The Big Diamond Mine

Here's a song about how Diamond Mountain in Dagget County got its name. Dagget is a hard wild stretch of land along the Wyoming border, which takes in some rivers and canyons and most of the northern slope of the Uinta range. I got this story out of the old WPA file of the Federal Writers' Project which typed out a lot of these old stories during the Depression. Banker Ralston is William Ralston, the exploiter of the Comstock Lode in Nevada and one of the founders of San Francisco. Coulter was the head of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Young Philip Arnold walked in through the door,
And lowered a couple of bags to the floor.
He said, "I'm from Utah to visit a while,
And I'd be plum pleased if you'd lock up my pile."

Up stepped his partner, by name Johnny Slack;
He untied a string and dumped out the sack.
Old banker Ralston, his eyes did explode -
The pile was a rich as the whole Comstock Lode.

There was diamonds and emeralds and sapphires, too,
And a couple of rubies as big as your shoe.
Old Bill Ralston was nobody's fool,
But he trembled all over and slobbered and drooled.

Well, he wined 'em and dined 'em and treated 'em fine,
And he pumped them about that big diamond mine.
But Arnold he clammed up and Slack would not tell,
This secret they had was too precious to tell.

Then the banker resorted to villainous ways;
He hounded them nights and he hounded them days.
He offered them money and property, too;
They agreed that a mere half million might do.

Dave Coulter, who ran the old SP line,
Was picked as the man to look into this mine.
With Arnold he took him a blindfolded tour,
And wrote back, "A strike -- and a big one, for sure!"

'Twas then Henry Jenin, the great engineer,
Let out that the mine could be worked without fear.
"Twenty bold miners are more than enough
To wash out a million a month in the rough."

So Ralston he formed a big company,
And let out the stock at a right handsome fee.
Rothschild he sat in his big London bank,
And the check that he mailed to Ralston was blank.

Then young Clarence King with a surveying team
Come making his plats a-way up on the Green;
Where the river is wild and the country is raw,
By the big diamond field here's what he saw:

There were diamonds and rubies all over the ground
Where diamonds and rubies ain't normally found.
They were salted in pockets as nice as you please,
And some had been left in the forks of the trees.

Well, he beat him a trail to the Wyoming side,
To the telegraph office he made a hard ride.
When the message arrived you could hear Ralston roar,
As he foamed at the mouth and rolled on the floor.

It turned out them diamonds was cheaper than sand -
Those swindlers had bought them in old Amsterdam.
And when banker Ralston had paid off his stocks,
Held put out ten million for two sacks of rocks.

So listen you bankers, my song's nearly through;
Don't gripe when some poor feller gets one on you.
When you're riding around in your big shiny car
Just remember the way that you got where you are.

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