In June of 1863, the trapper Henry Hartley discovered gold bearing ore here and staked out the Excelsior Company claims. Exaggerated reports and a 1865 market panic in the Comstock mines of Virginia City brought thousands of miners overnight to the supposed "Little Comstock" of Summit City. Within two years an incorporated town, renamed Meadow Lake, grew to encompass 160 acres with 4,000 summer residents and over 500 buildings, including 200 business houses, a stock exchange, daily newspaper, post office, school, breweries and 80 saloons. Streets were laid out grid fashion, with a 8,000 square foot plaza on the lakeshore. An excursion vessel, ferried revelers to four hurdy-gurdy houses at the lake's upper end. The winter of 1866-1867 brought 30 feet of snow with the "snowshoe express" delivering mail through Cisco. In all, eight stamp mills in a district of 10,910 claims failed to extract the expected gold from its "rebellious ore." The optimism faded, and the town declined with like rapidity. July of 1869 found 80 residents. By 1873 only Hartley "The Hermit" remained. His grave is on a hillside to the west of town.
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