USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 16
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COMING OF THE AMERICAN MINER
In 1861, according to Lieut. Sylvester Mowry, American miners had spread themselves very generally over the southern part of Arizona, usually working old Spanish mines with Mexican labor. Of large importance was the Patagonia or Mowry mine, an "antigua" still operated. It was then described as being ten miles from the boundary line, twenty miles from Fort Buchanan and four- teen miles from the town of Santa Cruz in Sonora. Freight from San Francisco, by way of Guaymas, was at a cost of 4 to 5 cents a pound. At that date the mine had been worked for about three years for rich silver surface ore. It was located by Col. J. W. Douglass and a Mr. Doss and by Capt. R. S. Ewell and Lieutenants Moore, Randal and Lord of the United States Army. After con- tinued disagreements among the partners, and expenditure of $200,000, four- fifthis of the property was conveyed to Mowry, who operated the mine, after his retirement from the army, till arrested by order of General Carleton and con- fined at Yuma, a military post he had once commanded. It is doubtful if he found much profit, for the ores of his property to-day are considered notably refractory.
Among the men who were identified with early American mining in the Santa Cruz Valley were a number who enjoyed the largest prominence then or later. Besides Poston and Mowry and Ehrenberg were included Gen. S. P. Heintzelman, Col. C. P. Stone, later called by the Khedive to the organization of the Egyptian army, Prof. Raphael Pumpelly, S. F. Butterworth, Col. John D. Graham and Frederick Brunckow. There was heavy toll of life taken by the Apaches and Mexicans and among the victims of the latter was a brother of Colonel Poston.
Though there were wonderful stories of wonderful finds, and the assays seemed usually to get up into the thousands of dollars, the actual returns from mining in the days before the Civil War appear to have been far from phenom- enal. For instance, one of the richest of the silver mines is assumed to have been the Heintzelman, thirty miles from Tubac. Though some of the ore sanı- pled up to $1,000 a ton, the gross value of the ores hoisted in 1860 ran only $70,804. The first run of bullion from Heintzelman and Arivaca ores, made in 1858, was from a small mud furnace that cost $250. It took 600 hours to smelt about 22,800 pounds of ore, from which were secured 2,287 ounces of silver and 300 pounds of copper, no mention being made of the lead. Later the Freiberg system of barrel amalgamation was used, under the direction of Pumpelly and of the German experts, Ehrenberg, Brunckow and Kustel.
The Heintzelman was the principal mine of the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, of which Gen. S. P. Heintzelman was President. The corpo- ration, mainly capitalized in Connecticut, had far from a prosperous career. In a report made by the President, Samuel Colt, May 1, 1859, after a quarter of a million dollars had been sunk, he stated his belief in the mine, but added, "In the hands of a half-horse concern, pulling all ways and dragging its slow length along, it is but a hole to bury money in." The company was organized in Cin- einnati in Mareh, 1856, for the purpose of exploring the old silver mining coun- try of northern Sonora. With Poston at its head, an expedition was fitted out at San Antonio, Texas, arriving at Tucson August 22, 1856, soon thereafter occupying the old town of Tubac. Poston, an enthusiast and dreamer, sent
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Thereafter for about six months his name occasionally appears in connection with the location, as witness or locator, of the Emmett, Halcro, Virginia, Excelsior, Iron Springs, Dixie, Wade Hampton and Tar Heel claims. One of the owners of the Robb was D. B. Rea, a Tucson lawyer, who brought into Bisbee in April, 1878, one Warner Buck, who knew something about assaying and smelting and who built a little smelter, with a large bellows to furnish the blast. The Hen- dricks mine was located in April, 1878, by Rea. Twelve mining claims were located in the vicinity of Bisbee in 1877. In 1878 fourteen claims were filed and two relocations, but in 1879 only three locations were recorded of claims in Mule Gulch. The Copper Queen mine, the original Mercey, was located on December 15, 1879, by George H. Eddleman and M. A. Herring. Eddleman ten days before had located the Mammoth on the old Robb ground.
Warren sold or lost most of his mining property within a few years. It is told that he lost his interest in one claim by a drunken wager that on foot he could make a short distance up the gulch faster than another man could on horseback. In 1881 he was brought before the probate judge of Cochise County on a charge of insanity and George Pridgen was appointed his guardian. His estate was found to be a twelfth interest in the Mammoth mine, a third interest in the Safford and a third interest in the Crescent, in all valued at and by the guardian sold for $925. Despite his detention for a while in the county jail as a person dangerous to be at large, it would appear that his dementia must have been of very mild character, probably due to intoxicants, for he was released before long, but penniless. Then it is told that he went to Mexico, where he practically subjected himself to peonage. His Mexican debt was paid by Judge G. H. Berry. Warren after thus regaining his liberty returned to Bisbee, where he lived for several years precariously, given a small pension by the Copper Queen Company and doing odd jobs, such as sawing wood, till he died a few years later.
Early in 1914 the Bisbee Lodge of Elks set on foot an investigation and found the grave of George Warren in the poorer part of the Bisbee Cemetery, identified by a small rotted wooden headboard, simply marked "G. W." The body was transferred to a more prominent location and there was provided a monument more in keeping with the distinction of the man whose last resting place thus was marked.
Judge Jas. F. Duncan made a visit to Bisbee in the late fall of 1879 from his camp a short distance from Tombstone. The trip was made around by San Pedro Valley, and hardly a trail could be found into the lower end of Mule Pass, which was entered November 7. He records in his notations what appeared to be the entire population of the village, Marcus A. Herring, better known as "Kentuck," George Eddleman, D. B. Rea, George Warren, Chas. Vincent and Joe Dyer. The camp even then had some history for relation. There was seen the little Rea furnace from which some matte had been shipped, but which had failed to pay expenses. There had been two deaths, Paddy Dyer and Joe Herring, the latter a brother of Col. William Herring, later a distinguished Arizona attorney, but no relation to "Kentuck."
RISE OF THE COPPER QUEEN
The development of the Copper Queen group of mines seems to have started with the coming of Edward Riley, a lawyer of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who, Vol. II- 8
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according to Duncan, had invested in a copper mine at Elko, Nevada, and there erected a smelter of which Lewis Williams was superintendent. Very much poorer, Riley came to Arizona, and by L. Zeckendorf of Tucson was directed to the Mule Pass Mountains as a new and possibly rich mining field. He took a bond on the Copper Queen claim, and then proceeded to try to market his option on money loaned by Zeckendorf. In San Francisco he interested a firm of engineers, Martin & Ballard, which took up the bond for the sum of $20,000. Mr. Martin of the firm employed Lewis Williams as superintendent and soon thereafter was erected a thirty-six inch water jacket furnace for the smelting of the ores. Williams arrived June 14, 1880, and had the smelter ready to run in about sixty days. The first run was a failure on account of a too limited water supply, but there was no trouble after that. About the time of this first furnace run arrived Ben Williams, who later managed the mine while Lewis attended to the smelting end. A third brother, John Williams, also came, though only to pass upon some property. About this same time the Neptune Company was developing a large group of Bisbee claims and had built a small smelter on the San Pedro River, for water was in small supply at the mines. This com- pany failed about 1882 and its property later was absorbed by the Copper Queen.
The Bisbee copper mines had their silver capping, small deposits that were worked by the early miners and that still are found profitable by the Copper Queen, which for years has taken rich silver ores from claims on the hillside, far above the site of the old Bisbee smelter.
Toward the end of 1880 there came to Arizona a mining expert already of distinguished reputation, Dr. James Douglas, especially to see the United Verde mine, which he decided was too far from transportation to be profitable. Early in 1881 he paid a visit to his friend Riley at Bisbee, where the little furnace was turning out about one pound of copper for every four pounds of ore treated.
The adjoining property to the Martin-Ballard-Riley claim was purchased on Dr. Douglas' recommendation by the Phelps-Dodge Company for $40,000. At the end of 1884 Martin found he had only three months' ore left in his mine, and the Phelps-Dodge property adjoining, the Atlanta, was in much the same condition, according to the history of the mine contained in a late address made by Dr. Douglas. There was a prospect of abandoning both properties, when from either side of the dividing line drifts ran into what Dr. Douglas calls a "glorious body of ore." Then, in order to avoid possible litigation, the two interests were joined in August, 1885, under the title of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. There were hard times for a while, for copper had dropped to 8 cents, but the price soon raised and since then the Copper Queen has had ahead even years of stoping and has driven hundreds of miles of workings, ever getting deeper toward the southward. The ore has changed with depth and now mainly is sulphide, which in the early days would have been impossible to handle, but which now is even more cheaply smelted than are the surface oxides and carbonates.
In Bisbee there is a story that the discovery of ore in the old workings was made in defiance of orders. J. W. Howell was foreman and, taking a few hard- headed miners into his confidence, he drifted down the gulch on the 400-foot
GEORGE WARREN, PROSPECTOR
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level of the old incline shaft that started in the open cut above the present library. To this day old-timers refer to the John Smith stope, for it was on John Smith's shift that a blast broke into a rich ore body on what is now the 200 level of the Czar shaft of the Copper Queen.
It is impossible within the necessary limits of this publication to give a full account of the expansion of the Copper Queen Company and its absorption of the Holbrook, Neptune and other properties, from which later came its main ore supply.
The Copper Queen Company from the time it took over the mines has pur- sued a policy almost paternal. Notable monuments to the successes of this policy are the public schools, hospital, Y. M. C. A. building and library. The company maintained no boarding house and rented no houses and compelled no man to purchase at the company store. A number of attempts made to unionize the camp uniformly were defeated by the company, which did not hesitate to stop the larger part of its operations when considered necessary to drive agitators out of the camp. The company has led in increases of wage schedules and has in its employ an unusually large number of married men who have been with it for years. A few years ago was established an employees' association for the payment of accident and death benefits. Other companies of the camp have joined with the Copper Queen in the same general policy toward their workmen.
GENESIS OF THE CALUMET AND ARIZONA
In tragedy was laid the foundation of the great Calumet and Arizona mines. W. W. Lowther was one of the simplest and bravest of men. He was so brave that he didn't need to parade the fact, as did the professional "bad men" of the day. As an example of his type, he permitted a knife-armed drunken printer in Globe to chase him through a saloon and over a bar. Any moment he could have turned and shot, but all that Lowther did was to hunt up the printer's employer, and suggest that the man be disarmed, as "a fellow who was a bit too strong for the camp." On the expiration of Lowther's term as sheriff in Gila County, he went to Bisbee, where he was appointed a peace officer. In Mule Gulch, a mile below the center of town, was the home of James Daley, a morbid sort of individual, who had been fighting an attempt of the Copper Queen to establish a right of way across his property. All financial recom- pense, however liberal, offered by Superintendent Ben Williams had been refused. In the course of the continued argument, Daley was shot by Dan Simon, a constable, who was sent to Yuma on a year's sentence for the offense. Then it was that Daley declared he would never again be arrested. Some time thereafter he assaulted a Mexican, who demanded his arrest. April 10, 1890, Lowther was given the warrant. As he started down the canon, he was warned of Daley's dangerous character, but answered that he must do his duty. Daley warned him away from the house, but Lowther kept approaching, finally to be dropped dead, with a load of buckshot in his breast. Daley fled over the hills and never was apprehended. It was assumed that he had fled into Mexico. A few months thereafter, however, Andy Mehan, a saloonkeeper, appeared in Bisbee with a bill of sale to all of Daley's property which he said had been given to him by Daley in Trinidad, Colorado. About the same time Mehan's
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property, including this bill of sale, was attached for debt by the Cohn broth- ers, Tombstone tobacco merchants, who, later, at sheriff's sale, acquired any rights that Mehan might have had.
Daley had lived with a Mexican woman. As a legal widow, she claimed possession, selling her claims for $1,800 to Martin Costello, a Tombstone saloon- keeper. A third claimant appeared in person, with an 18-year-old son, coming from Leadville, Colorado, claiming to be Daley's lawful wife or widow, but her claims seemed to have not been pushed very vigorously. The Cohn brothers on their claim against Mehan of only $300 secured a judgment in the Justice's Court. The case was taken up in the District Court in 1888 by Costello and, represented by Judge James Reilly, was decided in favor of Costello, who won also, in May, 1889, when the case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, through the Supreme Court of Arizona, the litigation in all lasting ten years. The importance of the case can better be understood when it is appreciated that it was over possession of the Irish Mag group of mines, which later became the central property of the Calumet & Arizona Mining Company, and from which copper since has been taken valued at many millions of dollars. Soon after he secured title, Costello sold to the Calumet & Arizona Mining Company for $550,000. He died a couple of years ago in Los Angeles, worth many millions. Reilly also died rich, largely through Costello's gener- osity, after having lived in poverty nearly all his life. Adolph Cohn is dead, and Dave Cohn lately was working as a miner in one of the shafts of the Copper Queen Company.
The Calumet & Arizona Mining Company continued the sinking of the Irish Mag shaft in the face of a general local belief that the property was not within the mineralized zone of the camp. But at that time the fact was not appreciated that the Bisbee ores were to be found deeper and deeper toward the southward and the width of the zone of enrichment had not been demonstrated. The developing company soon ran into a wonderfully rich body of sulphide, when its prosperity became assured. The company has absorbed a number of neigh- boring properties, and its workings center around the Junction shaft, where many hundreds of feet were sunk before ore was struck. This shaft, one of the deepest in the district, has been lined with concrete and made absolutely fire- proof, a precaution considered necessary through the fact that it handles most of the water pumped in the entire district.
In 1902 the Calumet and Arizona became a producer. In November of that year its first furnaces started operations at a site two miles west of the new Town of Douglas. This smelter was joined on the east in 1904 by a much larger one. owned by the Copper Queen. Both plants have been entirely rebuilt and now are turning out more than one-third of the copper production of Arizona.
A METEOR'S AWFUL SMASH
For years mining of the oddest sort has been prosecuted in the Meteor, or Coon Butte, crater, a few miles southeast of Cañon Diablo station on the main line of the Santa Fé system. What is being sought is a mass of meteoric iron, believed to lie nearly a thousand feet deep, down below the floor of what once was thought the crater of an extinct volcano. But the "crater" is in sand- stone, distinctly of aqueous deposition. In January, 1903, the ground was
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STEAM ARASTRA, NEAR MINERAL PARK, 1877
CRATER OF METEOR MOUNTAIN, WHERE A METEOR HIT THE EARTH
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secured by D. M. Barringer and associates, Pennsylvania capitalists, who organ- ized the Standard Iron Company and employed a scientific Arizonan, S. J. Holsinger, to demonstrate his theory that the meteor still was there. There was a commercial side to the transaction, for the iron fragments found on the surface, scattered around the lip of the crater for miles distant, carry a large percentage of nickel and form a metallic combination much like the highest grade of battleship armor steel. The crater is about 600 feet deep and averages about 3,800 feet in diameter. Its lip is raised above the plain about 130 feet and the stratification of the sandstone has been uptilted from the impact of the celestial visitor. The crater is floored with a fine silicious dust, "rock flour," simply comminuted silica, where the sandstone of the plain has been vitrified by the intense heat of the impact, as it was ground under an infinite force that displaced at least 1,000,000 tons of sandstone and that upheaved and threw out about 200,000 tons more, while the lifted or disturbed rock around the edge has been estimated at above 300,000,000 tons weight. This "rock flour" will pass through a 200-mesh screen. No particle is as large as an ordinary grain of sand.
For five and a half miles from the crater have been found fragments of meteoric iron and hundreds of specimens have been sent to museums all over the world. It is probable that nowhere else has there been found such a quan- tity. Meteors have been known to fall in the locality within the past few years. The composition of the metal found is fairly uniform, comprising about 92 per cent iron, about 8 per cent nickel, with platinum and iridium present to the extent of three-fourths of an ounce to the ton of metal, while there has been demonstrated the presence of microscopic diamonds. Possibly twenty tons of the iron were picked up on the plain and shipped, mainly by Trader Volz of Cañon Diablo, the largest piece, now in the Field Columbian Museum at Chi- cago, weighing 1,013 pounds. Very little iron has been found within the crater, very logically, for its bottom is deeply covered with talus and loose material from the borders.
Having demonstrated to their satisfaction that a meteor made the hole and that at least nine-tenths of the metal that struck the earth must yet remain below the earthy covering into which it plunged, Mr. Barringer and Mr. Hol- singer proceeded to dig. A 200-foot shaft ran into wet "rock flour" to such an extent that no further sinking was possible. Drill holes were sunk, however, as far down as an unaltered red sandstone that was found in place, as in the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, seventy miles distant. In all twenty-five holes were bored. In some of them, at depths around 400 feet, further progress was blocked by striking undoubtedly what was meteoric iron, as shown by analyses of the material brought up. Yet it is not claimed that the central mass has been found.
The probable size of the meteor has been made the subject for much calcula- tion, based upon artillery tabulations. One scientist has concluded the mass might have been 1,500 feet in diameter, but others have concluded that, with a final velocity of 9,000 feet a second, the estimated penetration of 900 feet in soft rock could have been accomplished by the fall of a body only one-twenty- fifth the weight of the maximum estimate made. Save for the fragments that may have separated from it in its flight through the earth's atmosphere, it is
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expected to find it intact, probably a bit to one side of the center of the crater, as indicated by the different tilting of the strata on opposite sides.
PANICS AND LATE COPPER PRODUCTION
The panic of 1907 hit hard the mining industry of the Southwest. Then copper went down to about 12 cents, which represented even less than cost to all save the largest mines. As a result many thousands of miners were discharged in the fall of the year and reduction works, while not closed altogther, were operated with as small a force as possible. The worst blow was at Cananea, where thousands of men had to be dropped. Wages were reduced. Almost the entire population of some of the smaller camps, such as Ray, Twin Buttes and Humboldt, moved elsewhere. The panic did not particularly affect the larger towns of the territory. Clearing-house certificates were issued in Tucson, Globe, Bisbee, Douglas and Flagstaff. At Globe the First National Bank was unable to stand the pressure and closed its doors. At Humboldt the smelting works were covered with attachments aggregating $500,000.
The late summer of 1914 was the beginning of another gloomy period for the copper miners of Arizona. The European war had deprived Arizona of more than half her copper market and the price of the metal had descended until it had become little more than nominal. All of the copper mines closed down and in the larger camps production generally was cut in half and the force of workmen correspondingly diminished. There was no fear for the future, however, and construction work on a number of new smelting and reduction plants proceeded steadily and much development work was done in preparation for better days to come. These better times materialized in the spring of the following year, when copper returned to active demand at a remunerative price.
For the year 1915 Arizona's copper production approximated a total of 450,000,000 pounds, the state leading the entire country in the output of this metal. The heaviest production was that of the Copper Queen at Bisbee, around 86,000,000 pounds, though the Calumet and Arizona shipped 75,000,000 pounds and the Ray 62,000,000 pounds. The output would have been much greater had it not been for the strike that cut off three months' product of the companies at Clifton and Morenci. The last of 1915 finds the copper market in much better condition than for years, with active demand at around 24 cents a pound. Wages of miners have been advanced to the highest figure known, labor in this way sharing to a degree in the profits that are coming to the corporations.
THE GREAT ROOSEVELT DAM AND RESERVOIR AT FLOOD TIME
CHAPTER XXXV IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT
Long Effort and Millions of Dollars Expended on the Salt River Project-Electric Power Generation-Roosevelt Dedicates the Roosevelt Dam-Yuma Well Served from the Laguna Dam-Storage Plans for the Gila River Valley.
In Arizona little rain falls in the great valleys where millions of acres of good land lie available for cultivation. There is a heavier rainfall, with snow, in the mountains, but all the draining streams, even the Colorado, are torrential in character. There must be resort to irrigation, but primarily on the basis of the lowest supply afforded by the watering streams. Otherwise, farming would be a gamble, pure and simple. Thus, it has come to pass that water storage is viewed as most essential, insuring irrigation throughout the year, without reference to the seasons of flood or drought. In the Salt River Valley once it was said that the farms had irrigation only at medium river stages, because at flood times the dams were swept away and in times of low water the streams had too small a supply. All this has been cured by the construction of a storage dam, giving in every season the flow needed.
The genesis of the Salt River irrigation project was a resolution of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, passed in the early summer of 1889. The directors of the body had been advised that in the late fall there might be expected a visit from a senatorial sub-committee on irrigation, headed by Sen. Wm. M. Stewart, looking for available sites for the storage of water for the reclamation of the arid lands of the inter-mountain region. So the directors formally asked the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to bear the expense of looking for such sites on the Salt and Verde River watersheds. The super- visors saw the importance of the action suggested and detailed County Surveyor W. M. Breakenridge for the work. In August, accompanied by John H. Norton and Jas. H. McClintock, he started out, impedimenta and instruments carried on pack mules. The journey was a rough one, through much of Central Ari- zona, keeping, of course, within the drainage area of the two streams that join at the head of the Salt River Valley. Many damsites were found and a few reservoir sites, some of them good enough for consideration in the future, but best of all was the natural combination discovered at the junction of Salt River and Tonto Creek. There was a narrow cañon for the dam, in hard rock of advantageous stratification, furnishing the best of building material. Above was a wing-shaped double valley, within which was storage capacity for all the floods of an average season.
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