Samuel Liddle Collection, Mss 31, Special Collections, UNLV Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Donated by Mrs. Charles Brown of Shoshone, California, 1968.
Christine Marin, October 1985; historical description added by Dana Miller, May 2007.
This collection is open for research.
For permission to reproduce or publish from this collection, please contact the Director of Special Collections.
Although the records are sketchy at best, Samuel Liddle appears to have been a prospector and businessman who may have left San Francisco with many others rushing to the boomtown of Hamilton, Nevada in 1868. Hamilton was located in mountainous White Pine County in Northern Nevada, at an altitude of 8,300 feet; the land on which it stood began to produce silver ore around 1867, drawing miners and prospectors to the area. By the late 1870s, however, the ore proved to be mostly superficial and Hamilton had spiraled into decline, with many residents leaving; a fire in 1885 sealed the town’s fate.
However, in 1886, lead-silver ore was discovered only six miles away. On January 29, 1887 the
By the end of July 1887, Leadville had been surveyed and re-named Seligman after some prominent local bankers. Intense mining activity and commerce ensued in the area, and by September of the same year Samuel Liddle had opened Liddle’s General Store. He continued to operate the store through the boom, which lasted until 1890. Like Hamilton before it, the Seligman’s boom was temporary, and along with its post office much of the town closed up in 1891. Known records of Samuel Liddle in Seligman end in 1890, and his path afterward is unknown.
1.
2. Donna Frederick, June 2000, from
The collection consists mainly of business transactions between Samuel Liddle and several West Coast vendors of various goods and supplies, towards the operation of his general store in Leadville/Seligman. These transactions include bills of sale, business correspondence, expense bills, inventories, invoices, memoranda, purchase orders, railroad expense bills, receipts, registry bills, and shipping receipts. Thirty-six businesses are indicated, including the following: D. Nathan, J. Hausman, R. Sadler and Co., J.W. Lambert, Knight Bros., H.W. Campbell, Remington Johnson, Chas. Ferraris, J. Ahern, the Eureka and Palisade Railroad, ad the Eureka Forwarding Company in Eureka, Nevada; Mathewson Bros. and Eugene Robinson suppliers in Hamilton, Nevada; M. Cicchi and Co., George Greenzweig and Co., Murphy Grant and Co., Son Bros., D. Block and Co., J.C. Johnson and Co., Levenson and Bryan, M. Honig, John Taylor and Co., A.D. Oakley, Morris and Levy, Siegfreid and Brandenstein, J.J. Mack and Co., C. and P.H. Tirrell and Co., and Holbrook, Merrill, and Stetson in San Francisco, California; as well as Booth and Co. in Sacramento, CA and a handful of others.
Other materials in the collection include a hand-drawn map of the townsite (located in Folder 1), and two stock share certificates for the Mining Company of Eureka (located in Folder 7).
The collection is arranged into folders roughly chronologically; deviations are noted.
N/A
For related topics and further information see the following collections:
George W. Arnold Collection, Mss12
Goldfield, Nevada Collection, MS 10
Mines and Mining Collection, MS 11