The Gold Rush Hits Grays Harbor
Prospecting fever reached Aberdeen and Elma as locals claimed new iron and gold strikes near local schools and riverbeds.
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.
Two gentlemen from Aberdeen have found a gold mine three-quarters of a mile east from our school house. They have been prospecting since last August and will spend $1000 testing the ore. Thomas A. Ray of Elma says there is quite an excitement over the mines on the Mox Chehalis. He had a sample of the ore assayed which yielded 54 per cent of iron. Great excitement prevails over the find, and claims are being rapidly taken.
“Great excitement prevails over the find, and claims are being rapidly taken.”
This captures the 19th-century 'booster' spirit where every creek was seen as a potential motherlode. While these specific mines didn't turn Washington into the Klondike, they illustrate the intense speculative climate of the 1890s in the Pacific Northwest.
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