THE RISE OF WINGFIELD AND NIXON
ANY one in Goldfield who was willing to admit that stocks were selling too high at the time was decried as a "knocker." You could borrow freely on all listed Goldfield stocks at John S. Cook & Company's bank, owned by the promoters of the Goldfield Consolidated, and the men of the camp for that reason felt that there must be concrete value behind nearly all of them. Brokers in Eastern cities reported that few of their customers were willing to take profits even at the prices to which stocks had been skyrocketed. Most mining-stock brokers of the cities had "knocked" the stocks of the camp in the early days before the advance. At this stage, when prices had reached undreamed-of levels, the brokers did not advise their customers that values had been worked up far beyond intrinsic worth. Indeed, they actually waxed enthusiastic in their recommendations to buy. Every one was a bull.
Sessions of the Goldfield Stock Exchange reflected the extent of the craze. Outside of the exchange the stridulous, whooping, screeching, detonating voices of the brokers that kept carrying the market up at each session could be heard half a block away. Later, did you find your way into the crowded board-room, the half-crazed manner in which note-books, arms, fists, index fingers, hats and heads tossed and swayed approached in frenzy a scene of violence to which madness might at once be the consummation and the curse.
George Wingfield and his partner, George S. Nixon, were the heroes of the hour. Less than five years before, Mr. Wingfield had come into Tonopah with a stake of $150, supplied by Mr. Nixon, whose home was in Winnemucca, Nevada. Mr. Wingfield had formerly been an impecunious cowboy gambler. Born in the backwoods of Arkansas, and later of Oregon, he hailed from Golconda, Nevada. Mr. Nixon, at the time he staked Mr. Wingfield and until his election as a United States Senator in 1904, was known as the "State Agent" of the Southern Pacific Company for Nevada, having succeeded on the job the notorious "Black" Wallace, who for many years handled the "yellow-dog" fund for the Huntington régime when franchises were hard to get and legislatures had to be bought. Mr. Nixon was also president of a bank in Winnemucca, which was a way station on the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Mr. Wingfield had signalized his money-getting prowess by running Mr. Nixon's $150 into $1,000,000 as principal owner of the Tonopah Club, the biggest gambling house in Tonopah, and later "parleying" the money for himself and partner into ownership of control of the merged $36,000,000 Goldfield Consolidated, which was their corporate creation.
Mr. Wingfield was said to be behind the market. He was looked upon as boss of the mining partnership, and Mr. Nixon as a circumstance. Mr. Wingfield was a conspicuous figure at nearly all the sessions of the Goldfield Stock Exchange, of which he was a member. In the early evenings, when informal sessions were held on the curb, he could also be seen in the thick of the tumult. He was on the job at all hours.
At that time Mr. Wingfield was about thirty years old. Of stinted, meager frame, his was the extreme pallor that denoted ill health, years of hardship, or vicious habits. His eyes were watery, his look vacillating. Uncouth, cold of manner, and taciturn of disposition, he was the last man whom an observer would readily imagine to be the possessor of abilities of a superior order. In and around the camp he was noted for secretiveness. He was rated a cool, calculating, selfish, surething gambler-man-of-affairs—the kind who uses the backstairs, never trusts anybody, is willing to wait a long time to accomplish a set purpose, keeps his mouth closed, and does not allow trifling scruples to stand in the way of final encompassment. Among stud-poker players who patronized gaming tables in Tonopah, Goldfield and Bullfrog, he was famed for a half-cunning expression of countenance which deceived his opponents into believing he was bluffing when he wasn't. In card games he was usually a consistent winner.
His partner, George S. Nixon, looked the part of the dapper little Winnemucca bank manager and confidential State Agent of the Southern Pacific that he was before becoming Senator. He was considerably below middle weight, and above middle girth at that part of his anatomy which a political enemy once described as seat of his thoughts and the tabernacle of his aspirations. His steel-gray eyes were absolutely without expression. Newly-rich, his money and his Southern Pacific connections had gained him a toga, but he did not carry himself like a man upon whom the honors had been thrust. Around Goldfield he strutted with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee.
The pair were in control of the mine, bank and market situation. Brokers, bank men and officers of mining companies waited upon them and did their bidding. At night, in the Montezuma Club, where leading citizens were wont to congregate, Mr. Wingfield would on occasion ostentatiously offer to wager that Goldfield Consolidated "would sell at $15 before $9," etc. Men with money who had flocked to the camp from every direction listened in rapt attention. At a later hour they secretly wired the news to their friends in the East. Next morning the market would reflect more public buying and still higher prices. Goldfield itself was blindly following the lead of the twain. It was indeed easier for these men to mark prices up than to put them down.