' tastes. Unlike the exclusives, they gave him a warm farewell. Brisbane appears to have believed, as he said at a public meeting just before he left, that free institutions could be safely established in New South Wales. In 1824 he did not apply any censorship when William Charles Wentworth's Australian began publication, and ended control of the Gazette by government officials. He ordered the holding of Courts of Quarter Sessions at which there would be trial by jury, an experiment which Chief Justice (Sir) Francis Forbes reported to have been very successful; they were abolished by the Act of 1828, but not before the exclusives had grossly misused them at Parramatta in their vendetta against Henry Grattan Douglass. The Legislative Council set up by the New South Wales Act of 1823, which began meeting in August 1824, operated calmly under his rule and began the process of reducing the powers of the governor from the autocracy of the past.

 

At first Brisbane had too few men to do the work of government; by 1824 he found himself with a number of departmental heads appointed independently of him, varying in ability, at odds with each other and the government. He thought Judge Barron Field and Judge-Advocate (Sir) John Wylde responsible for much of the party feeling in the colony, and was heartily glad to see them go in 1824, but John Oxley, Saxe Bannister and Frederick Goulburn were also sources of trouble. Men like George Druitt, John Jamison, Marsden, John Dunmore Lang, the Macarthurs and the Blaxlands frequently made vicious misrepresentations in London about Brisbane's administration. They gave the governor much to contend with and, though he 'evinced a forbearance amounting to Stoicism', in the end he felt compelled to remove some 'exclusive' magistrates for grossly improper behaviour. It was partly to counter their misrepresentations that he sent Dr Douglass to London in February 1824, but his patronage of Douglass, who was in trouble with the War Office, in the end contributed to his recall. Brisbane did not find Goulburn easy to work with and in January 1824 asked for an assistant-secretary. Goulburn refused to carry out some of Brisbane's instructions; he suppressed letters or answered them without reference to the governor; on 19 April 1824 he even claimed that the governor's proclamations and orders were invalid unless they went through his department. Such conduct Brisbane clearly could not countenance and he protested to the Colonial Office; the reply in December was the recall of both governor and secretary, and in November 1825 Brisbane departed.

 

Brisbane did not concern himself with all the details of his administration; but a governor could no longer attend to everything. The colony had expanded in size in recent years, and Macquarie had ruined his health and peace of mind by a concern with every administrative detail and petty squabble as Governor (Sir) Ralph Darling was soon to do also. Brisbane had worked well with Lieutenant-Governors William Sorell and (Sir) George Arthur in Van Diemen's Land, which was still under his jurisdiction, and he had no trouble there. Unfriendly contemporaries, Marsden, Archdeacon Thomas Scott and the Macarthurs, found Brisbane amiable, impartial but weak. His enemies accused him of a lack of interest in the colony, but this was untrue. Judge Forbes, whom he found 'a great blessing', praised his work; an emancipist address on his departure spoke of 'a mild, an unpartial, and a firm administration'; but soon afterwards John Dunmore Lang was to make what became the standard comment on his governorship; 'a man of the best intentions, but disinclined to business, and deficient in energy'. Of the quality of his intentions there is little doubt: highly patriotic, and regarding New South Wales as being of considerable moral, political and strategic value to the United Kingdom, he was genuinely concerned in its future progress. The stock criticisms, that he was weak and lacked interest in administrative detail, either because he was lazy or more concerned with 'star-gazing', are very misleading. 'In place of passing my time in the Observatory or shooting Parrots, I am seldom employed in either. And Altho' I rise oftener at 5 o'clock in the Morning than after, I cannot get thro' the various and arduous duties of my Government', he wrote. Brisbane had been a very respected and successful soldier, as indicated by Nugent's admiration and Wellington's occasional recorded praise and continued championship. Brisbane's dispatches are permeated with bitter realism about the greed and duplicity of leading colonists, and his policies for the colony were usually sensible. He was ready to delegate work to subordinates who were too often untrustworthy, but he was extremely diligent in the duties which he undertook himself as pertinent to his office. Sensitive, respectful to others, and never vindictive, he was rather out of his element when surrounded by the arrogance of the New South Wales magistracy, the disloyalty and factiousness of officials and the explosive rifts in colonial society. At the same time a more forceful man, living in Sydney not Parramatta, who ignored his wife and infant family (two of whom were born in the colony and a third on the voyage home), would probably have had more success in overcoming his difficulties. It was an unhappy period in Brisbane's life and, as Wellington commented on his recall, 'there are many brave men not fit to be governors of colonies'.

 

His astronomical activities had continued in Australia and indeed were probably a reason for his seeking the appointment. He built an observatory at Parramatta and made the first observations of stars in the southern hemisphere since Lacaille's in 1751-52 of which he published an account. 'Science' was 'not allowed to flag'. When he departed he left his astronomical instruments and 349 volumes of his scientific library to the colony, as he wanted his name to be associated with 'the furtherance of Science'; but he had had to leave most of his observatory work to Christian Rümker. There is little reference to astronomy in his letters after 1823, but he kept up his interest and in 1828 reported on the subject to the Royal Society, London. His astronomical achievements indeed brought him as much fame as his military and vice-regal career. When in 1823 Oxford University made him a D.C.L. he wrote that 'no Roman General ever felt prouder of the Corona Triumphatus … than I do on this occasion'. In 1826 he built another observatory at Makerstoun. Later he became president of the Edinburgh Astronomical Institution and did much to make the Edinburgh Royal Observatory highly efficient. In 1832 he was elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in succession to Sir Walter Scott. In 1836 he was created a baronet, in 1837 awarded a G.C.B. and in 1841 promoted general. In 1826 he had been given command of the 34th Regiment; in 1836 he was offered the command of the troops in the North American colonies, but refused on grounds of ill health, as he did in 1838 when offered the Indian command. In 1858, when he was 'the oldest officer in the Army' he twice sought a field-marshal's baton; but though asked for without emolument it was refused. Much of his later life was occupied in paternal works at Largs. He improved its drainage, endowed a parish school and the Largs Brisbane Academy. Predeceased by his four children, he died on 27 January 1860, after enjoying locally great popularity and respect. The city of Brisbane, Queensland’s capital since 1859, was founded as a convict settlement in 1824, and it and its river were named for the governor at the suggestion of the explorer Oxley, the first European to survey the area. Brisbane himself visited the new settlement that year. It was declared a town in 1834 and opened for free settlement in 1839.

 

Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.

 

As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.

 

Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.

 

Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.

 

On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.

 

The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.

 

During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

 

In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

 

California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.

 

The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.

 

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.

 

Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.

 

The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.

 

Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.

 

The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.

 

The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.

 

After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.

 

Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.

  

The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.

During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.

 

During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.

 

In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.

 

From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.

 

One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.

 

After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.

 

In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.

 

The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

 

Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.

 

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.

 

In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.

 

The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.

 

In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.

 

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.

 

At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.

 

Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.

 

In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

 

Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.

 

Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.

 

In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.

 

Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.

 

To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.

 

Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.

 

In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.

 

Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.

 

In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.

 

Name: Medic

Title: “The Greedy, Shallow Healer”

Gender: Female

Species: “Doesn’t matter”

Race: “Where’s my money?”

Occupation: Medic

Prevailing Element: N/A

Alignment: True Neutral

Typical Tool(s): Skirts shields, mechanical arms, swap-out tools, replacement hand

MOC Status: Assembled.

  

Her actual name is Collete, but she doesn’t care enough to tell anyone, so she just prefers everyone to refer to her as Medic. A master healer who takes her work as not only being helpful, but profitable. She charges for her work regardless of who asks and will follow those who pay top dollar. However, if you happen to short-change her, she will become your enemy.

 

She was originally outfitted with small hand tools, but with time, started augmenting mechanical armaments to herself for quicker jobs. Going as far as to decapitate her own arm just to switch her tools more efficiently. She is also equipped with shields that can either be wielded by hand or by mind. They protect her back as she is repairing her clients and also act as a skirt.

 

If you actually get to know her personally, you’ll know that she doesn’t make a habit of giving herself rest. She works from job to job, sleeping only when it impedes her work. Collecting money for a reason that she is unaware of anymore. When she allows herself time to rest, she stays on speaking terms with her clients, stays friendly, and always talks about her significant other.

 

Here's another for the abandoned rails and ghost foaming album.

 

In anthracite country just a few miles east of Tamaqua stands this wonderful monument to one of the smaller and more obscure Class 1 railroads. The short 200 mile long carrier is noteworthy for being the second major railroad of the modern era abandoned in its entirety when it was shut down on October 31, 1961 despite still being profitable. With a rather circuitous 'mainline' paralleled by other roads and with its once lucrative anthracite business drying up, parent company Lehigh Coal and Navigation decided to call it quits. Portions of the road were sold to the CNJ to continue service to the remaining anthracite breakers and the cement market around Bangor and Bath.

 

This is a place I've always been fascinated with and long wanted to see and it turns out it's easily accessible via a quick walk through the woods. This is the south or railroad east portal of famed Hauto Tunnel. Opened in 1872, the 3800 ft long tunnel provided an outlet for coal from the Lansford side to the Nesquehoning Valley Railroad (later CNJ) in Hauto avoiding the torturous switchback gravity railroad from Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk that had pioneered the shipment of coal to an outlet via the Lehigh Canal. The tunnel belonged to the LC&N's Panther Valley Railroad and was incorporated into the L&NE's mainline when the Tamaqua extension was built and the Panther Valley was purchased in 1913. The tunnel survived the demise of the L&NE and was operated by the CNJ until about 1969 though rumors persist that trains may have used it later and there is a legend that Conrail crews from Tamaqua would park inside this end to hide out in the cool shadows and enjoy an extended lunch. Long since plated up, the rails remain intact inside and can be seen extending out beneath the barrier camouflaged amongst the leaves and puddles.

 

Two other L&NE relics remain nearby for those interested in exploring. Just behind me maybe a quarter mile away still stands the original L&NE freight house still proudly proclaiming the railroad's name more than a half century after it quit. And about 3.5 miles to the west (technically railroad east) toward Tamaqua can be found the former L&NE Arlington Roundhouse now reporposed as a chemical plant but still sitting in its original location adjacent the site of the railroad's former hump yard.

 

To learn a bit more about the railroad this article provided a nice overview.

 

www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1999-08-19-3263182-story.html

 

And to learn a bit more about the tunnel and add a couple vintage photos check out this post: facebook.com/VisitJimThorpe/posts/292512878817692

 

Lansford, Pennsylvania

Sunday July 3, 2022

Sanaa and Mona Seif, sister of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, an imprisoned Egyptian-British democracy activist on hunger strike, talk to the press outside Britain's Foreign Office.

 

Alaa is over 200 days into his 100 calorie a day hunger strike in prison in Egypt. A candle-light vigil is planned for this Sunday 6 November at 4pm opposite 10 Downing Street.

 

Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere in the world, on account of his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt.

 

He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.

 

PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE

 

Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, are currently staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention begins to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.

 

TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"

 

In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.

 

In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.

 

ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON

 

More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."

 

He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.

 

NO CONSULAR ACCESS

 

However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.

 

British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.

 

ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN

 

Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.

 

The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.

 

THE MILITARY BACKLASH

 

It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop.

 

Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in 2012 - the Brotherhood (contrary to the perception many people have here in the West) had genuinely progressive elements within it, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented partly by the corruption and self-interest of some of the main political actors and partly by opposition to its democratic mandate from the deep state (the military, the Interior Ministry, State Security, the police etc.)

 

The army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of the generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adaweya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.

 

DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA

 

Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.

 

If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.

 

If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -

 

www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...

Sir Thomas Brisbane:

 

Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (1773-1860), governor, was born on 23 July 1773 at Brisbane House, near Largs, Ayrshire, son of a family of ancient Scottish lineage. He was educated by tutors and attended both the University of Edinburgh and the English Academy, Kensington. In 1789 he was commissioned an ensign in the 38th Regiment, which next year he joined in Ireland; there he struck up a long and profitable friendship with a fellow subaltern, Arthur Wellesley. From 1793 to 1798 he served in Flanders as a captain, from 1795 to 1799 in the West Indies as a major, and from 1800 to 1803 he commanded the 69th Regiment in Jamaica as a lieutenant-colonel, earning high praise from the governor, Sir George Nugent. From 1803 to 1805 he served in England, but when the 69th was ordered to India went on half-pay in Scotland because of his health.

 

He then was able to indulge his interest in astronomy, which he developed after nearly being involved in a shipwreck in 1795, and in 1808 he built at Brisbane House the second observatory in Scotland. In 1810 he was promoted colonel and elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1812 at Wellington's request he was promoted brigadier-general. He commanded a brigade which was heavily engaged in the battles of the Peninsular war from Vittoria to Toulouse, and continued to practise his astronomy so that in Wellington's words, he 'kept the time of the army'. In 1815 he was created a K.C.B., received the thanks of parliament, and commanded a brigade in the American war. From 1815 to 1818 he commanded a division in the army of occupation in France and in 1817 he was created a K.C.H. (G.C.H., 1831). He returned to England in 1818 and next year married Anna Maria, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Hay Makdougall of Makerstoun, Scotland, whose surname he added to his own by letters patent on 14 August 1826. In 1815 he applied for appointment as governor of New South Wales, but the post was not then vacant; in November 1820 on Wellington's advice Brisbane, then in command of the Munster district in Ireland, was appointed. He arrived in the colony on 7 November 1821 and took over from Governor Lachlan Macquarie on 1 December.

 

Brisbane's policies for the colony were usually sensible answers to pressing problems, based on Commissioner John Thomas Bigge's report and the instructions derived from it, modified by his own impressions. Though he was on good terms with Macquarie he condemned the latter's 'system' and told Earl Bathurst later that he had changed New South Wales in so many ways that if Macquarie had returned 'he would not have recognised the place'.

 

When Brisbane arrived 340,000 acres (137,593 ha) of promised grants had still to be located and there were many confused permissive occupancies and nebulous promises. Lands were occupied and transferred without legal title, and boundary disputes seemed never ending. Proper survey was essential for a workable policy of alienation to be evolved, and the Ripon regulations of 1831 were made to a large extent possible by the practical development of the policies which Brisbane had implemented.

 

In 1822 he issued tickets-of-occupation which enabled land to be immediately occupied without a preliminary survey and graziers to be given security against trespass without the land being permanently alienated. Additional assistant surveyors were appointed to reduce arrears in the surveying and granting of land, but Brisbane promised land only to those with the inclination and ability to use it productively, forbade the acceptance of chits signed by irresponsible persons as valid titles, and gave tickets-of-occupation only when extra stock had actually been obtained. He granted land to sons of established settlers only if their fathers' properties had been considerably improved, and to immigrants in proportion to their capital. He was reluctant to make grants to his newly-appointed officials, even though this subjected him 'to a most unpleasant feeling'. In order to promote settlement of the colony by settlers who really wanted to improve the land and to deter speculators with fictitious capital, he insisted that grantees should maintain one convict labourer, free of expense to the Crown, for every 100 acres (40 ha) they were given, and he maintained this rule against criticism from the Colonial Office that it would hamper settlement. Brisbane insisted that although the regulation had been temporarily unpopular genuine settlers did not oppose it, for convict servants were coming to be looked on as a boon. It would help to control the intense demand for land, though even that check would not be sufficient. 'Not a cow calves in the colony but her owner applies for an additional grant in consequence of the increase in his stock', he wrote. 'Every person to whom a grant is made receives it as the payment of a debt; everyone to whom one is refused turns my implacable enemy'. He asked the British government 'to fix an invariable proportion of land to be cultivated in every grant' and to appoint a Commission of Escheat, for without it, since a judgment by Barron Field, the 'clearing and cultivating clauses' in the grants had become 'a dead letter'. The instructions on the disposal of crown lands which were sent from London in January 1825 owed so much to Brisbane's advice that he found 'great satisfaction' in noticing 'the very prominent similarity' between them and the practice he had been following in New South Wales.

 

Acting on one of Bigge's suggestions Brisbane in 1824 had begun selling crown lands, at 5s. an acre. 'While the system of free grants exists, there is little chance of extensive improvement taking place generally in the colony, as the improver of land can never enter the market in competition with the individual who gets his land for nothing', Brisbane told Bathurst. Between May and December 1825 more than 500,000 acres (202,345 ha) were sold. In land policy Brisbane had recognized the need to encourage men of capital, though at the same time opposing over-lavish land grants. Seeing the need for consolidation rather than expansion, and for more accurate surveys of the settled areas, he gave less encouragement to land exploration than either his predecessors or successors, but he continued, as instructed, to organize coastal surveys.

 

Brisbane received from Bathurst full instructions on convict affairs, derived from Bigge's report. These were based on the belief that Macquarie had been too lenient and too extravagant, and Brisbane conscientiously carried them out. He rigidly adhered to the rules against the premature granting of tickets-of-leave. He reduced the number of road-gangs, whose members often indulged in dissipation and crime, and the numbers employed on public works in Sydney, and organized in their place gangs to clear land for settlers in return for payment to the government; this greatly speeded up the rate of clearing. He ordered convict mechanics to be hired instead of being assigned; this brought in revenue and made for a more efficient distribution of labour. He established new centres of secondary punishment as Bigge had recommended, first at Moreton Bay and later at Bathurst's suggestion on Norfolk Island, and he sent educated convicts to be confined first at Bathurst and later at Wellington valley, but he opposed excessive corporal punishment, reprieved many prisoners sentenced to death and was criticized by Bathurst for his improvidence in granting pardons.

 

Brisbane set up an agricultural training college and was the first patron of the New South Wales Agricultural Society, founded in 1822, which among other activities, financed the importation of livestock. On Bathurst's instructions, he drastically reduced the assistance given to new settlers and so, by making it virtually impracticable to begin farming without capital, helped to improve production. He conducted experiments in growing Virginian tobacco, Georgian cotton, Brazilian coffee and New Zealand flax, but unfortunately without much success.

 

Brisbane looked forward to getting the 'Colony on to its own Resources' and regarded the achievement of economy in government expenditure as one of his major successes. In 1822, on the advice of Frederick Goulburn, colonial secretary, and William Wemyss, deputy commissary general, he initiated currency reforms by which commissariat payments were to be made in dollars at a fixed value of 5s. or about one-eighth above their intrinsic value. This attempt to set up a dollar standard was intended both to reduce expenditure and to provide the colony with a coinage which would prevent a repetition of the issue of store receipts as practised by the former commissary, Frederick Drennan, and it would discourage imports by depreciating the local currency. But the system was not a success and after the terms on which the dollars would be received had been modified the dollar standard was replaced by a sterling exchange standard on instructions sent from London in July 1825. In 1823 all commissariat supplies were called by tender, though the introduction of price competition hurt small farmers and favoured the larger ones; when only three month's grain was bought by tender, instead of a year's at a fixed price, a minor depression occurred, but this was partly due to the suddenness of the change.

 

Brisbane was devout and broadminded in religious matters, and prepared to support any sect that did not threaten the state. He encouraged Wesleyan societies, advocated and gave financial aid to the Roman Catholics, but opposed what he regarded as extravagant demands by the Presbyterians, considering them wealthy enough to build their own church. He supported Bible and tract societies. He attempted to encourage education by appointing a director-general of all government public schools, but this was quashed by the Colonial Office. He believed that clergy, like government officials, should not indulge in private trade, which of course made him unpopular with Samuel Marsden. His policy towards Aboriginals was ambivalent. On one occasion he ordered some to be shot; on another he imposed martial law beyond the Blue Mountains because of 'the aggressions of the Native Blacks'. However, he favoured compensating them for lost land, and in 1825 granted the London Missionary Society 10,000 acres (4047 ha) as an Aboriginal reserve.

 

Like other governors, Brisbane found the emancipist-exclusive quarrel a major difficulty, and the success of many of his policies was vitiated because some of his officials ignored him and favoured the exclusives. Brisbane himself did not have great faith in the future of a colony based on emancipists; but though he preferred the large-scale immigration of free settlers, especially those with capital, his cautious liberalism was to the emancipists' tastes. Unlike the exclusives, they gave him a warm farewell. Brisbane appears to have believed, as he said at a public meeting just before he left, that free institutions could be safely established in New South Wales. In 1824 he did not apply any censorship when William Charles Wentworth's Australian began publication, and ended control of the Gazette by government officials. He ordered the holding of Courts of Quarter Sessions at which there would be trial by jury, an experiment which Chief Justice (Sir) Francis Forbes reported to have been very successful; they were abolished by the Act of 1828, but not before the exclusives had grossly misused them at Parramatta in their vendetta against Henry Grattan Douglass. The Legislative Council set up by the New South Wales Act of 1823, which began meeting in August 1824, operated calmly under his rule and began the process of reducing the powers of the governor from the autocracy of the past.

 

At first Brisbane had too few men to do the work of government; by 1824 he found himself with a number of departmental heads appointed independently of him, varying in ability, at odds with each other and the government. He thought Judge Barron Field and Judge-Advocate (Sir) John Wylde responsible for much of the party feeling in the colony, and was heartily glad to see them go in 1824, but John Oxley, Saxe Bannister and Frederick Goulburn were also sources of trouble. Men like George Druitt, John Jamison, Marsden, John Dunmore Lang, the Macarthurs and the Blaxlands frequently made vicious misrepresentations in London about Brisbane's administration. They gave the governor much to contend with and, though he 'evinced a forbearance amounting to Stoicism', in the end he felt compelled to remove some 'exclusive' magistrates for grossly improper behaviour. It was partly to counter their misrepresentations that he sent Dr Douglass to London in February 1824, but his patronage of Douglass, who was in trouble with the War Office, in the end contributed to his recall. Brisbane did not find Goulburn easy to work with and in January 1824 asked for an assistant-secretary. Goulburn refused to carry out some of Brisbane's instructions; he suppressed letters or answered them without reference to the governor; on 19 April 1824 he even claimed that the governor's proclamations and orders were invalid unless they went through his department. Such conduct Brisbane clearly could not countenance and he protested to the Colonial Office; the reply in December was the recall of both governor and secretary, and in November 1825 Brisbane departed.

 

Brisbane did not concern himself with all the details of his administration; but a governor could no longer attend to everything. The colony had expanded in size in recent years, and Macquarie had ruined his health and peace of mind by a concern with every administrative detail and petty squabble as Governor (Sir) Ralph Darling was soon to do also. Brisbane had worked well with Lieutenant-Governors William Sorell and (Sir) George Arthur in Van Diemen's Land, which was still under his jurisdiction, and he had no trouble there. Unfriendly contemporaries, Marsden, Archdeacon Thomas Scott and the Macarthurs, found Brisbane amiable, impartial but weak. His enemies accused him of a lack of interest in the colony, but this was untrue. Judge Forbes, whom he found 'a great blessing', praised his work; an emancipist address on his departure spoke of 'a mild, an unpartial, and a firm administration'; but soon afterwards John Dunmore Lang was to make what became the standard comment on his governorship; 'a man of the best intentions, but disinclined to business, and deficient in energy'. Of the quality of his intentions there is little doubt: highly patriotic, and regarding New South Wales as being of considerable moral, political and strategic value to the United Kingdom, he was genuinely concerned in its future progress. The stock criticisms, that he was weak and lacked interest in administrative detail, either because he was lazy or more concerned with 'star-gazing', are very misleading. 'In place of passing my time in the Observatory or shooting Parrots, I am seldom employed in either. And Altho' I rise oftener at 5 o'clock in the Morning than after, I cannot get thro' the various and arduous duties of my Government', he wrote. Brisbane had been a very respected and successful soldier, as indicated by Nugent's admiration and Wellington's occasional recorded praise and continued championship. Brisbane's dispatches are permeated with bitter realism about the greed and duplicity of leading colonists, and his policies for the colony were usually sensible. He was ready to delegate work to subordinates who were too often untrustworthy, but he was extremely diligent in the duties which he undertook himself as pertinent to his office. Sensitive, respectful to others, and never vindictive, he was rather out of his element when surrounded by the arrogance of the New South Wales magistracy, the disloyalty and factiousness of officials and the explosive rifts in colonial society. At the same time a more forceful man, living in Sydney not Parramatta, who ignored his wife and infant family (two of whom were born in the colony and a third on the voyage home), would probably have had more success in overcoming his difficulties. It was an unhappy period in Brisbane's life and, as Wellington commented on his recall, 'there are many brave men not fit to be governors of colonies'.

 

His astronomical activities had continued in Australia and indeed were probably a reason for his seeking the appointment. He built an observatory at Parramatta and made the first observations of stars in the southern hemisphere since Lacaille's in 1751-52 of which he published an account. 'Science' was 'not allowed to flag'. When he departed he left his astronomical instruments and 349 volumes of his scientific library to the colony, as he wanted his name to be associated with 'the furtherance of Science'; but he had had to leave most of his observatory work to Christian Rümker. There is little reference to astronomy in his letters after 1823, but he kept up his interest and in 1828 reported on the subject to the Royal Society, London. His astronomical achievements indeed brought him as much fame as his military and vice-regal career. When in 1823 Oxford University made him a D.C.L. he wrote that 'no Roman General ever felt prouder of the Corona Triumphatus … than I do on this occasion'. In 1826 he built another observatory at Makerstoun. Later he became president of the Edinburgh Astronomical Institution and did much to make the Edinburgh Royal Observatory highly efficient. In 1832 he was elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in succession to Sir Walter Scott. In 1836 he was created a baronet, in 1837 awarded a G.C.B. and in 1841 promoted general. In 1826 he had been given command of the 34th Regiment; in 1836 he was offered the command of the troops in the North American colonies, but refused on grounds of ill health, as he did in 1838 when offered the Indian command. In 1858, when he was 'the oldest officer in the Army' he twice sought a field-marshal's baton; but though asked for without emolument it was refused. Much of his later life was occupied in paternal works at Largs. He improved its drainage, endowed a parish school and the Largs Brisbane Academy. Predeceased by his four children, he died on 27 January 1860, after enjoying locally great popularity and respect. The city of Brisbane, Queensland’s capital since 1859, was founded as a convict settlement in 1824, and it and its river were named for the governor at the suggestion of the explorer Oxley, the first European to survey the area. Brisbane himself visited the new settlement that year. It was declared a town in 1834 and opened for free settlement in 1839.

 

Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography.

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early 17th century (as school slang, in the sense ‘Friday on which an examination is held’). The shopping sense dates from the 1960s and was originally used with reference to congestion created by shoppers; it was later explained as a day when retailers’ accounts went from being ‘in the red’ to ‘in the black.

The true story is much darker - the term "Black Friday" was first used in 1869 by two investors who drove up the price of gold and caused a stock market crash.

Watch the video above to learn how the name evolved into the shopping day frenzy we know today.

Many people believe we call the day after Thanksgiving "Black Friday" because many stores become profitable on the huge shopping day and go "into the black." The true origins of the term are a bit darker.

 

Following is a transcript of the video.

 

Why is it called "Black Friday"? Most people know Black Friday as the day after Thanksgiving, when stores open early and offer various sales. These stores are often "in the black" (profitable) that day.

 

But the true story of Black Friday is darker. The term "Black Friday" was first used on Sept. 24, 1869, when two investors, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, drove up the price of gold and caused a crash that day. The stock market dropped 20% and foreign trade stopped. Farmers suffered a 50% dip in wheat and corn harvest value.

 

In the 1950s, Philadelphia police used the "Black Friday" term to refer to the day between Thanksgiving and the Army-Navy game. Huge crowds of shoppers and tourists went to the city that Friday, and cops had to work long hours to cover the crowds and traffic.

 

Merchants in the area tried to change the name to "Big Friday," but the alternative name never caught on.

 

By the late 1980s, "Black Friday" had spread nationally with the more positive "red to black" backstory

 

amp.businessinsider.com/why-is-it-called-black-friday-201...

 

The day after Thanksgiving wasn't called Black Friday then. The name was associated with September 24, 1869. Two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, created a boom-and-bust in gold prices. A stock market crash followed, as prices fell 20 percent. The disruption in gold prices sent commodity prices plummeting 50 percent. Corruption in Tammany Hall allowed Gould and Fisk to escape without punishment.

 

In 1905, Canadian department store Eaton's began the first Thanksgiving Day parade by bringing Santa on a wagon through the streets of downtown Toronto. In 1913, eight live reindeer pulled Santa's "sleigh." By 1916, seven floats representing nursery rhyme characters joined Santa in the parade.

 

In 1924, the Eaton's parade inspired Macy's Department Store to launch its famous Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. Macy's wanted to celebrate its success during the Roaring 20s. The parade boosted shopping for the following day. Retailers had a gentleman's agreement to wait until then before advertising holiday sales.

 

In 1939, during the Great Depression, Thanksgiving happened to fall during the fifth week of November. Retailers warned they would go bankrupt because the holiday shopping season was too short. They petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move the Thanksgiving holiday up to the fourth Thursday.

 

Unfortunately, by this time it was late October. Most people had already made their plans. Some were so upset that they called the holiday "Franksgiving" instead. Only 32 states followed FDR's move. Others celebrated two holidays, which forced some companies to give their employees an extra day off

 

www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-history-of-black-friday-33...

A Curious Meditation

by James Smith, 1855

 

As I was walking out for exercise in the fields one morning, having been pleading with God to give me some profitable subject for meditation — I suddenly fell into this train of thought, which I afterwards wrote down; and, as it may interest and profit some, it is here inserted.

 

There are three things which I especially desire:

more communion with God,

more likeness to the Lord Jesus, and

more usefulness to his Church.

 

There are three things which I deprecate:

the withering of my gifts,

the decay of my graces, and

to become useless in the Lord's vineyard.

 

There are three things which I dread:

that I should become a proud professor,

that I should become a lukewarm Christian, and

that I should fall into the hands of man.

 

There are three things which I sometimes wish for (but which God will never grant me on earth):

to be totally free from sin,

to be delivered from a daily cross,

and to be always happy.

 

There are three things which I feel sure of:

hatred by the world,

opposition by hypocrites, and

love by spiritual believers.

 

There are three foes which always oppose me:

the world,

the flesh, and

the devil.

 

There are three friends which will always stand by me:

a peaceful conscience,

the bride of Jesus, and

the Lamb of God.

 

There are three deaths which have been experienced by me:

a death in sin,

a death to sin,

a death to the law of God.

 

There are three lives which shall be lived by me:

a temporal life,

a spiritual life, and

an eternal life.

 

There are three things which burden me:

a body of sin and death,

the opposition I meet with, and

my own ingratitude.

 

There are three things which support me:

the Father's love,

the Son's redemption, and

the Spirit's work.

 

There are three things which are a sore trial to me:

an irritable temper,

a flippant tongue, and

self-love.

 

There are three things which bring strong consolation to me:

the open fountain of Christ blood,

the promises of God, and

the Savior's free invitation.

 

There are three things which are especially dear to me:

the Word of God,

the throne of grace, and

the ordinances of the Lord's house.

 

There are three things lacking in me:

perfect penitence,

entire resignation, and

fervent love.

 

There are three books which are very useful to me:

the book of nature,

the book of Holy Scriptures, and

the book of my own experience.

 

There are three teachers which are employed to instruct me:

the Holy Spirit,

a special providence, and

the rod of God.

 

There are three things which are manifested in me:

the nature of sin,

the power of grace, and

the faithfulness of God.

 

There are three things which would be greatly useful to me:

more humility,

spiritual wisdom, and

enlightened zeal.

 

There are three things which characterize me:

weakness,

poverty, and

sinfulness.

 

Yet, there are three things which may be seen in me:

Christ's strength,

God's grace, and

the Spirit's holiness.

 

There are three things which are feared by me:

a stiff neck,

a hard heart, and

a presumptuous spirit.

 

There are three things which are matter of joy to me:

the conversion of sinners,

that my name is written in heaven, and

the glory to be given me at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

 

There are three things which must be renounced by me:

preconceived opinions,

worldly wisdom, and

natural religion.

 

There are three things which must be held fast by me:

the Word of truth,

my confidence in God, and

my profession of the gospel.

 

There are three things which are especially required of me:

to do justly,

to love mercy, and

to walk humbly with my God.

 

There are three things which are promised to me:

tribulation in the world,

sufficient strength in Jesus, and

eternal life at the end of my course.

 

There are three things which the Lord observes and approves in me:

the work of faith,

the labor of love, and

the patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

There is a threefold deliverance which is effected for me:

from the dominion of sin,

from the present evil world, and

from my deserved doom.

 

There are three things which I would trample under foot:

unfounded prejudice,

vain distinctions, and

self-righteousness.

 

There are three things which I would aim at daily:

to exalt Christ,

to glorify God, and

to bring sinners to repentance.

 

There are three things which are still sure to me:

a rough road,

changing experiences, and

safety at last.

 

There are three things which are behind me:

a wicked life,

a broken law, and

the pit of destruction.

 

There are three things which are before me:

death,

perfect conformity to Jesus, and

eternal glory.

 

There are three things which are on my right hand:

Satan to resist me,

the Lord Jesus to save me, and

my own heart set on things above.

 

There are three things which are on my left hand:

the lust of the flesh,

the lust of the eye, and

the pride of life.

 

There are three things which I greatly admire:

the Savior's person,

the promises of God, and

the instruments he employs in carrying on his work.

 

There are three things which much please me:

the doctrines of the gospel,

the witness of the Spirit, and

the light of God's countenance.

 

There are three things which I delight in:

that Jehovah is my God,

the comfort he imparts to me, and

the riches of glory which are set before me.

 

There are three things which I hate:

the cant of hypocrites,

the flattery of friends, and

the pride of professors.

 

There are three things which are good for me:

to draw near to God,

to be afflicted, and

to sing praises unto the Lord.

 

There are three things which often disgust me:

Satan's temptations,

the powerful working of unbelief, and

the conduct of religious professors.

 

There are three things which are prescribed to me:

to believe in God,

to love the saints, and

to observe the Lord's ordinances.

 

There are three things which are too often neglected by me:

self-examination,

diligent reading of the Bible, and

secret prayer.

 

There are three things which are too deep for me to fully know:

the depravity of my heart,

the devices of Satan, and

the manner of the Spirit's working.

 

There are three things which I wish to leave with the Lord:

to choose my lot in life,

to fight my battles, and

to supply all my needs.

 

There are three things which I do not consider worth having:

a form of godliness, without the power,

a name to live, while dead, and

the commendation of the enemies of Christ.

 

There are three things in which I glory:

the cross of Christ,

my saving knowledge of God, and

the everlasting gospel.

 

There are three things which have been taken from me:

proud free will,

vain boasting, and

enmity to God.

 

There are three things which abide with me:

faith,

hope, and

charity.

 

I am made up of three men:

corruption — the old man,

grace — the new man, and

the body — the outward man.

 

I fill a threefold office:

a prophet in the Church of Christ,

a priest before the altar, and

a king anointed to reign with Christ.

 

I wear a threefold garment:

the righteousness of the Lord Jesus,

the graces of the Holy Spirit, and

the garment of humility.

 

I have been condemned in three courts — and yet justified in them all:

the court of conscience,

the Church of God, and

the court of God's justice.

 

I have been justified three times:

at the resurrection of Christ my substitute,

when faith received his righteousness, and

when good works justified my faith before the world.

 

I am the subject of a threefold sanctification:

by the purpose of the Father,

by the blood of the Son, and

by the cleansing operations of the Holy Spirit.

 

I am a free man of three cities:

the present world,

the church below, and

the Jerusalem which is above.

 

I have been an eye-sore to three parties:

the devil,

the world, and

envious professors.

 

I shall have occupied three peculiar seats:

a dunghill by nature,

among the princes in the Church by grace, and

the throne of glory by special privilege.

 

I shall have three grand holidays:

one when the Holy Spirit sets my soul at liberty,

another when death sets me free from this mortal clay, and

and another when Jesus comes to be glorified in his saints.

 

I shall then have appeared in three different characters:

a vile rebel against God,

a supplicating sinner at mercy's footstool, and

a justified son of God before his throne.

 

I shall have had three fathers:

a human father,

the devil, and

Jehovah himself.

 

I shall have received three laws:

the law of nature,

the moral law of God, and

the law of the Spirit of life.

 

I shall have passed through three gates:

the gate of hope,

the gate into Christ's sheepfold, and

the gate of death.

 

I shall have walked in three ways:

the broad road of destruction,

the highway of holiness, and

Jesus Christ the only way to the Father.

 

I shall have conversed with three distinct classes of beings:

carnal men,

spiritual Christians, and

the Lord himself.

 

I shall have made three appearances:

once all black — like the devil,

then speckled — with nature and grace, and

then all pure — whiter than the driven snow!

 

I shall have undergone three momentous changes:

one at regeneration — when I passed from death unto life,

one at death — when my soul shall be admitted into Heaven, and

one at the resurrection — when my body shall be raised powerful, glorious, and immortal.

 

I view three things as pre-eminently excellent:

the fear of the Lord,

a sound judgment, and

Christ formed in the heart, as the hope of glory.

 

There are three things which I may covet:

the best gifts,

a contrite and humble spirit, and

to be filled with all the fullness of God.

 

There are three things which are removed from me:

the burden of sin,

the wrath of God, and

all condemnation.

 

There are three things which I do not know:

what is before me,

how God will provide for me, and

what I shall be.

 

There are three things which I do know:

that in my flesh dwells no good,

that though I was once blind, now I see, and

that I must needs die.

 

There are three things which are prepared for me:

a fountain to cleanse me,

a robe to adorn me, and

a mansion to receive me.

 

There are three things which await me:

a crown of righteousness,

a palm of victory, and

a throne of glory.

 

There are three things which shall be done for me:

God shall wipe away all tears from my eyes,

God shall remove all cause of pain and sorrow from my nature, and

the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall eternally satisfy me.

 

There are three things which shall never be known by me:

the frown of divine justice,

the curse of holy Jehovah, and

the power of God's anger.

 

There are three things which are hurtful to me:

carnal ease,

the flattery of professors, and

fullness of bread.

 

There are three things which benefit me:

temptation,

affliction, and

opposition.

 

There are three things which are pursued by me:

to know more of the Lord,

to live in peace with all men, and

thorough sanctification.

 

Satan tries to thwart me in three things:

by spoiling my comforts,

hindering my usefulness, and

seeking to devour my soul.

 

Satan has three things to expect:

to be disappointed of his prey,

to be judged by the saints, and

to be eternally punished for his wickedness.

 

There are three things which I would never trust:

my own heart,

an arm of flesh, and

my treacherous memory.

 

There are three subjects which I should never meddle with:

the fall of the angels,

the origin of moral evil, and

how God will justify himself.

 

There are three things which I cannot understand:

the nature of God,

the cause of my election, and

how divinity and humanity constitute one person.

 

There are three things which I should often think of:

what I have been,

what I now am, and

what I shall be.

 

A threefold freedom is granted me:

from the law of God,

from the reign of sin, and

to make use of, and enjoy the Lord Jesus.

 

I am an heir of three worlds:

the natural,

the spiritual, and

the eternal.

 

There are three things which will never grieve me:

that I have been poor in this world,

that I have preached the gospel fully, and

that I am related to Jesus Christ.

 

There are three things which comprise all I wish:

to know God, and glorify him,

to see Jesus, and be like him; and

to be united to the saints, and be eternally happy.

 

There are three things which shall never be heard by me:

Christ reproaching me,

God disowning me, and

the devils triumphing in my everlasting destruction.

 

There are three things which shall be eternally enjoyed by me:

the love of God,

the presence of Jesus, and

the company of the saints.

 

There are three things which will eternally delight me:

to be filled with holiness,

to be employed in praising Jehovah, and

to have gained a complete victory over all my foes.

 

There are three things which must come down:

the pride of men,

the devil's kingdom, and

the cause of error.

 

There are three things which will stand:

the house built on the Rock,

the purpose of God, and

the Messiah's kingdom.

 

There are three things which cannot be removed:

the church of God,

the covenant of grace, and

the kingdom we receive.

 

There are three things which will stand the fiery trial:

genuine faith,

the Word of God, and

a real Christian.

 

Lost sinners are like Satan in three things:

their nature,

their employment, and

their end.

 

Three things make Hell:

the wrath of God,

the stings of a guilty conscience, and

black despair.

 

Three things prove a man a Christian:

worshiping God in the spirit,

rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and

having no confidence in the flesh.

 

Three things are never satisfied:

a doubting Christian,

a worldly miser, and

the man of pleasure.

 

Christ fills three offices:

a prophet — for the ignorant,

a priest — for the guilty, and

a king — for the depraved.

 

Christ has been in three states:

ancient glory,

deep humiliation, and

merited dignity.

 

What more shall I say!

 

If you, reader, are a sincere Christian — do three things daily:

search God's Word,

be much at God's throne, and

be diligent in God's work.

 

If you are an unconverted sinner — do three things immediately:

believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,

repent of every sin you have committed,

seek the witness and pledge of the Holy Spirit in your heart, so iniquity shall not be your ruin.

=Some Years Ago. The Moth Cave=

 

"You mean to tell me you've never had a birthday party?" Drury asked incredulously. He ​lowered the auto-parts catalogue, and stepped away from his desk, his face smeared with axel grease from his latest back-firing Mothmobile.

 

Julian shrugged passively. "My parents were Jehovah Witnesses. They didn't believe in material possessions or celebrations, or, holidays for that matter."

 

"Right, well, we're fixing that!" Drury declared, patting him on the back enthusiastically.

 

"That's... Not necessary," Julian protested.

 

"Nonsense," Drury scoffed. "You're a Misfit. And the Misfits, know how to party."

 

~-~

 

The party in question, took place at Crazy Quilt's, the nightclub owned by Paul Dekker, the Misfits' eccentric tailor who ran a series of profitable (albeit morally dubious) ventures on the side under the guise of the bar's namesake.

 

"Hmph, well, it's not quite the Gotham Royal," Morty Drake stated, turning his nose up at the venue, as the young waiter guided the party to their seats.

 

"Yeah, well, when you pay off your debts, you can pick the venue... You know you don't need a pheasant pantry, right?" Len Fiasco rolled his eyes.

 

"A life without luxury is a life not worth living my uptight friend," Drake educated him.

 

"It's fine. Really," Day assured the pair, as the trio sat down at a corner booth. Drury, Chuck and Blake were already sat down, each wearing paper crowns on their heads. Drake and Fiasco were now looking over the drinks menus.

 

"Here: happy birthday, Jules, I baked you a banana cake. It's even got dates!" Drury grinned, as he handed him a neatly wrapped parcel. Blake, was already stifling a laugh, to Julian's confusion who looked down at the loaf and frowned.

 

"I appreciate the... gesture, but I don't like dates," he stated glumly.

 

"Pfffft! What are you doing calling yourself the fucking Calendar Man then," Blake chortled, as he raised his hand, and smacked Day's buttocks.

 

"Ah. A joke, I see."

 

"Here, drinks are on me! I'll have a Porn Star Martini; Sex on the Beach for the pencil," Blake pulled the waiter close, a goofy grin on his face.

 

"Drury, you have to try this whiskey," Drake spoke, ensuring that Blake would not order on his behalf too. "A Macallan for the boy and I, good man. 72 years, if you could be so kind."

 

"We're on a budget," Drury blushed..

 

"There's no such thing as a "budget" when you're celebrating," Drake toasted.

 

"Château du Blanc, please," Day asked politely.

 

"I, uh, I'll have a creme soda," Chuck said.

 

With the waiter out of earshot, Fiasco leaned in. "What the hell is a 'Sex on the Beach?'" he scowled.

 

"Course, you wouldn't know," Blake teased. "That's a joke, put down the steak knife. It's a cocktail, man. Jeez."

 

While the two bickered, Chuck saw his chance. "Here. Happy birthday," Chuck smiled as he passed a red and white present over to Julian.

 

"Thank you, Charlie. I.... take it Garfield couldn't make it?" Day presumed.

 

"Ah, no. No. He has that thing with Sionis; Black Mask. Guy's a real up and comer. Looking for muscle. Thought it could be a pretty good gig for us," Drury explained.

 

"Sionis? That lowly drug lord in the narrows?" Drake pondered.

 

"You didn't say he was a drug dealer, Dru," Chuck stated, a little wary of it.

 

"This is what I never understood..." Julian rolled his eyes. "Why do you even entertain the notion of dealing with these... mobsters. You would think, that after Bressi-"

 

"Hey," Drury snapped. "Tony Bressi was a two-bit gangster who thought he was better than me and the other capes. Sionis isn't like that. He's got a mask. He's got a gimmick. This is good for us! We finally have a freak on the high table, and it'd be stupid not to capitalise on that. It's good business: Gar, Len and I had that arrangement with Twag and Falcone way back, and that was solid!"

 

"I heard Falcone had Twag whacked," Len noted.

 

"That... doesn't matter. It's all good news guys, honest!"

 

==The Gotham Royal==

 

East Hallway: Floor 24

 

Time until Detonation: 46 minutes

 

Drury and Chuck led the way; followed by Sharpe, Flannegan and Joey. Lastly, Gar walked slowly behind them. Needham and Mayo had taken the party guests in the opposite direction, and even with the bomb still in play, Gar's mind began to wander.

 

Intuitively, Drury picked up on this behaviour, and halted the group's progression. "What is it?" he asked, as he walked over to his friend.

 

Gar, kicked the ground. "It's nothing, I-"

 

"Uh, hello! Fearless Bomb, anyone?" Sharpe waved at the pair impatiently.

 

"I... I gotta go back for Jenna," Gar decided.

 

"You... What-?" Drury stammered, but it was no use; Gar had already turned back in the direction of the second group

 

"Uh, no, you don't," Sharpe chased after him. "Half an hour ago, she thought you were going to propose, and instead, you gave her a fucking homework assignment. This is real shit we're in, Lynns. Whatever happened to bros before -"

 

"You know, it's a wonder more people don't shoot you in the head," Rigger shook his head in disbelief.

 

"Most people miss," Sharpe winked cheekily.

 

Though his mind was made up, this gave Gar pause. "I didn't- She- She didn't actually think I was gonna propose, right?"

 

"Go," Chuck assured him. "We'll go on ahead. Just, uh, send her our best."

 

"Their best," Flannegan corrected him. "I don't know the broad."

 

As Gar departed, Drury's comms device began buzzing with static. Already agitated, he put his finger to his ear, and cursed loudly. "Blake, I swear to god-"

 

"Now, now. Let's not bring Him into this. This mess is all yours," a cold voice cut him off.

 

"Julian..." Drury said in shock, turning to Chuck, his face pale.

 

"Julian-?" Chuck stammered. "How did you get this frequency?" he wondered.

 

"I took the earpieces from Thomas and the Ten-Eyed Man. They're unharmed, don't worry. They're much more useful to me alive, after all."

 

As he spoke, a horrifying thought entered Chuck's mind. "Wait, if you've got their comms, that means-"

 

"I'm afraid so. For what it's worth, it seemed like a very good pla-"

 

Chuck ripped his earpiece out, tossed it to the ground and crushed it with his heel. In turn, the other Misfits did the same. "Actually, I think I might just put mine in my pocket," Joey reasoned. "Might be handy later."

 

"Right. Yeah... Probably shouldn't have smashed mine," Chuck admitted.

 

"Probably not, no... Guys, I hate to be the pessimist here, but... what now?" Joey wondered. "Jules knows we're coming."

 

"Gar could be walking straight into an ambush..." Drury shook his head.

 

"And we're all gonna be huffing crazy gas if you don't stop Day. You three need to get in that penthouse, we'll back up Lynns," Flannegan stated, gesturing at Sharpe. "Besides. I owe Krill a rematch," Flannegan smirked, as he and Sharpe strutted off.

 

As they prepared their next move, a fist chapped on the bathroom door opposite them. "Hello? Is it safe to come out yet?" Booker's nasally voice called out.

 

Chuck, Joey and Drury each looked at one another. "No."

 

==East Stairwell: Floor 19==

 

By the time Gar had caught up to them, Needham had already taken the grumbling ensemble of party guests down three flights of stairs; L-Ron was lagging behind, pushed forward by a rather high spirited Mayo; Franco was muttering obscenities to anyone who would listen (namely, Jenna, Rosso and Gaige) and the Great White Shark was whistling sea shanties.

 

"Jenna! Jenna!" Gar called out.

 

"What does that bacon-faced prick want now?" Franco whispered to Rosso.

 

"Hey, Eric, can you give us a minute?" Gar halted the group.

 

"Sure," Needham shrugged. "Let's keep moving, people," he ordered.

 

"Gar? What's wrong?" Jenna's brow furrowed. "Are you alright?"

 

Gar twiddled his thumbs, avoiding her eye-line. "No. I mean, I am, but listen; I know all this is crazy. You went to this party, I dunno, to escape the craziness of our lives. And instead there's a calendar killer, and a really irritating Brit. It's mad. But it's more bearable, I think, I hope, if we face it... Face it..."

 

"What is it, Gar?" she smiled expectantly.

 

His eyes bulged as he noticed a familiar figure take aim at him. "Duck!"

 

Before Jenna could react, Gar had pushed her to the ground, as a purple, ice-cold polka dot soared overhead, where he and Jenna had been standing just moments before: Krill, had found them.

 

"'Ello, lads. Heard ya were looking for me," he smirked, as he hurled a second dot at the stunned party guests; one Needham halted with a well-aimed web.

 

"Into the hallway!" Needham ordered the crowd, as he pushed White through the fire door.

 

Gar helped Jenna to her feet, and took a defensive stance against Krill. "Go with them," he instructed her, as he gestured half heartedly to Franco. "I got this," he added, thoroughly unsure of himself.

 

"Sure you do," Krill chuckled dismissively. "Sure you- Ow!"

 

Gar's brow furrowed; A white baton had struck Krill on the side of his head. Sharpe, was sliding down the banister towards them, while Flannegan followed along on foot.

 

"You... shouldn't have been able to hit me," Krill rubbed the fresh bump on his head.

 

"I'm full of surprises!" Sharpe grinned as he knocked Krill through the fire door with a flying kick: Despite Gar's best efforts, the fight had carried over into the hallway. Needham and Mayo had pushed most of the guests onwards, but Franco's ensemble had elected to stay behind and watch the fight.

 

"Away from the guests, you moron!" Gar snapped at Sharpe.

 

"Oops?" Sharpe apologised with mild sincerity.

 

Meanwhile, Flannegan was throwing scattered, furious punches at Krill, with none of them finding their mark; With every punch the Misfits threw his way, Krill simply redirected the blow to hit one of their own; Gar aimed an uppercut at Krill, and struck Flannegan instead; Sharpe aimed his leg at Krill's groin and instead incapacitated Gar; Flannegan attempted to headbutt Krill, and instead collided with a brick wall; it was a disaster.

In a last ditch effort, Gar unhooked an incendiary grenade from his belt, and tossed it at Krill, who diverted the explosive towards a charging Flannegan; as the resultant explosion knocked him down, the disruptor slid out of Flannegan's grip. Not appreciating what the device really was, Krill kicked it aside and let out an amused chuckle. He knelt beside Flannegan, and peeled a familiar, buzzsaw-like dot off of his suit. "Now," he smirked at Flannegan. "Am I the only one having an intense case of deja vu right now?" he joked.

 

Gaige, glanced back at the fight, and against his better judgement, broke away from the crowd.

Puzzled, Franco clutched the Physician's arm. "What are you doing? This is exactly what we wanted," he smiled. "Let that calendar creep and his goons have their fun, when they're done, we can have Gotham- you and-"

 

Gaige nudged past him, and stomped off in Krill's direction, Walker's words ringing in his head.

 

"Where are you going-? Physician!" Franco protested. "Ah, fuck this!" he exclaimed, thrusting his fist through the plaster on the nearby wall. "Physician, what are you doing?!" he panicked, chasing after him.

 

Ignoring Franco's tantrum, the 'Physician' calmly picked the disruptor up from off the ground and latched it onto Krill's back.

 

"What the- Who the fuck are you-?!" Krill exclaimed nervously, desperately trying to remove the now chirping device from off his person.

 

"Physician!" Franco snapped defiantly.

 

"I'm not The Physician, son," The man warned. "I'm The Doctor."

 

"Doctor! Doctor who?" Krill protested, now fruitlessly trying to open a portal.

 

The Doctor smiled, pulled off his ascot, and wrapped it around his head. Then, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a replacement gold tie, and tied it around his neck. "Doctor Gaige, you polka dotted prick," he announced as he pulled his fist back, and launched it at Krill's face.

 

"Oh." Krill stumbled backwards; blood trickling down his face. "So... so does anyone actually stay in prison these days, or is it just a fucking bed and breakfast?"

 

"Holy crap, Gaige?! Aw, man, Drury's gonna freak out!" Sharpe exclaimed. Having already put the pieces together himself, Gar simply glanced at him, and shook his head.

 

"Hey, Dickhead," a gruff voice called up at Krill, and before he could react, Flannegan's own fist had collided with Krill's jaw.

 

Intent to join the winning team and hoping to get back in Jenna's good graces, Franco smirked at his date and advanced forward. He picked up a discarded suitcase and threw it against Krill's back. 'Y'know, something chivalrous. Romantic, even.' That notion soon dissipated as Krill turned back, scowled, and drop kicked him across the hallway with damning ease.

 

"Tsk, tsk. Naughty Davey. Naughty. Leave the fighting to the professionals," he tutted.

 

As Franco reached for his pistol, Krill shot a pink dot at him, striking him in the side. Franco peeled back his dinner jacket, and scowled at the fresh, deep gash the dot's ridged edge had left.

 

"Davey!" Jenna screamed.

 

As she motioned to help him, however, she suddenly found herself unable to move, as though she had been rooted to the spot. Rosso stared back at her, and marched over to Franco in her stead, placing a hand over his wound and pressing down. Hard.

The two of them locked eyes for a moment, and in that instant, they resolved to fix this the only way they knew how: Franco reached into his bloodstained jacket and retrieved his phone; his final attempt to get control of the situation and of Gaige and Jenna. "Hello? This the Mothkiller?" he asked in a hushed tone into the receiver. His answer, was the heavy breathing of a longtime smoker. That confirmed it.

Franco cleared his throat, and continued. "I... I think I have some information you might be interested in."

 

~-~

 

The Misfits now knew what they had to do: Without his portals, Krill was just another C-Lister with a gimmick. And those, they knew how to deal with.

 

As his desperation grew, Krill kept frantically ripping the dots off his suit, and hurling them at the pair, one after another; Gar ducked; Gaige blocked them; Flannegan took two to the chest but kept moving; Sharpe leapt over them one after the other.

And then, Krill looked down at his costume: He'd ran out of dots. Flannegan grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and flung him against the far window; glass shattering as he made impact. He reached for a shard of broken glass, pulled Sharpe towards him, and held the shard close to his throat.

 

"Go on then!" he warned the Misfits. "Bring it on, you dicks! You think I won't kill this prick? I killed Manga Khan! And guess what, I liked him! He didn't hit me in the head with a fucking billy club neither."

 

"Hem-hem," a tinny voice called out.

 

Krill's eyes darted feverishly towards the approaching figure. "They really don't pay me enough for this," he gasped. "Alright, Johnny Five, what have you got?"

 

L-Ron, bowed his metal head. "Excuse me, but you did not kill Lord Manga."

 

"Eh-?" Krill's mouth twitched.

 

"Lord Manga, isn't dead," L-Ron restated. "Lord Manga is an energy being. Essentially formless. And you, took the head off of his favourite armour."

 

A cloud of pink mist erupted through the broken window frame, wrapped itself around Krill's face, and pulled him and Sharpe through the open window.

 

"No!" Gar cried, as he ran over to the broken windowsill. "I can't- I-"

 

He paused. "I don't believe it."

 

Krill and Sharpe had landed on the cloth awning above the hotel lobby, and though they were both worse for wear, they were breathing: Sharpe's powers had saved them both.

 

==Sionis Penthouse: Floor 48==

 

"Abner? Abner, come in. Krill!" Day bellowed down his comms device. No answer.

 

"See," Blake chuckled. "That's the one thing you need to know about the Misfits, pal-"

 

"I know everything there is to know about the Misfits," Day snapped at him.

 

"It's that, we may be assholes, but we're persistent assholes."

 

"I- I don't think I'm an asshole," Ten stated.

 

Day's lip curled; his head rocked from side to side, and it looked like he might throw up. Then his body stiffened. "Noted," he said softly.

 

==Jumbo Carson's Apartment==

 

"WHAT?!" Carson bellowed, flipping over a table in blinded rage. "Walker's back in Gotham? Why the hell did no one tell me that?!"

 

"Dad, calm down," Bridget pleaded, placing a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.

 

"No!" he dismissed her, tossing the Christmas tree onto its' side. "Who does Day think he is? Trying to cut me out of the action? Me?! How dare he! The Royal's like ten minutes away! We could've coordinated! I could've been there! I approached him: me! But no, he's too good for me! First, he denies me, then he bosses me around, and now he won't even give me the time of day! Fuck him!"

 

Carson set the phone down, and took a deep ragged breath.

 

"He's dead, Bridget," he growled. "That bald little prick is dead. What about it, Hayden? Fancy a trip out?"

 

The pirate, nodded excitedly. "Silly little red man throwing quite the fit.

Silly little red man, hasn't thought it through a bit.

So you take the silly little man, all dressed in black and red

And you grab the red man by the throat and you cut off his head."

On August 31, 2021, the legendary Rio Grande Southern Railroad was brought back to life (if only for a day). Built in 1891 by Otto Mears, the original RGS was located in Colorado’s southwest corner and ran between Durango and Ridgway via Lizard Head Pass, hauling coal, silver ore, and other goods from the mining communities of Telluride and Rico. The RGS was profitable for only a few years before a silver panic crippled its finances, but nevertheless it managed to stay in business, struggling through two world wars before running its last train in 1951. Following this, its 3-foot-gauge rails were taken up.

 

Rio Grande Southern No. 20, an 1899 Schenectady Ten-Wheeler, is one of four RGS steam locomotives still in existence. It was preserved by the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club in 1952 when the RGS was abandoned and over the years was cosmetically restored for display, first in Alamosa and later at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden. After fifty years sitting cold, No. 20 was transported to the Strasburg Rail Road in Strasburg, Penn., for a top-to-bottom restoration beginning in 2006 that took 12 long years to compete. The restoration was spearheaded by a donation from the Moedinger family of Pennsylvania, who put up $400,000 for the effort. After additional fundraising, No. 20 finally steamed again around the loop track at the Colorado Railroad Museum in 2020.

 

While a 3/4th mile loop is nice for a short train ride, Jeff Taylor and others at CRRM desired take No. 20 to a railroad where it could really stretch its legs. That opportunity came in 2021. For No. 20’s first major outing since restoration the museum took the 4-6-0 to the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad at Antonito, Colorado. Its visit coincided with the Victorian Iron Horse Roundup, held in in celebration of the C&TS’s 50th anniversary, which featured four locomotives built before 1900.

 

The trip with No. 20 on August 31 was sponsored by TRAINS Magazine, with editor Jim Wrinn and video producer Kevin Gilliam coordinating the event for photographers. The event was dubbed “Sunset on the Rio Grande Southern.”

 

Tickets for the event went fast, despite it costing nearly $900. The primary goal of “Sunset on the Rio Grande Southern” was to recreate an RGS trip that the late William Moedinger photographed in 1941, with the brakeman riding the pilot beam to watch for landslides. The first half of the consist matched the train that Moedinger photographed that day, which was featured on the cover of TRAINS in February 1942. William Moedinger’s son Linn was the person that did much of the restoration work on No. 20 during its time in Pennsylvania.

 

Denver & Rio Grande Western 2-8-2 No. 463, owned by the C&TS, was re-lettered as long-scrapped Rio Grande Southern No. 455 for the trip, and doubleheaded with No. 20. Thanks to decades of hard work by the Friend of the C&TS, the Cumbres & Toltec was able to provide a long string of authentic narrow-gauge equipment with an authentic RGS short caboose bringing up the markers. The scenery on the C&TS between Antonito and Osier is similar to the territory the RGS ran in.

 

The charter was an incredible experience and recreated scenes that hadn’t been seen since the 1940s. Was it worth the money? I’ll let you be the judge of that, but for me it certainly was. A big thanks is due Jim Wrinn and Kevin Gilliam, plus the men and women of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic for making it all possible.

 

The plan to build a railway in southern Queensland in 1863 prompted the residents of central Queensland to demand their own railway. The discovery of rich copper deposits at Peak Downs west of Rockhampton strengthened their case and in January 1864, Engineer for Roads, Northern Division, Henry Plews was ordered to survey a line to the copper field. Plews was made Chief Engineer of the northern railway in October 1864. The line opened as far as Westwood in September 1867.

 

This line was too short to be profitable and approval for an extension was granted in late 1872. Robert Ballard was appointed Chief Engineer and was given authority to let contracts for each section. The aim was to produce an affordable line.

 

As work progressed, towns developed at each temporary terminus. Some such as Pine Hill declined after the railway passed while others such as Alpha and Emerald continued to grow. Many buildings and businesses were shifted westwards from one terminus town to the next.

 

The line reached Duaringa in 1876, Blackwater in 1877 and Emerald in 1879. After Bogantungan (1881), the most difficult section was encountered - the crossing of the Drummond Range. The decision to extend the railway from Barcaldine (1886) to Longreach was the result of pressure being brought to bear by parliamentary representatives from Central Division and the fear that the northern Separation Movement could succeed. The final section was completed to Longreach in February 1892.

 

The Longreach site was selected by railways surveyors due to the presence of a large waterhole on the Thomson River. It was a popular stop for teamsters but it had never developed into a hotel or small community. Longreach was gazetted as a township in November 1887, and the first land sales occurred soon after that.

 

At the time the extension was completed, the bitterness of the Shearers' Strike was affecting the town and Premier Sir Samuel Griffith was rebuffed when he arrived to try to officially open the line.

 

When the line was completed, there were no railway buildings at the terminus, although a small post and telegraph office had been built to service the telegraph line which had advanced beside the railway. The first station building was a small timber shelter shed and office, 60ft x 14ft.

 

The opening of the railway from Barcaldine to Longreach caused a building and population boom in the area. By 1914, Longreach had 14 hotels.

 

In 1912 Commissioner Evans promised a deputation of locals that he would ask the government to build a station at Longreach similar to that at Winton. QR at this stage was undergoing a major reinvestment and rebuilding program of railway lines, branch lines, carriages, locomotives, and buildings. The new station was begun in 1915/16. This would indicate something of the political influence of central Queensland, in that a new building was provided even though the existing building remained intact. The new station was completed in 1916/17.

 

The current timber station was completed in 1916 to a design attributed to Henrik Hansen, this date appearing on the pediment. It is similar to stations he designed at Emerald, Mount Morgan and Archer Park. The most obvious difference is the platform awnings: Archer Park and Mount Morgan have carriage shades with a curved roof; Emerald re-used the platform shade from Central Station; and Longreach has a cantilevered platform shade.

 

The refreshment room was built shortly afterwards. It has now closed and the building is used as offices.

 

The goods shed is thought to have been built in 1892 and was substantially renovated in 1988.

 

Longreach is a focus for heritage tourism for Queensland Rail, being the terminus for Queensland Rail's 'Spirit of the Outback' rail adventure, offering what is promoted as a 'unique insight into the history and culture of early Australia'.

 

Longreach, Queensland:

 

Longreach, Queensland, is 620km west of Rockhampton, at the junction of the Capricorn and Landsborough Highways. The Aramac Creek flows southwards, joining the Thomson River which runs generally south-west through the Longreach district.

 

The Longreach district was explored by the New South Wales Surveyor-General, Thomas Mitchell (1846) and by Edmund Kennedy (1847). The pastoralist-explorer William Landsborough reported favourably on the district's pastoral prospects, and in 1863 the first pastoral lease was taken up by the vast Bowen Downs station. Several others followed soon afterwards. The district's centre was Aramac (1869), and it was governed by the Aramac local-government division (1879).

 

Railway Boom:

 

Considerable optimism surrounded the new settlement: town lots were auctioned and sold briskly, and by 1890 there were three hotels, several stores and tradespeople, a progress association, and a police station. The opening of the railway line in 1892 spurred further development, and thrust Longreach into the industrial upheaval of the age; whereas the 1891 shearer's strike had been based at Barcaldine, the 1894 strike was called at the new railway terminus, Longreach.

 

The town grew with astounding rapidity. By 1896 there were fourteen hotels, a hospital (1893), Catholic, Methodist, and Anglican churches, a school of the arts, a pastoral and agricultural society, and several clubs and friendly societies. From a population of about 150 in 1891, Longreach was approaching 2000 in 1903.

 

The progress association soon expressed criticism about the Aramac local-government division's neglect of the Longreach district. Aramac agreed, and the Longreach division was severed in 1900.

 

Apart from Longreach's role as a railhead and district centre, it also became the centre of an area subdivided for closer-settlement farms during the 1890s. Many blocks were too small, however, and the 1902 drought proved a substantial setback. Amalgamation of blocks and the successful drilling for bore water after the drought aided recovery.

 

Industrial Progress:

 

Longreach was usually quick to embrace new technology. Motor car hire and repair businesses were opened – the Longreach Motor Co (1910) and Edwards, Martin Ltd (1910) were major businesses in both repair and body-building for vehicles. In 1919 two young airmen, P. J. McGinness and Hudson Fysh visited Longreach while surveying the Darwin to Longreach section of a proposed England-Australia air route. The men later began Qantas outback airlines at Longreach and established a large plane assembly factory. With both a railway terminus and a pioneer air service, Longreach had some claim to being a 'Chicago of the West'. The railway advantage, however, subsided when the line was extended to Winton in 1927.

 

In 1921 an electricity powerhouse began operation and a rudimentary swimming pool opened. Reticulated water supply was laid on from the river in 1938, replacing the mineralised bore water and enabling trees to grace the city's parks. Despite the progress, Longreach remained a goat town for another two decades, with local herds essential as a reliable fresh milk supply. Fresh vegetables were also a problem, with grasshoppers damaging local crops and the railways sometimes failing to keep up supplies.

 

Postwar Tribulations:

 

The 1920s were relatively prosperous, as were the 1950s (apart from some dry years and a shearers' strike). Much of the commercial building stock was replaced, including the shire hall (the previous two, along with local hotels and the Catholic church had burnt down). A State high school and an Olympic pool were opened in 1966 and 1967. Within a few years wool prices declined, and an investment in beef cattle was met with a decline in meat prices. The town's population, which had stayed steady during 1933 - 1947 when other outback towns had fallen by a quarter, faltered badly during the 20 years from 1961 - 1981 falling from 3800 to fewer than 3000. Fortunately, improved roads and transport, which had solved the milk and vegetable supply problem, brought outback tourism. Sensing the tourist opportunity, Sir James Walker, Shire Chair (1957 - 1990), chair of regional electricity supply authorities and of the Longreach Pastoral College garnered national support for the Stockman's Hall of Fame, which opened in 1988 on land provided by the Pastoral College. The Qantas Founders Museum, abutting the original heritage-listed Qantas hanger at the Longreach aerodrome, and a museum based in the old powerhouse (also heritage-listed) are other attractions, particularly popular with 'grey nomads'.

 

In addition to the aforementioned attractions and facilities, Longreach has a racecourse, showground, a Catholic primary school (1985), a school of distance education, a base hospital (1944), aerodrome, a visitor information centre, an Olympic swimming pool, five churches, several hotels and motels, and an aged persons' accommodation. The elaborate railway station (1916, similar to the Emerald station) and the goods shed (1892) are listed on the Queensland Heritage Register.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register & Queensland Places (www.queenslandplaces.com.au/longreach).

Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (148 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable vein of gold; by 1879 it had established 2,000 structures with a population of roughly 8,000 people.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (109 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never able to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name had been "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations. After a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables," it was then standardized to "Bodie."

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city, but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860–1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million[19] (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington, and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821 (~$153,309 in 2023). James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942.

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter.

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails, and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2024, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.

 

The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

 

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.

 

Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".

 

Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.

 

In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).

 

Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.

 

Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.

 

As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.

 

As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.

 

Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.

 

Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.

 

On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.

 

The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.

 

During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

 

In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.

 

The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.

 

Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.

 

The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.

 

Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.

 

By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942

 

In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.

 

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.

 

The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.

 

Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .

 

Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.

 

The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.

 

In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.

 

California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.

 

The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.

 

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.

 

Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.

 

The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.

 

Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.

 

The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.

 

The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.

 

After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.

 

Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.

  

The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.

During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.

 

During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.

 

In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.

 

From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.

 

One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.

 

After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.

 

In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.

 

The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

 

Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.

 

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.

 

In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.

 

The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.

 

In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.

 

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.

 

At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.

 

Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.

 

In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

 

Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.

 

Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.

 

In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.

 

Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.

 

To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.

 

Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.

 

In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.

 

Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.

 

In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.

 

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.

 

One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.

 

The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is situated south of Elphinstone Creek and to the west of School Street and Kerr Street, in the town of Ravenswood, about 85km south of Townsville and 65km east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main mining periods, prior to modern open cut operations (1987 onwards), were: alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872); attempts to extract gold from sulphide ores below the water table (1872 - 1898); the New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917); and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919 - 1960s). In 2016 the Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area contains surface structures from eight mines: the Grand Junction, Little Grand Junction, Sunset No. 1 and Sunset No. 2, Deep, General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grant and Sunset Extended mines, as well as the mill associated with the Deep mine, and the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant (most structures dating from the New Ravenswood Company era). It also includes remnants of two treatment plants (Partridge and Ralston’s Mill, and Judge’s Mill) from the 1930s; and the Chinese settlement area (1870s to the early 20th century, covering the first three mining periods at Ravenswood).

 

The place contains important surviving evidence of: ore extraction (from underground shafts) and metallurgical extraction (separation of gold from the ore) conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield’s most productive reefs during the boom period of the town’s prosperity (1900 - 1908); later attempts to re-treat the mullock heaps and tailings dumps from these mines; and Ravenswood’s early Chinese community, which made an important contribution to the viability of the isolated settlement and was located along Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area also has the potential to reveal evidence of early alluvial and shallow reef mining, as well as domestic living arrangements on the Ravenswood goldfield. It is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of North Queensland’s mining booms, and has a special association with Archibald Lawrence Wilson, who established the New Ravenswood Company and improved both ore and metallurgical extraction processes on the goldfield.

 

Settlement and mining in North Queensland:

 

European settlement of the Kennedy Land District in North Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including ‘Ravenswood’ and ‘Merri Merriwa’. Townsville and Cardwell were both established north of Bowen in 1864.

 

However, mining, not pastoralism, proved to be the main catalyst for European settlement of North Queensland. In 1865 the founders of Townsville offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield, and gold rushes occurred in the region from 1866. Mining employed 19.8% of the North Queensland population in 1868, and 50% by 1876, before dropping to 15% in 1911. Although gold mining attracted people to North Queensland, alluvial finds of gold usually led to temporary townships, whereas underground reef mining held the promise of more stable and permanent settlements.

 

Alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872):

 

Alluvial gold was discovered south of the later site of Ravenswood, in tributaries of Connolly Creek on Merri Merriwa Station, north of the Burdekin River, in late 1868. Prospectors soon established ‘Middle Camp’ (later Donnybrook) on Tucker’s Creek, and ‘Lower Camp’ on Trieste Creek, with about 700 miners on the field by early 1869. Further north, in April 1869, the goldfield’s richest alluvial discoveries were made in three dry creek beds close to the site of Ravenswood: Nolan’s, Jessop’s, and Buchanan’s gullies. Despite these finds, many miners soon left for the rush to the Gilbert River (over 300km west of Townsville).

 

The parent reefs of the alluvial gold found in April were located about the same time as the exodus to the Gilbert – the General Grant being discovered first, followed by the Sunset. Both were visible above ground level, and both reefs would play an important part in the future prosperity of Ravenswood. In the next 40 years, nearly £3 million of gold would come from the reefs ‘in the little triangle between Buchanan’s Gully, just east of Macrossan Street, Jessop’s Gully, southwest of the town, and Elphinstone Creek’.

 

Other reefs were soon found north of Elphinstone Creek, and in Nolan’s Gully; and meanwhile, reefs had been discovered at Middle Camp. However, a lack of water meant that miners did not establish ‘Upper Camp’ (later Ravenswood) near the General Grant and Sunset reefs until October 1869, after a storm temporarily resolved the water issue. By this time, most miners had returned from the Gilbert. The three camps on the goldfield had a population of 600 by January 1870, most in Upper Camp. Work was slowed by a lack of water, until rains in February 1870 enabled panning and sluicing, the results of which confirmed that Ravenswood was the first significant reef mining goldfield in the northern half of Australia.

 

However, the miners needed to crush the quartz ore to extract gold. The first machinery for this purpose, WO Hodkinson’s five stamp crushing battery, the Lady Marion (or Lady Marian) Mill, was operational at Burnt Point (south of Upper Camp) from the 18th of April 1870. The first month’s crushing results caused ‘an even greater “rush” than that … caused by the discovery of the alluvial gold’. A second battery was operational in Upper Camp in August 1870, when the goldfield’s population was about 1200.

 

Official recognition of the goldfield and settlement soon followed. Government Geologist Richard Daintree visited Upper Camp in August 1870, and the Ravenswood goldfield (about 300 square miles) was proclaimed on the 3rd of November 1870. By this time, the goldfield had a population of about 2000, and Upper Camp had 10 ‘public houses’, with six public houses in Middle Camp.

 

The Government Surveyor, John von Stieglitz, arrived in November 1870, but was too late to impose a regular grid pattern on the settlement. Instead he formalised the existing plan, which was centred on the crossing of Elphinstone Creek by the main road (Macrossan Street), with tracks radiating out to the various diggings. Most commercial buildings were located along Macrossan Street. The resulting juxtaposition of mining, habitation and commerce gave the town its distinctive character.

 

The town was proclaimed on the 19th of May 1871, with an area of one square mile (259ha). This was later expanded to four square miles (1036ha) on the 13th of July 1883. Although gold had been discovered on Merri Merriwa Station, the name Ravenswood, after the run located further southeast, downstream on the Burdekin River, was preferred.

 

In 1871 the population of the goldfield was 900, with over half being in Upper Camp/Ravenswood, and by the end of 1871 there were five machines in Ravenswood. Hodgkinson’s mill had been moved into town, to a site just north of Elphinstone Creek, and was renamed the Mabel Mill. In 1871 the town had 30 licensed hotels, although these were referred to as ‘shanties’ and did not offer accommodation.

 

By this time Ravenswood also had a Chinese population, due to an influx of Chinese miners who had been forcefully evicted from the Western Creek diggings near Gilberton in mid-1871. At least three of the hotels of 1871 had Chinese licensees. The first Chinese had arrived in North Queensland in 1867, during the rush to the Cape River, and there were 200 Chinese looking for alluvial gold at Ravenswood in 1871. In January 1872 it was estimated that there were about 1500 Chinese present on the Ravenswood goldfield, and a matching number of Europeans. As the Chinese focussed on alluvial gold, and also provided other services, they were tolerated at Ravenswood, because the Europeans were now focusing on reef mining. The quartz reefs were originally worked at shallow depths by means of a windlass (hand-wound rope and bucket), or a horse-powered whip or whim (using poles, ropes and pulleys) raising the ore from shallow shafts.

 

Extracting gold from sulphide ores (1872 - 1898):

 

Despite its promising start, in 1872 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a ‘period of depression’, as its most important mines reached the water table at about 70ft (21m) deep – starting with the Sunset in 1871, followed by the General Grant, Black Jack, and Melaneur in 1872. Although the oxidised quartz (‘red stone’ or ‘brown stone’ quartz) close to the surface yielded its gold to traditional methods of mechanical crushing, below the water table the gold was in fine particles, which was not easily recovered by mechanical means. It was also mixed with sulphide ores; mainly iron sulphide (pyrite, or ‘mundic’ ore) but also sulphides containing lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, and antimony, which interfered with chemical treatments such as amalgamation (amalgamating the gold with mercury; then heating the resulting amalgam in a retort to vaporise the mercury) and chlorination (exposing roasted, concentrated ore to chlorine gas, and then precipitating gold out of the chloride solution). A process that worked on the ore from one reef might not work for an adjacent reef, due to a varying distribution of different types of sulphides. In addition, even if a process worked on a small scale, it could be uneconomical on a larger scale, given the price of transporting fuel to Ravenswood for smelting, or transporting concentrates for smelting elsewhere.

 

Once the mundic had been struck, ‘mining was "worse than dull" as the field grappled with the realisation that to break below the waterline, the days of the individual miner were over and the time of companies was looming’. The 1870s was a decade of major gold discoveries in Queensland, and miners keen on quick profits had plenty of new goldfields from which to choose. Many miners joined the rushes to Charters Towers (1872) and the Palmer River (1873). Charters Towers soon overtook Ravenswood as the most important inland town in north Queensland; and the Hodgkinson rush (southwest of Port Douglas) in 1876 also drew away miners.

 

However, Ravenswood grew during the 1870s and 1880s, despite the goldfield’s ‘refractory’ ores, and ‘mundic problem’. The goldfield had a population of 950 in 1877 (with 50 Chinese), rising to 1100 in 1880 (including 250 Chinese), and 2000 in 1883 (including 300 Chinese; with 190 working the alluvial, and 10 quartz miners).

 

The 1877 Pugh’s Almanac listed one Chinese hotelkeeper (out of seven hotelkeepers) in Ravenswood, and one Chinese storekeeper. The Chinese, as well as working alluvial claims and operating hotels and stores, were employed as wage labour in some mines; worked as roasters and chlorinators at the Mabel Mill; and operated 24 licensed gardens on the Ravenswood goldfield in 1883. Chinese gardens were vital in providing fresh vegetables to North Queensland’s goldfield populations.

 

For 19th Century diasporic Chinese communities such as Ravenswood’s, the establishment of specific cultural settlement areas, or ‘Chinatowns’, that ‘provided a range of sacred and secular services, including temples, stores, and accommodation’, was an important aspect of community building. Deighton Street, west of Macrossan Street, was the centre of Chinese life in Ravenswood. There were two eating houses close to Macrossan Street’s bridge across Elphinstone Creek, in the 1870s; and market gardens were located between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek, as well as north of Elphinstone Creek, interspersed amongst several crushing machine operations. There was also a temple south of Deighton Street. Temples were not just places of religious worship; rather, they were an integral part of a Chinese village. ‘They were places to meet, to check one's horoscope before embarking on a new venture and places where ancestors were venerated’. As well as being a place where the community could worship at any time, major gatherings were held at temples on festival days, with feasts and processions. The Ravenswood temple appears on an 1874 survey plan, making it the earliest known Chinese temple in Queensland. The nearby pig roasting oven is also a rare example of its type, and demonstrates the usual spatial arrangement of temple and oven, for community feasts.

 

Ravenswood continued to develop during the 1880s. By 1885, the Ravenswood goldfield had an estimated population of 2294 Europeans and 227 Chinese, with 1490 Europeans and 148 Chinese located in Ravenswood itself. Ravenswood at this time had four Chinese storekeepers, and two Chinese produce merchants, but all six hotel licensees were European. The Ravenswood National School, which began in late 1873, had an average attendance of 110 students in 1878, and reached its peak enrolment of 390 by 1889.

 

The 1880s were also a period of experimentation in metallurgical (gold extraction) technology. In 1883, the only method for dealing with sulphide ores was stamper mills and rotary buddles (which used water and gravity to separate and concentrate the crushed ores), but later Ravenswood ‘was the first place where the chlorination process and Wilfley tables, developed in 1896, to shake the ore and separate out different sized particles, and were used in Queensland, and probably the first place where the cyanide process (dissolving fine gold in a cyanide solution, and later precipitating the gold out of the solution) for extracting gold was used in Australia’. Other techniques attempted included fine grinding (using ball mills), roasting (burning off the sulphides), and smelting (prohibitively expensive, as it required high temperatures and thus a lot of fuel). By 1888 a new company at One Mile Creek, formed by Duncan and Peter Macintyre, had adapted an abandoned Cassell’s patent plant (a version of the chlorination process which was applied and failed in Ravenswood in 1886), to work on a ‘secret process’ (cyaniding).

 

Ravenswood mining continued to be viable, although only a (fluctuating) percentage of the gold was being recovered from the ore. In the mid-1880s there was even a temporary increase in the goldfield’s production, due to good returns from the Sandy Creek mines on the John Bull reef. For the next eight years, the principal producers of the district were the General Grant, Sunset, New England, Wild Irish Girl, Melaneur, and John Bull reefs, plus the silver lodes of the One Mile (at Totley).

 

Ravenswood’s economy survived the 1880s due to the development of silver mines at Totley, a township established about 2km north of Ravenswood. The silver mines opened circa 1879 - 1880, and Richard King floated the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Ltd in 1882 – the year of Ravenswood’s lowest gold production between 1878 and 1898. Silver prices were high during the 1880s, and the Totley mines encouraged the Queensland Government to approve a branch railway line (off the Northern Railway between Townsville and Charters Towers) to Ravenswood in 1882, completed in 1884. The railway meant that some gold ores could be crushed, concentrated and sent for treatment at the Aldershot works just north of Maryborough or overseas to Swansea, in Wales. However, all silver mining had stopped by 1891, due to falling silver prices and over-expenditure on treatment plants.

 

Gold mining at Ravenswood continued during the 1880s and 1890s. Hugh Hawthorne Barton, who had operated Brothers Mill on Elphinstone Creek from the late 1870s, took over the General Grant, Sunset, and Black Jack mines, and the Mabel Mill (and later the Melaneur and Duke of Edinburgh mines), and floated the Ravenswood Gold Mining Company in 1887, with £100,000 in capital. From 1884 to 1896 Barton’s group was the largest and most successful operation in Ravenswood, its profitability assisted by the railway, economies of scale, and flexibility in ore-treatment methods. Barton utilised roasting, chlorination (by 1889), and smelting, and employed Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill. Along with their market gardens along Elphinstone Creek, Chinese employment at the Mabel Mill also influenced the location of the Chinese settlement area in Ravenswood. Meanwhile, the landscape was being altered by mining. The need for timber for boilers and for timbering-up mine shafts led to the loss of native trees in the locality, and goats also helped shape the landscape by eating regrowth.

 

By the mid-1890s, Barton was in debt to the Queensland National Bank, and his properties were seized in 1896, with the General Grant, Black Jack, and Mabel Mill being let on tribute (where a party of miners worked a mine, while giving the mine owner a percentage of any results) in 1897. The tributers refused to employ Barton’s experienced Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill, leading to disastrous attempts at chlorination. However, the goldfield’s production was boosted in the late 1890s when work resumed on the Donnybrook reefs for the first time in 20 years, and the Hillsborough (Eight Mile) reefs were taken up.

 

The New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917):

 

Ravenswood’s boom period of gold production (1900 - 1908, with 1905 the year of highest production) is reflected in the town’s surviving mining infrastructure and commercial and public buildings. This boom occurred due to the efforts of Archibald Laurence Wilson (1852 - 1935). After gaining a diploma in mining engineering in Edinburgh, and working in New Zealand and on the Palmer River, Wilson arrived in Ravenswood in 1878. He was publican of the Silver King Hotel in Totley in the 1880s. As manager of the John Bull mine at Sandy Creek in the mid-1890s, he raised capital in London and installed a cyanide plant.

 

Wilson later travelled to London in 1898, where he floated both the Donnybrook Blocks Mining Syndicate and the New Ravenswood Company in 1899. Wilson was the General Manager of both companies, under their London directorates. Until 1917, the New Ravenswood Company was the largest mining operation on the Ravenswood goldfield. Registered with a capital of £50,000, the company purchased the General Grant, Sunset, Black Jack, Melaneur, and Shelmalier mines, and the Mabel Mill, from the Queensland National Bank (and later obtained the Saratoga, Duke of Edinburgh and London North mines), and initiated a new era in ore and metallurgical extraction. Using British capital, Wilson introduced modern machinery to work the mines, and effectively reshaped Ravenswood’s landscape. Wilson was known as ‘the uncrowned king of Ravenswood’. He was also Chairman of the Ravenswood Shire Council for some years, and was later on the Dalrymple Shire Council, until he resigned from poor health in 1934.

 

From 1900, both the Sunset and General Grant (also known as the Grant) mines were redeveloped by Wilson. These became the key earners for the New Ravenswood Company; by 1903 the two mines employed about 205 men, and were ‘the “backbone” of the town’.

 

The Sunset reef, which runs roughly northwest-southeast through the Ravenswood Mining Landscape, was the largest producer on the goldfield (almost a quarter of the total). It produced 14,722oz of gold from 1870 - 1894, and by 1900 it was worked from an underlie (an inclined shaft, following the dip of a reef) branching off from a vertical shaft 130ft (40m) deep. It was stated at this time that the reef had ‘much the same history as the General Grant, the two being generally worked together’. By 1903 the New Ravenswood Company had extended the underlie shaft right up to the surface, where a headframe was constructed to haul ore directly up the slope. The Sunset’s yield of ‘free gold’ (pure gold not combined with other minerals), which could be extracted at the Mabel Mill, peaked in 1904, then fell slowly. In 1905 an average of 170 men were employed at the mine. In 1908 the reef was being worked by the main underlie shaft, 900ft (274m) deep (Sunset No. 1); and a vertical shaft, 556ft (169m) deep (Sunset No. 2). As the Sunset reef was worked in conjunction with the General Grant and the Duke of Edinburgh reefs in the New Ravenswood Company era, its exact total production of gold is hard to calculate; but from 1876 to 1912 the reef probably produced about 177,000oz of gold; and probably most of the 22, 000oz that the company extracted from 1912 - 1917.

 

The General Grant, one of the most productive reefs on the goldfield, running roughly north-south just east of the Sunset reef, was worked almost continuously to the late 1880s, and periodically thereafter. By 1895 returns had diminished, due to the small size of the reef and its highly refractory ore. In 1900, the General Grant had a vertical shaft to 110ft (34m), and then an underlie of 610ft (186m), the bottom of the latter being 450ft (137m) below the level of the shaft mouth; but operations were ‘almost completely suspended’ as the New Ravenswood Company concentrated on the Sunset reef. To 1900 the General Grant had produced 23, 651oz of gold; and after crushing of ore from the mine resumed at the beginning of 1903, it was treated with ore from the Sunset. On average, 40 men were employed on the mine in 1905. In 1908 the powerhouse for both the Sunset and the General Grant mines was situated on the General Grant lease, with three Cornish boilers. By 1912 the General Grant had produced about 36,000oz of gold.

 

To the east of the General Grant was the Duke of Edinburgh reef, running roughly northwest-southeast. This was one of the early reefs discovered on the goldfield; and in 1872 it was identified by Warden TR Hackett as one of the 28 principal reefs. It was worked in several episodes prior to the 1890s, and was re-opened in 1891, producing 1286oz of gold during 1891 - 1895. In 1908 the mine was taken over by the New Ravenswood Company, and was reorganised as an underlie shaft with haulage machinery from the Golden Hill mine, being worked in conjunction with the General Grant until 1917.

 

Along with his modernisation of the goldfield’s best mines, Wilson also abandoned chlorination at the Mabel Mill, increased the mill’s crushing capacity to 30 stamps (by 1904), and introduced the first Wilfley tables to Queensland. Crushing resumed in January 1900. Wilson improved metallurgical extraction by ‘postponing amalgamation of the free gold till the great bulk of the sulphides had been removed by concentration’. The ore was crushed in stampers without using mercury. Then, using the Wilfley tables, the heavier Galena (lead sulphide ore) and free gold was separated from the lighter sulphides. The free gold and galena was then ground in Berdan pans with mercury, while the remaining sulphides (containing iron, zinc and copper) were dispatched to the Aldershot works (near Maryborough) for smelting. In 1902 - 1903, a raff wheel, 14.5m in diameter, was built at the Mabel Mill to lift tailings (post-treatment residue) up to a flume, which carried them over to the south side of Elphinstone Creek, where they could be treated with cyanide. The cyanide works (of which remnants still remain south of Elphinstone Creek) was erected circa 1904. A 21m long girder bridge was constructed across the creek to carry steam water pipes and electric cable from the Mabel Mill to the new works, which eventually comprised two Krupp ball mills and 12 Wilfley’s tables.

 

Due to the New Ravenswood Company’s efforts, the goldfield’s production increased between 1899 and 1905. Gold recovery increased from 18, 016oz in 1899 to 24, 832oz in 1900 and to 42, 465oz in 1905. The New Ravenswood Company paid impressive 50% dividends to its shareholders in 1901, 1902, and 1904; and 75% in 1903.

 

The productivity of Ravenswood’s mines during the New Ravenswood Company era was also reflected in the goldfield’s population, which rose from 3420 in 1901 to its peak of 4707 in 1903. The 1903 population included 215 Chinese, 89 of these being alluvial miners. In 1905 two Chinese were listed as ‘storekeepers and grocers’.

 

The population increase led to a building boom in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hundreds of new houses, the town’s first two brick hotels – the Imperial hotel (1901) and the Railway Hotel (1902) – as well as brick shops such as Thorp’s Building (1903), and the brick Ravenswood Ambulance Station (1904) were constructed in this period; the use of brick being spurred by the threat of fire. The New Ravenswood Company also rebuilt the mining landscape in and around the town, with expansion of the Mabel Mill, and new headframes and winders, magazines, boilers, and brick smokestacks erected beside all the principal shafts.

 

However, not all Wilson’s ventures in this period were successful. In 1902 he floated Deep Mines Ltd, with a capital of £100, 000, to sink a shaft east of the New Ravenswood Company’s leases. This mine (also within the Ravenswood Mining Landscape) was an ambitious attempt to reach a presumed intersection of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth. Using the capital raised, Wilson built a model mine and mill. The shaft was started in late 1902-early 1903, and construction work on the buildings and machinery was completed later in 1903. The mine reached 512m, the deepest on the goldfield, with extensive crosscutting and driving, but only about 240oz of gold was recovered. No ore was crushed at all in 1908. By 1910 a new shaft was being sunk ‘near the western boundary’; but the mine was abandoned in 1911, and never worked again. Wilson’s London investors lost at least £65,000.

 

The Deep’s mill, built nearby and operational by 1906, was a smaller version of the Mabel Mill, with gravity stamps, Wilfley tables, and a cyanide plant. Its site, adjacent to the mine, ran counter to the normal practice of siting mills near water courses. With the failure of the Deep mine, it milled ore from other mines until about 1917.

 

Another mine, the Grand Junction, was located north of the New Ravenswood Company’s most productive mines, in the Ravenswood Mining Landscape. The Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company was formed in 1900, and a shaft was sunk in 1901 (probably the No. 1 shaft on the Grand Junction Lease No. 520). In 1902 another exploration ‘deep shaft’ (No. 2) was sunk at the southwest boundary of the Grand Junction Lease No.503. The Grand Junction mine was another failed attempt to locate a presumed junction of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth; by 1908 it was owned by the New Ravenswood Company. Total production was about 425oz of gold.

 

Slightly more successful was the Grant and Sunset Extended mine, at the southern end of the Ravenswood Mining landscape. This was a deep shaft sunk by the Grant and Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, a Charters Towers-owned company with Wilson as its local director. During the 19th Century, small mines had been operated in the Rob Roy reef, to the southeast. The Grant and Sunset Extended was floated in 1902, the intent being to locate the General Grant and Sunset reefs south of Buck Reef. The plant and buildings of the Yellow Jack mine, southeast of Ravenswood, were re-erected on the site. The shaft was down 70ft (21m) in 1902 and 930ft (283m) by 1908, with 50 men employed at the mine by the later date. The mine closed by 1910, but was worked on tribute until 1917, with about 15,000oz of gold obtained over 1904 - 1918.

 

The boom period at Ravenswood did not last. As well as losing money on the Deep and Grand Junction mines, the New Ravenswood Company faced the closure of the Aldershot works in 1906, and declining yields from 1908 to 1912. Although Wilson experimented with flotation (agitating crushed ore in oil and water, and extracting fine gold particles on the surface of air bubbles) and cyanide processes at the Mabel Mill, it was too late to save his company. The Shelmalier had closed by 1904, the Black Jack in 1909, and the Melaneur in 1910. By that year, the General Grant, Sunset, Duke of Edinburgh, and London North (obtained 1910) were the New Ravenswood Company’s only producing mines.

 

Few new buildings were constructed in Ravenswood after 1905. The hospital closed in 1908. That year the goldfield’s population consisted of 4141 Europeans (including 2625 women and children) and 181 Chinese (including 94 alluvial miners). This dropped to 2581, including 92 Chinese, by 1914.

 

Increased costs and industrial disputes in the 1910s hastened the end of the New Ravenswood Company era. During a miner’s strike between December 1912 and July 1913, over lay-offs, the fresh vegetables and business loans provided by Ravenswood’s Chinese community helped keep the town going. Although the miners won, it was a hollow victory, as the company could only afford to re-employ a few of the men. World War I (1914 - 1918) then increased labour and material costs for the New Ravenswood Company. The London North mine closed in 1915, and on the 24th of March 1917 the New Ravenswood Company ceased operations; ending large-scale mining in Ravenswood for the next 70 years.

 

By 1917, the Ravenswood goldfield had produced over 850, 000oz of gold (nearly a quarter coming from the Sunset mine), and 1, 000, 000oz of silver; making it the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland, after Charters Towers, Mount Morgan, Gympie, and the Palmer Goldfield. Ravenswood was also the second largest producer of reef gold in north Queensland, after Charters Towers.

 

Small scale mining and re-treatment (1919 - 1960s):

 

After 1917 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a period of hibernation, with intermittent small-scale attempts at mining. In 1919, Ravenswood Gold Mines Ltd took over some of Wilson’s leases and renovated the Deep mine’s mill, but obtained poor returns. Ravenswood Gold Mines also worked the Duke of Edinburgh from 1919 to 1930, with good returns reported in 1924. The General Grant and Sunset were also worked on a small scale from 1919 - 1921, while the Mabel Mill continued to provide crushing services for the limited local mining.

 

Consequently, Ravenswood’s population declined and the town shrank physically. In 1921 the town’s population fell below 1000, and by 1923 there were 530 people left, including 8 Chinese. During the 1920s, prior to the closure of the railway branch line to Ravenswood in 1930, hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away. By 1927, only the two brick hotels remained operating as hotels. The Ravenswood Shire was abolished in 1929, and by 1934 only 357 people remained in the town.

 

Despite this decline, some gold was still being extracted. There was a small increase in gold production between 1923 and 1927, and due to the gold price rise of the 1930s, some mines were re-worked and efforts were also made to treat the old mullock heaps (waste rock from mining) and tailings dumps with improved cyanide processes. Between 1931 and 1942, 12, 253oz of gold was obtained from the goldfield, the peak year being 1940.

 

A number of companies were active in Ravenswood in the 1930s-early 1940s. In 1933, the North Queensland Gold Mining Development Company took up leases along Buck Reef and reopened the Golden Hill mine, and the following year their operations were taken over by Gold Mines of Australia Ltd. The 1870s Eureka mine (near the Imperial Hotel) was revived by James Judge in 1934. In 1935 the Ravenswood Concentrates Syndicate began re-treating the Grant mullock heaps in the remaining stampers at the Mabel Mill, and dewatering the Sunset No. 2 shaft; while the Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, with James Judge as manager, dewatered the Grant and Sunset Extended shafts (which connected to the Sunset, General Grant and Duke of Edinburgh shafts), and re-timbered the Grant and Sunset Extended, General Grant, and Sunset underlie (No. 1) shafts. The London North mine was reopened by R J Hedlefs in 1937, and Basque miners were working the Sunset No. 2 shaft at this time.

 

The Little Grand Junction mine, located at the intersection of Siggers Street and School Street, on the old Grand Junction Lease No. 520, was operated from 1937 - 1942 by local miners Henry John Bowrey and John Thomas Blackmore. Five men were employed at the mine in 1940. The shaft had apparently been sunk previously by the Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company; and Bowrey and Party reconditioned it and extended the existing workings.

 

In 1938, Archibald and Heuir set up a mill on the bank of One Mile Creek to treat mullock dumps, and the Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate (formed 1937, with James Judge as manager) began treating the mullock dumps of the Sunset mine in late 1938. The same syndicate also dewatered and reopened part of the Grant and Sunset Extended; and the Grand Junction mine was reopened by Judge circa 1939 - 1942.

 

The Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate’s (Judge’s) mill initially consisted of 10 head of stamps obtained from the Mother Lode Mill at Mount Wright (northwest of Ravenswood), powered by a diesel engine. The ore was crushed by the stamper battery, concentrated with Wilfley tables, and then either treated with cyanide or sent to the Chillagoe smelters. Initial success with some rich ore led to enlargement of the mill to 30 stamps in 1939 - 40. A Stirling boiler and a 250hp engine were also obtained from the Burdekin meatworks (Sellheim), and a rock breaker, elevator, and conveyor were installed. However, the upgraded mill proved to be overpowered and required a lot of timber fuel; the brick foundations used for the machinery were not strong enough; and the best ore from the Sunset had already been treated, so the mill closed early in 1942 and the plant was moved to Cloncurry.

 

Also in 1938, Maxwell Partridge and William Ralston installed a new plant south of Elphinstone Creek, to the immediate west of the Mabel Mill’s old cyanide works, to re-treat the old tailings with cyanide. A ball mill, filter, and other plant were purchased from the Golden Mile, Cracow in 1939, while later that year a suction gas engine and flotation machine were also installed. This operation closed circa 1942, and the coloured sands on the site today are residues from the flotation process: the yellow sand is from the floatation of iron pyrites; the grey sands are copper tailings; and the black material is zinc tailings.

 

There was limited activity on the goldfield in the late 1940s to early 1960s. The Empire Gold Mining Syndicate treated mullock dumps from The Irish Girl, London, and Sunset mines from 1946 to 1949, as well as some of the dumps from the Grand Junction (1947). The Duke of Edinburgh mine was briefly reopened by Cuevas and Wilson in 1947, and the Cornish boilers on the site (one with the maker’s mark ‘John Danks & Son Pty Ltd makers Melbourne) may relate to this (unsuccessful) operation. Percy Kean reopened the Great Extended mine at Totley in 1947, and later purchased Partridge’s mill in 1951 to use it as a flotation plant to treat the silver-lead ore from Totley, adding a diesel engine, stonebreaker, Wilfley tables, and classifier. The Totley mines closed in 1954, although the Great Extended mine was briefly sub-leased by Silver Horizons No Liability, in 1964. Partridge’s mill was closed circa 1965.

 

Other attempts were made in the early 1950s to rework old sites. A Townsville syndicate led by Leslie Cook and George Blackmore reopened the Grand Junction mine in 1951, but it soon closed. James Judge also recommenced gold mining at Donnybrook, but closed in 1954; while 900 tons of tailings from the Deep mine’s mill site were taken for re-treatment at Heuir’s cyanide plant in the early 1950s.

 

A new industry:

 

In the 1960 and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population shrank to its nadir of about 70 people. At the same time, there was a growing nostalgic interest in old towns in Australia. In 1968 the landscape of Ravenswood was described in romantic terms: ‘Mute testimonials are the numerous mullock heaps which dot the countryside; the rusty remains of steam engines; stampers which were used to crush stone; and collapsed cyanide vats… Derelict poppet-heads…stand above deep, abandoned shafts. Colossal columns of chimney stacks rise majestically from the entanglement of rubber vines and Chinese apple trees.’ Some locals realised that preserving the town’s surviving historic buildings and structures was necessary to attract tourists and create a new local industry.

 

From this time onwards the town’s mining heritage was seen as an asset. The National Trust of Queensland met with locals in 1974, and a conservation plan for the town was published in 1975. Later, the town sites of Totley and Ravenswood were both entered into the National Trust of Queensland Register. Comments from an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) trip to northern Australia in 1978 included ‘Ravenswood…is one of the most evocative (gold towns of Australia) and this must be preserved. A policy of “all that is necessary but as little as possible” must be strongly pursued’. The increased population of North Queensland, longer paid holidays, improved roads, and the rise of car ownership after World War II, all increased visitation to Ravenswood, as did the completion of a road past Ravenswood to the Burdekin Dam, in the 1980s. As a result, the town and its mining landscape have been represented in brochures, art, and photography. In particular, the landmark qualities of the tall brick chimneys are a distinctive feature in representations of Ravenswood.

 

Modern operations:

 

However, gold mining recommenced at Ravenswood in the 1980s, due to a rise in the gold price and the efficiencies gained from open cut mining and modern cyanide metallurgical extraction processes. From 1983 - 1986 the Northern Queensland Gold Company Ltd conducted agglomeration heap-leaching (spraying a sodium cyanide solution on previously mined material heaped on a plastic membrane), in the process removing a landmark tailings dump at King’s mine in Totley, and mullock heaps from the Grant and Sunset mines. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold commenced open cut mining of the Buck reef (the Buck Reef West pit) near the old Grant and Sunset mines on the south side of the town. Later, pits were dug further east along the reef. Some underground mining was also undertaken from the Buck Reef West pit until 1993, which broke into the old workings of the General Grant, Sunset, and Duke of Edinburgh mines. The old headframe at the Grant and Sunset Extended was demolished in 1988, and replaced with a new steel headframe, which was used until 1993 and then removed. The Melaneur-Shelmalier-Black Jack-Overlander reef complex, on the north side of the town, was mined as an open cut 1990 - 1991, before being backfilled as a golf course. The Nolan’s Gully open cut commenced in 1993.

 

Although modern mining revived the economy of the town, it did not replicate the building boom of the early 20th century.

 

The heritage significance of Ravenswood’s surviving mining infrastructure was recognised in a 1996 Queensland Mining Heritage Places Study by Jane Lennon & Associates and Howard Pearce; and a 2000 Conservation Management Plan by Peter Bell. In 2006, the population of Ravenswood, the oldest surviving inland town in north Queensland, was 191.

 

By the mid-2010s the population of Ravenswood stood at 255 people.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register & Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Common tales

Profitable provinces

Earthly sovereignty

A profitable day spent visiting Lanzarote's vineyards, with some very decent wines - and the odd landscape.