BOOMTOWN SPREE- MIAMI RELIVES A BOISTEROUS YOUTH

Boomtown Spree

No ghost town is Miami-queen of the copper camps of the west. High on a hill overlooking the town is the Miami copper company one of the great modern-day mines. Several miles beyond is the gigantic mine and plant of the Inspiration copper Company. The good citizens of Miami will play hosts to the state in their Boomtown Spree when a boisterous past will be relived May 11, 12, 13. There will be a pageant the first day and everything else that is new and old under the sun the next two days, with the Miami Junior Chamber of Commerce old-fashioned mining camp dance at the Elks Plaza Strange is the phenomena of a mining camp boom. First came the money, then the miners. This shows Miami shortly after its founding. A few buildings stood in the valley, a railroad had just sliced in from Globe, and a tent city mushroomed on the flat. Tents rented in the early days for as much as $30 per month.

In the horse and buggy days of the early teens, roaring Miami was the mecca of every hard-rock miner in the country. The town was packed with 10,000 people. During the old-day celebrations rock drilling contests were always popular. Miami's Boomtown Spree will feature drilling contests, Herculean contests of men over hard rock.

Miami, Queen of Copper Camps, to relive a boisterous youth in celebration May 11, 12, 13

When development began, millions of dollars were poured into these hills around Miami and the town sprang into being almost overnight when Cleve Van Dyke started the townsite. There being no building available for a jail, this dugout shown here served until a jail could be built. The imposing figures shown here were in 1909 law and order for Miami.

Miami's Boomtown Spree will recall many a festive event when the town, founded in 1909, was the liveliest camp from Butte to Bisbee, from Iron Range to Grass Valley. This old picture, vintage 1915, shows a festive bunch of miners starting off on a wedding party. Yes, Mam, that's a beer wagon.

It wasn't long after Miami was born that curbs and surfaced streets replaced dust and mud paths. The celebration this month will glorify a rough-and-ready youth, but will also show Miami in its maturity-a typical modern American city proud of its past, confident of a future that cannot be denied because in the hills around Miami there remain rich copper deposits and boundless mineral wealth. Copper being the metal of advancing civilization, Miami will be selling copper for decades and decades to come.