Very early Bodie mining piece! Issued 1864, No 387, $1,000 7% bond signed by Alonzo Child and Henry K Gates Secretary. Ornate border with three vignettes (two mining & one allegorical). Printed by Wm. H. Arthur, NY. 14 coupons present. Framed. 21" x 27" overall size. Incorporated in New York, the company used the bond issue to acquire several Bodie claims, including Leland Stanford's Bodie Bluff mine. The New York company invested heavily in publicizing the company with a "Prospectus for the Empire Gold & Silver Mining Company" by Professor Benjamin Silliman and William P Blake published in New York in 1864. J. Ross Browne mentions it multiple times during his account of his trip to Bodie ("A Trip to Bodie Bluff and the Dead Sea of the West" 1865). Browne notes that: "There are several companies engaged in working the principal veins that extend through Bodie Bluff. Among those the largest interests are held by time "Empire Gold and Silver Mining Company of New York," whose possessions commence at the face of the Bluff and run a thousand feet along each ledge. The limits are strictly defined, and no litigation has yet taken place, or is likely to occur, inasmuch as the claims of each Company are duly surveyed and recorded, the boundaries accurately laid down, anti every precaution taken to prevent those contentions which have proved the ruin of so many rich mineral districts in Nevada." Browne's account of Bodie 15 years before the 1879 rush is fascinating: "I penetrated more shafts in the earth, was dragged through more dangerous pits and holes in wooden buckets, was forced to creep over more slippery ledges, rich in mineral deposits, and to climb up a greater number of rickety ladders than I would like to undertake again for less than a thousand shares in the "Empire Gold and Silver Mining Company." The Empire company failed in 1867 after having invested about $400.000 in the various Bodie claims and the properties were sold for taxes. A decade later the Standard Consolidated created the Bodie boom of 1878. Bodie California 1864