"The story of Tule Springs is an entrancing one, even though but few of our people have heard it. Some years ago I wrote the story, with some slight embellishment of half truth and half fiction for Mr. P.J. Goumond not long after he had purchased the Rule Spring Ranch and had spent several hundred thousand dollars in improving it.

The place we are talking about is something like 13 miles northwest of Las Vegas, about a mile east of the Tonopah Highway. It was one of a chain of camping places for freight teams, Corn Creek being about ten miles beyond tule, and Indian Springs about 20 miles beyond Corn Creek.

'Pros' Goumond gave Tule Springs lawns and avenues of shade trees, orchards and broad fields of alfalfa, gardens and fields of grain; a fine swimming pool and a trap shooting layout and other things of beauty and usefulness. In addition to that he built fine homes and a number of cottages for rental purposes.

Probably the most important feature of the ranch is its herds of blooded stock, its barns and cowsheds with modern milking machines and sanitary equipment. It is truly a beautiful place, which we hope, will be maintained as Mr. Goumond would wish.

The first written word about Rule Springs was an account by the Mormon Missionaries in Las Vegas, Thursday, January 24, 1856. The weather was blustery and cold. Some rain fell during the night. Two strange Indians of the tribe called Quoeech, northwest of Las Vegas, came to see the brethren. They appeared friendly and desired to get better acquainted with the whites; said their home was five days travel from Las Vegas; their country was poor and their people hungry. The last is a natural consequence, on account of the native inhabiting the desert at this season of the year.

They also brought word of Sister Nancy being at the point of death. She left Las Vegas about five days previous; went 15 miles, took sick and sent for her relatives to come and see her die. They started this afternoon taking some provision for her.

'Friday, Jan. 25. The weather was very blustery, so that the brethren were not able to do much farming. About 11 o'clock, Thomas, an Indian brought word that Nancy (a Pauvan Indian woman) had departed this life at daybreak and they had buried her as near like the whites' method as was possible under the circumstances. The brethren were sorry to hear of her decease, as she was considered a good woman according to the knowledge she had. Her child had died only a month or so before. The disease with which was carried off was erysipelas of the head and throat.'

So we have our first bit of the very scanty history of the place we later pioneers of the early 1900's knew as Tule Springs, beginning when the Mormons established their Mission of Las Vegas in 1855. Some years later, after Sam Yount and Charles Towner came overland from Oregon, Towner took Indian Springs as his home, Yount going on south over the mountains to the Manse Ranch, in Pahrump Valley, where his family located. Tule Springs was frequently visited by them, providing, with Corn Creek about 10 miles further northwest, the means of life for those hardy travelers, who, like Towner, came to Las Vegas occasionally to get a glimpse of a white person.

However, after Tonopah and Coldfield began to assume importance, Las Vegas provided a gateway for much commerce and travel, and all the spots where nature had provided water in the desolate region between Vegas and the gold camps to the north, became more or less flourishing stations for rest and recuperation along the difficult way. The Ed W. Clark Forwarding Company, then nearly through with their contracts for forwarding supplies for building the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, naturally gravitated into the very important task of forwarding freight from the railroad at Las Vegas to the booming mining camps of Rhyolite, Beatty, Greenwater, Goldfield and Tonopah.

My first personal acquaintance with Tule Springs was in May 1905 on the way to the Lucky Strike Mine, 3 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Lucky Strike was lead property of which we had great hopes and several carloads of Pure Galena were shipped at the prevailing price of $.07 per pound at the smelter. We received very satisfactory returns and hopes of developing the Lucky Strike in to a great mine faded with the panic of October 1907 when the price of lead dropped from $.07 to $.03 a pound.

On my first trip to the Lucky Strike, I stopped, of course, at Tule Springs to feed the team, and gave them a few hours rest. Just on the bank of the basin which enclosed the spring was a rather pretentious and shabby building on the front of which was a sign 'US Hotel', of course, I met the proprietor and found that he was a rather reticent chap with not much to say about his past. His name I learned was 'Leavendowski'. He had a very small stock of tobacco, a small stock of canned goods, had a rather large stock of the worst whiskey that was ever my misfortune to taste. Of course, in exchange for the shade and the rest on the steps of the 'Hotel' we found it necessary to buy a drink of that bad whiskey which was probably worth its price of two drinks for a quarter. Of course, Leavendowski expected always to be included in the drinks when anybody was buying. I sat on the steps of the 'Hotel' for an hour or two buying an occasional drink and seeking to find out something about Leavendowski, who seemed rather a strange character. He finally talked quite friendly of this and that specially about a rumored hold-up of the Automobile Stage running between Las Vegas and Goldfield. At a certain point in the conversation Leavendowski closed up like a clam and I sensed that I had said something to offend him, although I did not know what it was. In the cool of the evening I hitched up the team and headed around toward the Lucky Strike, and three days later I came back and stopped, of course, at the 'US Hotel', but the place was vacant. The little stock including the bad whiskey was gone and Leavendowski had vanished completely. At that I began to piece together the story of Leavendowski home I had pictured of having held up the stage and taken four heavy gold bricks which were being transported from the Mines at Goldfield to Las Vegas for shipment to the smelter at Selby, California.

That story I wrote in the bit of History of Tule Springs for Pros Goumond and I presume it is still a part of the interest when one visits Tule Springs Ranch which I am sure is the show place of Nevada.

According to my story the guard on the stage was shot and killed when the stage stopped at Tule Springs. The two hold-up men moved four heavy gold bricks from the stage and sent the driver on his way to Las Vegas with warning to keep his mouth shut. The large gold bricks weighing about 125 pounds each were too heavy for the hold-up men to carry on their horses so as the story goes they buried the body of George, the guard, not far from the big spring and near that spot they buried two of the bricks. After they left they took the road to the northwest leading toward the Alamo and a few miles up that road they turned off the road or trail which leads to the 'Hidden Forest'.

Leavendowski apparently, according to the story, dug up the two gold bricks buried near George's grave and followed the trail of the hold-up men far up Sheep Mountain. There, he is supposed to have found where the hold-up men had buried their two bricks which in some way or another he managed to carry out of the country.

If our readers have any desire to search for buried treasures I suggest that they prod around near the old spring at Tule or in the Canyon near a spring on the road leading up to the 'Hidden Forest'.