The Great Grays Harbor Gold Rush
A prospector who claimed to have a secret method for extracting gold from harbor sands vanishes, leaving behind a community of duped investors.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Bob Lowry was down to the beach the other day, and says that is the busiest place on the harbor. Everybody that can is working the sand for gold. It seems that the man named Foote, who has been experimenting all summer, has skipped town, and left the other fellows to foot the bills and the pay of three or four men for several months. It has developed, however, that he has been quietly 'sugaring off' all along, and had put them off with one excuse or another from time to time, and that when he went away he took about $1,500 worth of gold. As a result, there is considerable excitement again.
“It seems that the man Foote, who has been experimenting all summer, has skipped, and left the other fellows to foot the bills.”
Gold fever in Aberdeen's early days mirrors the boom-and-bust speculative cycles that defined Grays Harbor industry. It serves as a reminder of how quickly rumors of wealth can distract a community from the realities of the local labor economy.
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