Passage III

The $275, 000 Sack of Flour

In April 1864, during the Civil War, the Nevada mining town of Austin held its first mayoral election. Mr. Reuel Gridley, a grocer, entered into a friendly wager for the election's outcome with a Dr. Buel Herrick. Nevertheless, that wager would benefit many Civil War soldiers in an unforeseen way.

The bets terms stated that the loser of the wager, escorted by a marching band, must carry a fifty-pound sack of flour one mile along Austin's Main Street. While voters elected the candidate that Dr. Herrick supported, choosing that person to be mayor.

Mr. Gridley, the loser, then decorated a sack of flour with red, white, and blue ribbons: shouldered it; and led the band through Austin. At the parade's end, he offered the flour to the highest bidder, starting with his own $200 bid. He stated that proceeds would go to the U.S. Sanitary Commission, an organization equivalent and similar to today's Red Cross, to aid Civil War soldiers.

Bidding became brisk. Townspeople felt compassion for the soldiers fighting in the eastern United States. The successful bidder donates the sack of flour back to Gridley to be auctioned off again. Each time that Gridley started the bidding anew. In two days, the sack sold 112 times, for amounts ranging from $10 to $350. Gridley collected $4,350 for the Sanitary Commission. By comparison, Sanitary Commission donation boxes left at voting polls had received only $200.

Being inspiring and motivating himself, Gridley traveled to Virginia City, Nevada, to auction the sack of flour to its residents. Money poured in. Gridley trekked to California: San Franciscans donated $2,800, and Sacramento's citizens gave $10,000. Gridley then proceeded to St. Louis and to major eastern cities. These bidders added $170,000 to the Sanitary Commission's fund. Within twelve months Gridley's sack of flour had earned $275,000.

Reuel Gridley died penniless in 1870. In 1914 family members donated the famous flour sack to the Nevada Historical Society in Reno, where it remains, a reminder of his hard work and the generosity of many.