Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/557

 HISTOID OK GOODHUE C01 TV 477 around, behold! the sofi light of ;i" old-fashioned lantern drew gently near the mouth of the well. The watchers soon seized hold of ilif midnighl light-bearer, and found in his possession a tin can of kerosene oil! !t is hardly necessary to add thai the Red Wing Oil Company's office was closed very soon. The expenses of the company had amounted to only about twenty-five dollars when the business wound up. There was a shorl paragraph in the papers the following week headed, "The Oil Well a Sell!" which gave the report of the nighl watchmen. So soon after the discovery of gold in California, and the oil wells of Pennsylvania were beginning to yield so abundantly of the means for artificial light, ii would not be considered at all strange if the first-comers into a new region should be constantly looking for something beneath the soil to encourage their hope of a future fortune. And such was acutally the case among the early settlers in this county. Many times it was announced in the Red Wing papers that some farmer had found strong indications of coal on his place. Digging for the precious fuel was often resorted to, but it invariably ended in disappointment. Some men discovered gold dust among the sand which had been thrown out of an excava- tion made for a fence post in Red Wing at one time, which raised excitement enough to help up the price of real estate. At another time gold was discovered in the south part of the county on the Zumbro river. The bed of that stream was considered, for a few days, a rich find. About a bushel of the yellow sand was brought in to Red Wing, to be washed and tested as to its value and purity. The test proved that gold was actually found, but not in paying quantities.