Many of these jobless men would probably have gladly went to work for the railroad until things in the mining business picked up. But there was just one little old problem with this prospect. Although the core of the dilemma centered in the United States the railroads had a problem that came from across the Atlantic Ocean. It seems that British investors were in a bit of a panic of their own. Because of the financial panic in America these British fellows withdrew their investment capital that had previously assisted in creating a railroad building boom in America. In time President Grover Cleveland put things to right. But in the meantime America still had quite a gang of miners out of work and it pretty much appeared that some good ole down home local ingenuity was going to have to find a solution.
To the rescue, at least in the Garnet area, came Doctor Armistead Mitchell. If this had been a moving picture show the good and enterprising doctor probably would have been riding a white horse, and maybe shooting silver bullets, if silver could have been had. Evidently Doctor Mitchell was a lucky cuss or else he just had good timing. Which ever it was, what he did was just in the nick of time.
The same year that the Sherman Silver Purchase Act put a damper on silver mining Doctor Mitchell built a stamp mill, right at the head of First Chance Gulch in the Garnet area, to crush ore. Soon the miners were returning to the area and, like all mining camps, a town soon came into being. At first it was called Mitchell after its founder. In 1897, the town was renamed, Garnet, for the semi-precious ruby-hued stones found in the area. It was not long after Mitchell built his stamp mill that Sam Ritchey hit the big time with a rich vein of ore in his Nancy Hanks Mine. Now the 'boom' was certainly on in and around Garnet. By 1898 there were nearly 1,000 folks calling Garnet home.
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