CHAPTER IA BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF MINEVILLE1Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, a mile above sea-level, is Mineville, unknown to most of the world but keenly conscious of itself. In 1865 its site was first visited by a white man who found gold- and silver-bearing ores on a mountain, which is partly within the northeastern corner of the present city limits. At the base of this "hill," for what an easterner would call a mountain is called a hill in Mineville, there was erected in 1867 the first quartz mill in a vast unexplored region-the recently wrecked Luck Mill. As a matter of course, the town grew up at the edge of the hill so that the men might be close to the place of their labors. And so it lies scattered over gulches and hillsides, when there was available, less than a mile to the west, the beautiful, level Stone Creek Valley.The drainage waters of the immediate vicinity flow into and form Stone Creek, which furnishes irrigation water for the fertile fields of its long valley. ATable of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS; PART I MINEVILLE IN PANORAMA; I A Bird's-Eye View of Mineville 3; II Memories of the Past 16; III What Mineviixe Thinks of Itself 31; IV The Struggle fox Existence 52; V The Routine of Life 74; PART II AGENCIES OF SOCIAL CONTROL; VI How Well the People Know One Another 101; VII Gossip/" 128; VIII What They Think of One Another 144; IX The Printed Page 174; X Law Enforcement 187; PART III GROUP LIFE IN MINEVILLE; XI Glimpses of the Family 211; XII From the Cradle to High School 226; XIII Youth: Flaming and Otherwise 244; XIV Organizations and Other Groups 264; PART IV SOCIAL CHANGE; XV Small-Town Politics 2gs; XVI The Village Schools 327; XVII Churches without Congregations 343; XVIII Sickness, Age, and Death 360; XIX The Changing Town 382; Index 413; xviiAbout the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of histo