FROGS I HAVE KNOWN

– Robert O Greenawalt –

Many scripophilists find that collecting around specific subjects or locales can be very rewarding. Through the years, I have become acquainted with the Bullfrog Mining District, located in western Nevada’s Nye County. This District was central to the state’s early Twentieth Century mining boom. It all started in early August, 1904, when Frank Harris and Ed Cross, two prospectors working circuitously out of Goldfield, Nevada, came upon a magnificent piece of gold-bearing, glistening, splotchy, green-stained rock that is said to have looked like a bullfrog!* The name caught on in a hurry although the desiccated desert around Bullfrog is a very unlikely spot for live frogs to be doing anything. Today, we consider “bullfrog” as one word, although a number of the old companies used it as two.

Thanks to the automobile, Nevada was rampant with new mineral finds at the time. Previously the vast distances in Nevada, combined with the lack of food and water, had been major challenges to serious prospectors. However, the advent of the automobile at the turn of the century allowed prospectors to fan out in all directions for careful exploration. Well over 150 mining districts were created in Nevada in this period.

[Only 2 paragraphs are available to the general public. Full text is available only to registered members]

The author is a “very retired” civil engineer who found his first certificate in 1941 on the basement floor of the abandoned Cochise County Courthouse in Tombstone AZ. He became serious about scripophily in 1962, and specializes in US rails and western US mining. He is always ready to swap material, and goes by the name Rails Remembered.