Deming’s Boom Like An Old Time Rush To Gold Diggings – Part 4 of 4

Some New Structures

Other new business enterprises are the Hannah building, a big brick structure at Pine and Gold streets; the huge new Teal theater, now well under way on East Pine; the new Lyric, on Pine, and Arizona theaters on Silver Avenue; the White Cafe, the Moran cafe, the Wells garage, an elaborate business block under construction for Dr. J. A. Kinnear, on Silver Avenue, and the Burns block, at the corner of Pine and Silver; large additions to the Carson and Dines hotels, the complete remodeling of the Crystal theater and a large frame building and cafeteria to be erected by the Y.W.C.A., similar to the one at Plattsburg, New York.

Some of Camp’s Greatness

The vast tent camp at Camp Cody that will house 36,000 troops, will necessitate the erection of 300 mess halls and a total of 1100 cantonment buildings. It will require the building of 12 miles of road and 10 miles of water main. This army construction alone, now one-third completed, will require 8,000,000 feet of lumber and ten miles of wire screen.

Base Hospital Big Group

This estimate does not include the base hospital, which alone will have 68 buildings. The first detachment of the medical corps for this institution, 121 men, arrived from Spokane, Washington, recruits to be put into training at this point.

Another adjunct to the camp will be the remount station where provision must be made for 12,000 extra  horses and mules and their attendants.

Abundance of the 99.99

One of the many municipal enlargements that have been necessitated by the coming of the concentration camp has been the supply of 1,440,000 gallons of water per day in addition to the normal supply. This has been accomplished by the installation of a new pumping plant and the sinking of new wells. The city water company now produces 3,500,000 gallons per day. Grant and Luna counties have cooperated in the building of 50 miles of gravel highway, and a steel bridge has been built on the Silver City – Deming highway, over the Mimbres river. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Thursday, August 23, 1917

Deming’s Boom Like An Old Time Rush To Gold Diggings – Part 3 of 4

Purity Campaign Strict.

The problem of prime importance is the purity campaign which mayor Nordhaus has instituted. In this the city has cooperated with the government, and city police and detectives work in unison with a small army of federal secret service men. The result is that no epidemic of vice has been permitted to take root. A city ordinance was put into was put into force several weeks ago limiting the number of saloons in Deming, and these, largely because of the orderly disposition of the crowds, brought about by many other purity measures, continue to be quiet and free from disturbances.

Painted Women Discouraged.

Women with too artistic complexions are politely and firmly reasoned with at the railroad station. It is right about face for these and other disturbing elements as soon as they alight at the depot platform. Two police specialists from El Paso have been installed, police captain Tom Avaunt and chief of detectives Boyd.

Putting Millions in Buildings.

Buildings at Deming, either in progress or ready to be begun as soon as carpenters may be obtained, will amount to $2,500,000. The largest item of this huge program is the subscription of $1,000,000 for stock in the big Murray & Layne wholesale house, which is about to be begun on a location near the union depot. Most of this stock has been subscribed locally. Plans for this enterprise have been approved and the contract will soon be let. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Thursday, August 23, 1917

Deming’s Boom Like An Old Time Rush To Gold Diggings – Part 2 of 4

At Least a Cot Provided

The Deming chamber of commerce has grappled successfully with the housing problem and there is now a cot, at least, for everybody who comes. In the role of gracious host that Deming has taken upon itself the threatened street sleeping danger has been averted, even though many of Deming’s fine homes have been turned into sleeping quarters. The price that these visitors have offered for quarters has put rooming house signs on a score of buildings that were never intended for the purpose. The chamber of commerce has taken steps to keep down the prices of rooms, as well as other necessaries, in conformity with its guarantee to the war department. An appeal to civic pride has sufficed to prevent exorbitant prices for necessities until the building operations can restore normal conditions.

Chinese Open Restaurants

Many of the boom time restaurants that have sprung up are being conducted by Chinamen who are being content with a big business at the usual prices. These, as well as the tradesmen who have been established here before the rush came, see the permanent good to be derived from moderation of prices and the slump and danger that may result from a panic of money making.

Money Talkes Out Loud.

And yest, goodness knows, they could have  doubled and triple prices if they demanded them. Money talks here, if it ever did anywhere.  A busy contractor can afford to offer a good sized banknote to a man at the head of the line at the post office, to whom that hour or so delay for mail might not be so vital. Every business establishment in the town has tripled its force of clerks and yet cash for instant service is always to be had. Many a wise one who has found a room with a bed in it by dint of a day’s tramping up and down the streets has been able to realize a tidy sum by turning it over to somebody whose time chanced to be too valuable for the hunt. All these pressing problems are being taken in hand by the chamber  of commerce, which is now forming a city housing commission.

Jitnes Are Regulated

Jitne traffic, which threatened to leap over all bounds, was quickly regulated by a special committee of the city council, composed of mayor M. A. Nordhaus, city clerk Arthur A. Temke and alderman Hamilton. The maximum charge for a trip within the city limits is now held strictly to 25 cents by service cars, including the Camp Cody trip. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Thursday, August 23, 1917

Deming’s Boom Like An Old Time Rush To Gold Diggings – Part 1 of 4

Deming is in the midst of a greenback rush that has all of the bustle and scramble of any gold rush that New Mexico has ever seen. The sudden planting of a million and a half dollars per month in this locality by the war department has brought a flood of 4000 artisan prospectors already. It is a sort of placer mining proposition. Every on of the crowd of incomers that tumble off of every train is bent on devising some little niche on Silver avenue that can catch an eddy of that stream of specie-bearing soldiers soon to be flowing into town from Camp Cody.

First Phase of the Rush

The first phase of the rush is the feverish haste to provide quarters for the vanguard of carpenters and builders drawn here from every part of the country by the certainty of wages that range around $8 and $10 per day.

The rush is just beginning. It is not the swarming troop trains now – only the first detachments of the 34Th division of the national guard having yet arrived; it is the trainloads of lumber and building supplies, with which every siding is choked. It is not the yell of the ballyhoo  men and the flash of the multicolored electric signs, but the barrage fire of hammers, the chugging of a swarm of trucks, and the fitful glare of torches used in feverish night construction. The sidewalks and streets are not jammed at night by khaki clad soldiery and piles of army baggage, but with a stream of men in overalls and mountains of lumber and bricks that are to double the town of Deming in a fortnight. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Thursday, August 23, 1917