Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 051-2 - April 1997 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-05 07:51:20 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:00 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:00

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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. ~~ A Fiber-Optical Allusion by Crystal Kimmes [On 21 November, 1996, the annual NCHS speech contest was held. In our last Bulletin (January 1997) we printed the text of Julie Maclam’s entry, “The Stewart Mansion in Nevada City,” for which she won Honorable Mention. What follows is the speech that won First Prize, written and delivered by Crystal Kimmes. Both girls are students at Bear River High School.] You LISTEN HERE TO THIS NOISE, cuz I’ve a great story to tell you. Recently I wuz a-talkin’ with a fella about the places we wuz livin’. He claimed he wuz all the way from Salt Lake City, Utah. Then, of course, he asked me where I wuz from. Proudly, I said “I am a resident of Nevada County.” Sneering, he said, “You live where?” I told him again, “Nevada Country, land of the Pioneers, and rich in gold and culture.” He was clearly unimpressed. Some of the stuff I told him (minus the claim jumpers needed to keep his hat from falling of his swellin’ noggin’) I’m gonna’ tell you. I said, “I bet you think you know who the first person to fly was.” He said, “Of course I do. The ones to fly were the Wright “brothers.” “Excuse me?” I said, “Did I hear you say ‘Wright’? Well it’s a toss-up with them and Lyman Gilmore. In 1907, he built the first commercial airfield in the world, in my home place, Nevada County.” I could tell the fellar had no idea wut I wuz a-talkin’ bout, so I elaborated: “Lyman Gilmore was so ahead of his self and his time, which was from 1879 to 1953, he often went mad, racin’ through his house, muttering about computers, stereo sets, televisions and whole lot of wutnot. He even had this thing, a modem flying machine, which he invented around the year 1903.” Now the sir I was talking with said he’d never heard of no flyin’ Lyman Gilmore. I says, “That’s because he warn’t no flamin’ braggart! Lyman just didn’t show off his flyin’ machines, because he had to get them balanced just so!” Well, then the sir says he was sick of hearin’ bout good ol’ Lyman, so I told him something else that would bust his britches: “Ever heard of long-distance telephone?’ I said. “When’s the last gold-diggin’-day you got a long-distance telephone call from Washington, D.C.? Well, I learn you that North San e™ Juan got that first long-distance telegram and North San Juan is right here, in Nevada County.” The fella looked at me, so I figured I better tell a bit more, so’s he could understand and all. I told him that the wire we used was none of this fiber-optics we’re coming to terms with in the twentieth and twenty-first century. I figure, them’s more of a fiber-optical allusion. “Anyways, we used wonderfully strong #8 iron wire that was wrapped and soldered together with copper wire. It was no easy job keepin’ that wire from splittin’ in the winter, neither. We had men all across the United States burning fires to keep them joints together so’s we could relay messages about the gold and mining and mountains and new towns that was poppin’ up everywhere like dandelions in the Spring. We had to keep them wires warm or the connection ’ud go down. And you get angry at them busy signals.” So the fella seemed a 1i’1 more interested and I thought I’d tell him somefin’ else I’d remembered about Lyman Gilmore. I told him that in the early 1900s Lyman Gilmore invented one of the first rotary snow plows, to use in Nevada County, with the snow and all. I bet the fellar had even used one himself! Anyways, a big company came to buy the plans for buildin’ Lyman Gilmore’s snow plow, but being a crazy, or more likely a stubborn man, he refused the offer of $10,000! About now, the sir from Utah started lookin’ bored again, so I figured I’d tell him how in Grass Valley, California, there’s the Empire gold mine. At the mention of gold, the fella’s eyes lit up like the miners’ fires by the Yuba River. Judging by this feller’s reaction to gold, we’s can see why so many persons flocked to California in 1849. Gold! I told him that where I wuz livin’ was this here gold country. Well, he got to askin’ questions, so just to keep him quiet, I told him that since its opening in 1850, all the way until 1956, the Empire mine was the biggest and richest mining operation in Grass Valley. “By 1928, over $38 million had come from the mine. Hundreds of my pals mined that ore by riding old-fashioned roller coasters 7,000 feet into the earth! Another interestin’ thing about the mining was the nicknames they gave to the miners and job-seekers. We called them ‘Cousin Jacks.’" Now, maybe this fellar’s name was Jack, who’s to know, but he wanted to know why the miners were sometimes called such a name. A curious one he is, always wantin’ to know the reason for everything. So, of course, I told him. “The reason wuz, many of the miners were from Cornwall, England, and Jack was a popular name among them. So’s every time there was job offerin’, the miners would refer their ‘cousin Jack’ for the job.” Telling him this brought me to a little celebration we have here in Grass Valley, in Nevada County. It’s called Cornish Christmas. The Comish miners were responsible for them spicy pasties and the Cornish Choir which was organized in 1890. Every Christmas Eve, on the steps of the Union building on Mill Street, the choir gathered to “’ave a bit of ’ark 15