Page 81 - 2007 DT 12 Issues

I n T h i s I s s u e

Featured Article
Ruel Colt Gridley..............................1
Special
Quiz...................................................6
Nevada Bits & Pieces.......................7
Departments
News & Notes....................................2
November 2007 Programs & Hikes.............................4
Desk Schedule..................................6
Bulletin Board..................................8

rations. The townspeople had heard
Reuel Colt Gridley . . . he lost a bet that made him a hero.
of the bet and were out to make the
occasion something of celebration.
would be won by the Democratic
by H. Dan Wray Accompanied by the local band, it took
candidate. The bet was that, if he lost, Grindley about an hour to reach the
he would carry a 50-lb sack of flour
pril 1864 was an exciting time destination, after which everyone
in Austin, Nev. A mayor was from Austin to Clifton, a distance of adjourned to the local saloon.
Abeing elected, but it is not the some one and a half miles. It was fine to have carried the sack
election which lives on in memory but to Clifton, but soon someone asked
a wager on the outcome. what was to be done with the sack of
Reuel Colt Gridley was born in flour. Gridley was certainly in no fit
Hannibal, Missouri in 1829 and was state to carry it back all the way to
a pupil at the same school as Sam Austin and, in any case, that had not
Clemens. Writing as Mark Twain, been part of the bet. It was Gridley,
in his book “Roughing it,” Clemens himself, who came up with the solu-
referred to Gridley as a “rather el- tion. He said, “This crowd of people
derly student; he was perhaps 22 or has had its fun at my expense; let us
23 years old.” see who will do most for the sick and
After serving in the US army wounded soldiers. We will put this
during the Mexican War 1846-48, sack of flour up at auction, and sell it,
Gridley moved to Louisiana and then with the understanding that, whoever
to California. He was very much an the purchaser may be, he shall pay the
entrepreneur and variously was a amount bid and give the flour back to
prospector, newspaper owner and be sold again for the benefit of the
a banker. He was a person quick to Sanitary Commission.” (The Sanitary
seize advantages and when he per- Commission was a forerunner of the
ceived a weakness in the US Mail Red Cross).
service provided by Wells Fargo in The sack was duly auctioned,
the Sierras, he started up an express Grindley himself being the winning
service to places which Wells Fargo bidder with a bid of 300 dollars. Bid-
could not—or did not—reach. ding fever took hold and by the end of
It was in the 1860s that he and the day, the sack had been auctioned
his family settled in Austin, where time and time again and a staggering
he became the senior partner in a $5,000 or so had been raised. Raising
general store. He might never have Obviously Gridley was an honorable money for the Sanitary Commission
been known or remembered outside man as, when his candidate lost, he was not new, but the quaintness of
the confines of Austin had he not bet duly appeared with the 50-lb sack
a friend that the election for mayor made heavier with Union flag deco- Gridley, continued on p.6