USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 13
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In Southern Mohave County the MeCracken mines, six miles north of Bill Williams Fork, was discovered by Jackson McCracken, August 17, 1874. The product of the mine for a while ran as high as $200,000 a month, mainly from a stringer of high-grade lead carbonate, found within a vein over eighty feet in width. The ores at first treated averaged about $75 a ton in silver and 20 per cent lead, but the lead percentage increased and the silver decreased, till, about 1881, operations at the camp were practically at a standstill and the nearby mill town of Signal had passed the period of its brief glory.
By 1880 Mohave County had become a large producer of silver, from a score of camps, and had secured rank as one of the richest mining sections of the Southwest. A few years later, though favored by railroad construction, there came a time of stagnation that lasted till only a few years ago. Now silver is in the background and gold and zinc give much larger returns. Chloride and Oatman have assumed large prominence in the mining world.
During the past year the Oatman camp, within which are included some of the oldest Northern Arizona mines, has been having a boom that seems to approximate that known by Tombstone or the later Nevada camps. Thousands have come to join in expected riches from gold that already has been found at the depth of about 300 feet, in greenish and unattractive quartz that lies beside great diorite dykes that thrust their heads through the country for miles. Great deposits of high-grade ore have been cut in several mines. While the gold is very fine and light, it is cheaply and thoroughly extracted by means of cyanide.
Near Mineral Park are turquoise deposits from which since 1904 valuable shipments of the gem material have been made to New York. About a dozen mines have been worked, the greatest production from one owned by the Tif- fanys. Some of the gem rock is of deep blue color and has value up to $6 a carat. The deposits were worked by the ancient people of Arizona, whose stone cutting tools are found scattered around the locality.
CARLETON'S APPRECIATION OF ARIZONA'S WEALTH
The large value of the mineral discoveries of the Walker party had prompt appreciation in the mind of Gen. Jas. H. Carleton, commanding the military department of New Mexico, whose letters on the subject the author has been
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happy in finding. One private communication, to Gen. H. W. Halleck, then in command of the army, told, under date of June 14, 1863, of the receipt in Santa Fé of two letters, by Chief Justice Benedict "from a kinsman who is a member of a prospecting party which left the Rio Grande under the leadership of old Captain Walker of Rocky Mountain and California celebrity." The general tells that he has seen gold that had been sent to Judge Benedict, that it was coarse and of the first quality. Carleton suggested immediate action by the military arm and an expedition over the Whipple road of two companies of California volunteers, for which he would employ Walker as guide, and the establishment of a post for the protection of the miners. He advised also the mapping of the region.
Carleton on June 22 wrote Walker himself, telling that Surveyor-General Clark of New Mexico soon would visit the new gold fields and asking that the old scout return with Clark to Albuquerque to serve as guide for the troops that would be sent to found a permanent post. The letter was very cordial in tone and offered all good wishes and substantial support, assuring Walker that he and his party deserved substantial success and large reward for the toil, hard- ships and danger that had been encountered.
On the same date in June the general ordered Captain N. J. Pishon of the First California Cavalry from Fort Craig with his command to serve as escort for the surveyor-general. The captain was directed to take a supply of gold- washing implements and to have his men wash the gulches on arrival, to accur- ately determine the richness of the sands. On the report returned would depend the permanent occupation of the section, though Carleton prophesied that Pish- on's report would excite a veritable revolution.
The surveyor-general bore the letter to Walker, and himself received a very readable communication from the general, who gave him good advice concern- ing the dangers and difficulties of his trip. To him Carleton commended none other than our old pioneer friend Bob Groom, "who last fall came from the new gold diggings on the Colorado River, ascending Williams Fork to the San Francisco Mountains and thence in by Zuñi to Fort Wingate and Albuquerque. Groom was commended as a guide or packer, anxious to return to the gold field he had passed, and as a gentlemanly and intelligent man, in destitute circum- stances, but worthy of consideration, kindness, confidence and help.
Though the surveyor-general's stay at the gold fields was short, it was not till the middle of September that he returned to Santa Fé, reporting that the country visited was rich in gold, silver, cinnabar and copper, even compared with California. General Carleton had issued instructions for the prospecting of all his department, something that would have been done in any case, for most of his soldiers were old California miners. On the Prieta affluent to the Gila gold had been found that washed 40 cents to the pan, as well as argen- tiferous galena worth a dollar a pound. Rich copper, abounding in gold, "in quantity enough to supply the world," had been found near the head of the Gila. Especially interesting was a reference, found in a letter written by the general to Secretary Salmon P. Chase of the treasury department, accompanied by two specimens of pure gold from the top of Antelope Mountain, a discovery that had been referred to by Mr. Clark. These specimens had been sent to the general, he wrote, "by Mr. Swilling, discoverer of the new gold fields near
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the San Francisco Mountains. If it be not improper, please give the larger piece of the gold to Mr. Lincoln. It will gratify him to know that Providence is blessing our country, though it chasteneth." The general sagely added : "Now, would it not be wise for Cougress to take early action in legislating for such a region, to open roads, to give force to subjugate the Indians, to give mail facilities, to claim rights of seigniorage in the precious metals, which will help us pay our debts, etc .? " All of which shows that General Carleton was one of the earliest of Arizona boosters.
Conner of the Walker party tells that the surveyor-general's party left five large wagons behind near the site of Prescott, to be used later, with some of the Walker mules attached, in transporting goods from California.
The advent of the new territorial government gave 'stimulus to immigration and it is told that in 1865 at least 3,000 placer miners, favored by a wet season, were washing the sands of the gulches around Prescott. Within the mining population was a large admixture of Californians, accustomed to doing things in an orderly manner, so as early as December 27, 1863, a meeting was held at Goodwin City, a mile south of the site of Prescott, for the organization of a mining district.
RICH MINES OF CENTRAL ARIZONA
Another record found tells that the Walker party struck Groom Creek May 7, 1863, and therefrom spread into all the likely-looking gulches roundabout. In June they found diggings on Lynx Creek, where Sam C. Miller killed a lynx and George Colter got $350 from the washing of a single pan. In October of the same year, the Lount party of thirteen from California made camp in Miller Valley. It is claimed that this party made the first location under American laws of any lode mine north of the Gila. It was on Lynx Creek, called the "Pride of Arizona," and the notice was recorded December 27, 1863. Charlie Genung claims that the first lode mine located in the Yavapai hills was the Montgomery, staked out by a party of which he was a member late in 1863. The fame of the gold diggings had spread, for the Walker party and others of the first comers were more than anxious for a larger settlement, in order to secure better protection against the Apaches. In November, twenty- four miners, including Ed Peck, arrived from New Mexico and joined the Miller Valley colony.
While some of the creek beds of Yavapai County are washed for gold to this day, the era of placering soon was succeeded by that of silver lode mining, that in turn by gold mining and it again, by the development of the copper industry. By 1875 on the Hassayampa, twenty-five miles south of Prescott, had been installed a 30-ton smelting furnace, to work the silver-lead ores of the Crescent and other mines of the locality. Over in the Bradshaws had been found the Tiger, Del Pasco, War Eagle, Peck, Black Warrior, Tuscumbia and Silver Prince. Possibly best known of all of these was the Peck, which had a five-foot body of silver chloride within which a pay streak scemed about one- half silver. The ores were reduced at a pioneer quartz mill at Aztlan, six miles south of Prescott. The Peck was discovered in 1875 by Ed C. Peck, C. C. Bean, William Cole and T. M. Alexander. Peck found the first heavy silver float as he was stooping to drink from a spring. In 1877 the property was
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capitalized in San Francisco. Then there was litigation and, though over $1,000,000 is said to have been taken from the mine in its first few years, little - has been realized from it since.
One of the early properties was the Senator, on the upper Hassayampa, which had a ten stamp mill early in the seventies. Rice and the Elliott brothers discovered the Accidental in 1864 near Lynx Creek. The well-known Poland, named after one of its discoverers, is of pioneer rating, as is the Silver Belt, near Big Bug, from which lead-silver ores were worked in a furnace on the Agua Fria. Still further to the northward Charles Spencer, Dan O'Leary and other daring prospectors made their way into the cañons of the Colorado and down into the mysterious gorge of Cataract Creek, where they found hori- zontal veins of silver ore of great richness, but in spots almost inaccessible on the sides of the cliffs.
Jack Swilling, Bob Groom, Ed Peck, Jack Moore and a number of other noted pioneer Arizonans, were busy in the hills of Yavapai County in this period, defying the Indians, but leaving behind little more than a history of their deeds. The Tip Top probably was the leading mine of the Bradshaws during the late seventies and its stock was listed on the San Francisco board.
WICKENBURG AND HIS VULTURE MINE
The famous Vulture mine, in desert hills eleven miles from the railroad town of Wickenburg, has had broad renown as the greatest producer of gold ever known in the Southwest and tales of its output run up to $10,000,000. It was (and is) a great mine, but hardly to the extent quoted. It was discovered late in 1863 by Henry Wickenburg, who had been a member of the Weaver party. The mine at first was a pile of almost loose rock, with gold visible to the naked eye anywhere across a thirty-foot ledge. It is told that miners became wealthy by simply bringing away pockets or lunch cans full of gold quartz that at times carried a volume of more than half of the precious metal. Apaches swarmed in the vicinity and many travelers were killed between the waterless mine and the river. More than forty arastras at one time were being operated on the river on ore from the Vulture. Charlie Genung happened along in July, 1864, in time to help Wickenburg build his first arastra, the first clean-up realizing $100 from a ton of ore. The arastras in general were operated by contractors, who paid Wickenburg $15 a ton for ore at the mine, the buyer doing his own mining and packing and generally making by his deal. In 1865 the arastras had been succeeded by two small mills at the Town of Wickenburg, said to have been so named by Governor Goodwin. One of these mills was built by Michael Goldwater, who took a mortgage on the first product to secure his pay. He ran the mill a month, realizing $3,000 a day and then turned it over; the bonanza ore was gone and the ledge matter had dropped in value to $30 a ton. In the spring of 1866 the main claim was bought for $75,000 by B. Phelps of New York, a miner of prior experience at the Picacho, near La Paz, and in the Heintzelman and Cababi camps. There- after a twenty-stamp mill was built at Wickenburg. The gross gold product for about a ycar, to September, 1867, was only $45,633.
AGUA FRIA SMELTER, ABOUT 1877
AZTLAN MILL, GROOM CREEK, NEAR PRESCOTT, 1877
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A better story was told, however, by the noted western assayer, Thomas Price, who estimated that the Vulture Company, within six years, crushed 118,000 tons of quartz, with extraction of about $2,500,000.
The mine has passed through the hands of many operators, some of whom have used it merely for stock selling. The ores have been reduced at several points along the Hassayampa, particularly at Smith's mill and at Seymour. Still later an eighty-stamp mill was erected at the mine, where ore of very low grade was sueeessfully handled until a pipe line from the Hassayampa was swept away by the flood of 1890. During a lease of the property, the old stone buildings at the Town of Vulture were torn down and run through the mill and it is told that the walls averaged about $20 to the ton in gold. The mine worked only to the depth of 550 feet on an incline, when a fault was encountered. The old workings largely eaved in and became a wreck. During the last few years a new company operating the mine has sunk at a different point and again has found the lead, almost as rich as it was in pioneer days.
Despite the richness of the surface ores and the faet that he received a gross sum approaching $100,000 when he sold the claims, Wickenburg failed to hold more than a very modest competeney. His death was at his own hand, by a bullet through the brain, in his little adobe house on the Hassayampa a short distanee below the town that bore his name. He was aged about 86.
An investment of $550,000 was represented in the works of the Arizona Smelting Company at Humboldt, "blown in" during March, 1906. This plant, designated to furnish an outlet for the ores of the small mines of Yavapai County, has had a checkered career, mainly remarkable for the quantity. of bonds that were sold upon the strength of its operations. Latterly it has passed into the hands of a company which appears to be operating it for profit locally derived. In the same distriet have been a number of remarkable experiments in the way of reduetion plants, which have failed as soon as tested. The Brad- shaw Mountains near by, found produetive in pioneer days, now are yielding their riches in greater volume than ever before, the miners assisted by modern methods in realizing value contained in ores onee called rebellious and henee considered worthless.
On the southwestern spurs of the Bradshaws, beyond the famous diggings of Rieh Hill, lies the once-famous Congress, the deepest mine of the South- west, with an incline shaft over 4,000 feet in length. This mine was bought in 1887 by "Diamond Jo" Reynolds of St. Louis, locally represented by Frank M. Murphy. Reynolds died at the camp in March, 1891, some months after the start of the mill. The property was very productive for years, but finally proved unprofitable. A few miles distant is the well-known Octave property.
SENATOR CLARK'S UNITED VERDE
The United Verde at Jerome generally is considered the richest eopper mine in Arizona, though not the largest, measured in pounds of produet or in area. Nearly wholly owned by former Senator W. A. Clark of Montana, it is understood to be worth several millions a year net income. Yet the mine before Clark's ownership had a history of financial disaster.
Credit for the first mining loeation in the Black Hills seetion has been given to the noted seout Al Sieber, who, in 1877, staked out a claim he ealled
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the Verde. This mine later was owned by the Verde Queen Company, which found little profit in the operation of a small smelting furnace. This mine and good looking croppings nearby, about where Jerome now stands, were visited the same year by George W. Hull, who, years later, was pleased to own extension on the ground he had passed over. Two claims on these crop- pings were located in 1877 by John Dougherty and Capt. J. D. Boyd and there was organized the Verde Mining District, with G. V. Kell as recorder. The next year three adjoining claims were located by M. A. Ruffner, who, with Rod MeKinnon, did much work on the Eureka and Sleeping Beauty mines. In 1882 the mines were examined by F. F. Thomas, who had been told in Prescott, by Angus McKinnon, that he and his brother had a fine copper mine in the Black Hills, about twenty-five miles distant. This was the Wade Hamp- ton, where Angus and John McKinnon had sunk a forty-five foot shaft and a short drift. The prospect looked good and so an agreement was made to pay MeKinnon $500 cash and $15,000 December 1. Thomas employed the MeKin- nons, who seemed to be afraid to sink for fear of knocking the bottom out of their mine and spoiling a good prospect. Thomas foreseeing the prospect of a big mine by consolidation of several claim, thereafter bonded the adjoining Enreka mines from Charles Lennig of Philadelphia, the Hermit claim from Ruffner and the MeKinnons, the Azure and Adventure Chromes from Judge Riley of Nevada and his nephews, in all getting possession of eleven claims, as well as title to a spring in Walnut Gulch. Nearly all had good copper crop- pings, but some showed only iron, zine and lead sulphide, with low assays in silver and gold. In the same year George A. Treadwell, later noted as a mining expert, was taken to see the property and became enthusiastic over it, later acquiring an interest in the ground. Securing the necessary money for making the bond payments was not easy, and the month of December was spent by Thomas in chasing around eastern financial centers and trying to interest capital. The MeKinnon hond had been extended to January 1, by which date Thomas had telegraphed $7,500 to the Mckinnons. The incorporation of the United Verde Copper Company was effected in 1883, with James A. McDonald, president, and Eugene Jerome as secretary and treasurer, with Thomas super- intendent and general manager, anthorized to install reduction works, build a road and operate the property. Thomas left New York March 23, 1883, and soon thereafter started the first fifty-ton furnace, which made a phenomenal run on oxidized ores, high with silver. Thomas had already surveyed the town- site, which he named after the company's secretary.
While the mine was wonderfully rich, reduction processes of that day had not developed to the point wherein its ores could be handled profitably. Within a year the company had paid $62,000 in dividends out of a total production of $779,000 worth of copper. This came mainly in the form of a 60-per cent matte, in which was considerable gold. Transportation was even as much trouble as the refractory ores and so, late in November, 1884, when copper had dropped to abont seven cents a pound, and when snow covered the Black Hills divide, over which the hanling had to be done to Ash Fork, the mine was closed down. In the summer of 1887, Governor Tritle secured a bond and lease on the property from the United Verde Company, but soon found the same distressing condi- tions bearing down on him that had confronted the previous management.
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According to G. W. Hull, locator of adjacent property, "the men at the mine not being paid their wages, took possession and threatened to destroy the plant." Some sort of settlement was made, and then the mine was on the market. Prof. James Douglas examined the property, but considered it too remote from trans- portation. Following him eame W. A. Clark of Montana, accompanied by John L. Thompson and J. L. Giroux. In February, 1888, Clark leased the property, and in January, 1889, after Giroux had made full investigation and a number of smelter runs had been made, Clark purchased control of the company.
A narrow-gauge railroad was completed in November, 1894. over the hills and down a tortuous valley. About the same time fire started in a sulphide slope and even today there is trouble from this source. In October, 1900, was a serious eave-in that dropped a large part of the reduction works and railroad grade about five feet. In the early Clark days, a tunnel struck an immense body of water.
Clark's eapital and the skill of his managers soon put the mine on a paying basis. It was appreciated, however, that the reduction works and slag dump should not be on top of the mine, so plans were made for a new reduction plant in the valley, where the Town of Clarkdale now is in being, supported by the operation of a smelter that alone has cost $3,000,000, with a broad-gauge rail- road connecting with the Santa Fé system, and with a wonderful railroad lead- ing into the mountain on the mine's 1,000-foot level. The old smelter above Jerome was abandoned in September, 1915.
MINES OF THE DESERT REGION
One of the best known of what have been ealled the desert mines of Arizona was the Harqua Hala in Northeastern Yuma County, a bonanza of relatively late date. It brought its original owner $75,000, and later was sold to an English corporation by Hubbard & Bowers for $1,350,000. Three times it had been reported worked out, but two of these times almost aeeidental prospecting uneovered great lenses of ore running high in gold.
Within the plains of southern and central Yuma County have been found many rieh gold mines, from the eement placer deposit near Quartzsite down to almost the Mexican line. Some of these, such as the King of Arizona and the North Star, produced phenomenally for a while, but failed to retain value with depth. One of the richest and most enduring of these, desert gold mines was the Fortuna, from which millions of dollars were taken up to early in 1903, when the shaft was destroyed by a slip that eaved in the lower levels.
In the northern part of Yuma County large expenditures were made about 1910 by the Clara Consolidated Copper Company, a corporation mainly capital- ized in Los Angeles, which built a smelter and railroad before it had developed its ore body. The usual result followed and the smelter has been idle save for a few months, and the company has passed through bankruptey.
One of the best known of the pioneer mines was the Gunsight, in Myers distriet, twenty miles north of the Mexican border, in south-eentral Pima County, discovered in November, 1878. Early shipments of ore were made with returns net at the rate of $1,200 a ton. The name itself was signifieant of riches, for from the croppings one of the discoverers whittled himself a pure silver gunsight, to replace one that had been lost. The ore was heavy in lead.
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A forty-two mile railroad has just been completed to connect Gila Bend with the old Ajo camp, Arizona's first copper producer. The mines now are held by a company subsidiary to the Calumet and Arizona, and more than $5,000,000 has been spent in preparations for working the great deposits that are said to average not over 2 per cent in copper. Yet, through the perfection of modern mining processes, even this small saving of forty pounds of metal to a ton of ore is expected to bring in large profits. At Ajo has been developed a reduction process believed to be worth many millions to Arizona copper miners. Success has attended experiments in treating the surface carbonate ores, which heretofore have been considered beyond economical reduction when carrying less than 5 per cent copper. Now it has been demonstrated possible to concentrate carbonates which were thought before only suitable for smelting.
In February, 1908, at Sasco (Southern Arizona Smelting Company) was started the smelter of the Imperial Copper Company, a company subsidiary to the Development Company of America. The ore came from the well-known pioneer Old Boot mine at Silver Bell. The furnaces were closed down in 1910, owing to the inability of the company to find profit in the handling of the ore which seems to have been too low grade for reduction by smelting process. Immediately two fair-sized towns were deserted.
THE FAMOUS SILVER KING
One of the greatest silver mines in the world. undoubtedly the greatest mine of its class within Arizona, was the Silver King, located at the camp of the same name, beneath the western buttresses of the Pinal range, in the northern part of Pinal County. To this day chloriders are finding ore in extensions of the outer workings, at no great depth from the surface, but the old mine itself, with its chimney-like formation, worked to a depth of 1,000 feet, is more than haif filled with water and is dangerous at any point.
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