This is only a superficial rendering of the big event in Goldfield's history, but it is sufficient to furnish an example of the effect of Get-Rich-Quick influences that radiate from high places and separate the public from millions upon millions, without being called to account.
The dear American public has been falling for this kind of insidious brand of Get-Rich-Quick dope for years. It is being gulled into losing millions through its fetish worship of promoters with millions, who are really the Get-Rich-Quicks of the day that are very dangerous.
Greenwater, a rich man's camp, in which the public sank $30,000,000 during three months that marked the zenith of the Goldfield boom, is another case in point where a confiding investing public followed a deceiving light and was led to ruthless slaughter.
When the excitement was at fever-heat in Goldfield over the stupendous rises in market value of Goldfield securities which were being chronicled hourly, news came to town of the successful flotation in New York of the Greenwater & Death Valley Mining Company. The capitalization was 3,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 each. The stock had been underwritten at $1 a share by New York and Pittsburg Stock Exchange houses, had been listed on the New York Curb, and had climbed to around $5.50, or a valuation for the property of $16,500,000. Among the officers of this company were M. R. Ward, brother-in-law of Charles M. Schwab; T. L. Oddie, now Governor of Nevada, and Malcolm Macdonald, later president of the Nevada First National Bank of Tonopah.
Greenwater is situated about 150 miles south of Goldfield, across the State line in California. No one ever went to or fro without passing through Goldfield. If there was a Greenwater boom, how was it that we in Goldfield, who were in touch with all Nevada mining affairs, did not know about it? Goldfield promoters soon began to give attention. Shortly they caught the infection. A stampede from Goldfield into Greenwater ensued. In fact, people flocked to Greenwater from every direction. A bunch of Tonopah money-getters, headed by the indomitable Malcolm Macdonald, were grabbing the money on Greenwaters in New York, and Goldfield was not in the play.