Richardson Flat History

[Ralph Morrison]

There was some confusion as to the real name of Richardson Flat, so I asked my personal historian (wife) Sandra to look into it. The earliest reference she could find was from 1914 when John Clark and James Quinn made homesteading claims. There was no reference as to who Richardson was.

There's an article where the "Daly-West, Daly Judge and Silver King mining companies bought land in Richardson to build a big dam and run all the tailings into this flat instead of having them go into the Silver creek". You can still see the dam which is on the right when you start up the hill heading to Kamas. There's a lake there in the spring that dries up in summer. (This lake was actually windsurfed back in the eighties, I won't name names) The dam is on the north end of the flat and I don't think there are tailings on the south end where we ride.

The land was bought from John Clark and others. John Clark was born in Scotland and was a miner as well as a rancher. He died fairly young from miner's consumption. He was survived by seven children, the oldest 18 the youngest 8 months.

There is an article from 1924 where Jim Quinn was visited by a couple associates and Jim brought out a bottle from his private stock. They left the bottle on the table and went out prospecting. While they were gone a law officer visited the house and saw the bottle. Jim Quinn was busted when he returned.

[JimSouthwick]

Oh, go ahead, name names. They won't mind. You? George Ward? Tim Snyder? Dave Ringelberg? Robby Flatt? I'm kind of bummed that I didn't know about it. Must have been great jibe practice, and I bet it worked a lot better on a North wind than DC.