ATDTDA (14) references p 388 (a)

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Monte el Refugio, southeast of town -
which town?  I would think the Mint would be in Mexico
City, but the Palace there would be "del Presidente",
not "Gobierno", wouldn't it? 

The jail was in Guanajuato, they rode a train for 
a few hours, then rode horseback for days...

the parrot said "Zacatecas, Zacatecas"

maybe they are there (big silver mine, Pancho
Villa took it and financed his revolution therewith)

Sombrerete is 1/2 way between Zacatecas and Durango,
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/tonysarticles/tbzacsombret.html
(a little armchair touristing, nice article!)
so maybe the Mint was a local one in Zacatecas...

quick trip to Zacatecas?
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/acogan/aczacatecas.html

that was so much fun, here's another one:
http://www.ourmexico.com/story.php?storyID=25

plucking from this article, 
and to focus on particulars of our
favorite class of people, the preterite
(the rest of the article is much cheerier btw)

"...pacified Purépechans from Michoacán 
were imported to meet the labor needs 
of the northern mines. 
The mining method used was simple: follow the silver. 
Narrow twisting tunnels followed the veins 
deep into the mountain--as deep as fifteen hundred feet . 
The tunnels were dark, fetid and extremely dangerous. 
With two-hundred pounds on their back, Indians 
carried the ore through skinny passageways 
on their hands and knees, up dangerous narrow ladders, 
across swinging rope bridges suspended high above 
chasms so deep there could be no rescue if they fell
--for at least twelve hours every day. 
Death came often; perhaps, it was welcome."

this is the (Iceland spar) boldface refraction 
of the Colorado mines

gotta say, a job like that could be fun,
(some of us love walking across catwalks)
given decent pay, scheduled breaks, 
safety equipment, and so forth

but ultramontane managers have no incentive
to make it so... (and on the nth day,
God created Unions)


---------------------------------------------
short digression, somewhat ATD meta-ish, wistful:

in the local library today, I was waiting around
for my Interlibrary loan books (_Lacan and the 
Matter of Origins_, and _Pynchon's Poetics_)
so wandered over to the Kansas history reference stacks to 
look for the early copy of Andrew T Still's
autobiography.  That's locked up, though, have
to prearrange viewing...

Found a pamphlet about an amusement park that
was built right here in Kansas City, Kansas
in 1907, modeled after the White City in Chicago.
It was 9 acres (there's a high school athletic field 
there now), with a Ferris wheel, some amusing rides
(a giant laundry, where people went through giant
mangles and so forth as if they were clothes:
"onlookers find it amusing to see a plump person
go through the mangle"), a food court with "any
beverage or victuals one might desire, all of 
the best", an elevated railway,
a vaudeville hall "with acts a cut above the
usual 10-cent fare" -- 

shortly after it opened they had to borrow
$35,000 and then another $10,000, and the
whole thing was broken down & sold for parts
by 1914.  Kinda sad, apparently they couldn't
compete with a beer garden opened by a
brewery across the river in Missouri.  They
probably should have scoped out what happened
to the original in Chicago, and had a slightly
less ambitious business plan...

Some cool old pictures, pretty big
crowd scenes with interesting-looking people.