Cats are popular pets today, prized for their personalities and purring. In the 1860s, in Placerville and other mining camps in Idaho, cats were prized for their ability to keep rodents at bay. According to memories of one resident recounted in a 1934 edition of the Idaho Statesman, miners’ cabins were often overrun with field mice and chipmunks.
An enterprising man named Mooney from somewhere in Oregon sold pest control cats in the mining camps. They were common gray tabbies with no claim to pedigree, but they brought $10 each. That would be more than $300 in today’s money.
Mr. Mooney stayed overnight with the Moores of Placerville and gave a pair of kittens to little Lizzie. In later years, Lizzie (then Mrs. Sisk) told of litter after litter of kittens that came along, fetching $2.50 for each tiny cat. For many years thereafter, Placerville was known as the home to large gray cats, kept fed by an endless supply of mice.
An enterprising man named Mooney from somewhere in Oregon sold pest control cats in the mining camps. They were common gray tabbies with no claim to pedigree, but they brought $10 each. That would be more than $300 in today’s money.
Mr. Mooney stayed overnight with the Moores of Placerville and gave a pair of kittens to little Lizzie. In later years, Lizzie (then Mrs. Sisk) told of litter after litter of kittens that came along, fetching $2.50 for each tiny cat. For many years thereafter, Placerville was known as the home to large gray cats, kept fed by an endless supply of mice.
This cat didn't have to earn his keep in a mining camp. Ernest Hemingway’s cat Big Boy Peterson sits among papers in front of a window with a view of Bald Mountain at Hemingway’s home in Ketchum, Idaho, undated. Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
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