History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 95

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 1080

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On the principle that "change of employ- ment is rest," we would all go out and " shoot at a mark " for fun, and then have a dance on the cabin door, turned down on the floor for

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the occasion; James Pringle, Master of Cere- monies, who gave lessons in highland flings, Scotch reels and jig steps, on conditions that the rest of us would do the cooking, wash the dishes and chop the wood, which was cheer- fully done, and thus rapidly and pleasantly passed the festive days away until winter was over, and Mr. Hoyt arrived with a disposition to "rush things," and now " business" meant work. The Hoyt Company was soon fully or- ganized. F. Barndollar, of Pueblo, buying an interest in the company's property, sup- plies were got in and a boarding-house was built, which example was followed by a dozen more log cabins with dirt roofs, and Rosita assumed a local habitation and a name. Frank Kirkham and Louis Herfort hauled up a small wagon-load of goods from Pueblo and opened a store. Edward P. Smith, from the valley, started a saloon. Frank Roff started a black- smith-shop, and thus, in short order, a live town was started. Among the many new ar- rivals of that spring were Amos McDuffey, of Wyoming Territory; George L. Hanson (the Deacon), from Boston; Hugh Melrose, Ste- phen Vaughn and J. Reese, from Hardscrab- ble Park; Stephen Smith, of Pueblo, who, with L. Herfort and W. Holmes, located the Stephen Mine; Hobson brothers, of Pueblo; Toner Thomasson, James A. Gooch, Frank Thomas, Lem P. Kyger, Frank Roff and family, S. D. Woodruff and family, from Mis- souri; William Rumpf, from Montana; James A. Melvin, from Gilpin County, Colo .; Law- rence Panter, an old-timer, from Pueblo; Henry Shriver and Leonard Fredericks, of Maryland; James and William Duncan and D. Bruner, from Parsons, Kan .; H. K. Swift and family, from Pueblo; Samuel Bradbury and family, also his sons, Dr. D. J. and Charles Bradbury, with their families, all from Bax- ter Springs, Kan .; L. W. Pattison (who started the second store and made assays) and family, from Monticello, Ill .; Hank Kelly, of Illinois, and "our own" A. V. Temple, latest from Nevada, the scientific oracle of the camp. He was a young man of unusual attainments and alarming experiences. He had been educated at Columbia School of Mines, New York; had edited a Democratic newspaper in New Jersey; had surveyed

a portion of the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, and had managed the Candelaria Mine in Old Mexico long enough to use up the company funds, and a kindly freak of fortune induced him to accompany V. B. Hoyt from San Francisco to Colorado. "Eu- clid," as he was soon nicknamed, had a Shakes- perean intellect, and could pan out the few grains of gold from the black sand of the ar- guments of old philosophers, and drop the concentrated wisdom of the ages in gentle showers on his hearers' heads. The camp would have backed him to the last prospect hole against Prof. Tyndal on heat, Proctor on astronomy, or Homer's ghost in description of Mexican customs, and Spinoza, James Stuart Mill, or even Herbert Spencer, couldn't hold a candle to him in metaphysics. Discussion was his forte, hunting his amusement, and any kind of work "his pet aversion." He made assays for us in those early days, and, when he was disturbed by a piece of " improbable " rock, he analyzed it by the cold-dry process, making the chemical re-actions with a lead pencil, and charging $2 for the result on a printed certificate. He lived with us two years, and we both admired and felt proud of him to the last, when the place became too monotonous and "rushing " for him, and he followed his inclinations back to the land of the cactus, the centipede, the senorita, the siesta, the mozo, and of " Poco tiempo."

After "Euclid" and L. W. Pattison left Rosita (in 1874), there was no assayer in camp until Theo F. Braun was appointed Territorial Assayer in the summer of that year, at a salary of $500 per year, with his office established at Rosita, which office he held until all Territorlal Assayers were legis- lated out of office, in 1876. He has earned the enviable reputation of being "always cor- rect." Joseph Nunviller is the only other as- sayer now at Rosita, while Messrs. Nichols, Cline aud Coombs are assayers of good repute at Silver Cliff.

We also, in those halcyon days, had David Livingstone, "the nephew of his uncle," the illustrious African explorer, who was soon known as " Little Dunk," who arrived in Rosita shortly after "Euclid." He came from Scot- land by way of the East Indies, Japan, the

J. Sands

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HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY.

Polar regions, Arizona and Hardscrabble Cañon. By the exuberance of his imagina- tion and the versatility of his invention, com- bined with an elastic memory and fine de- scriptive powers, he kept the camp in cheerful spirits for two long, dreary winters. In 1875, it became too busy for him. He was suited to the early, struggling days that tried men's souls and stomachs, when pioneers had to live on faith and venison (principally venison), but, when faith became a certainty, and civil ization crowded genius to the wall, it was time to go, and he left. After a three-years run on the Northern Plains, he has lately returned to the scenes of his former success, and, hav- ing taken to himself a wife, has settled down in Custer County, at the town he named, Querida. In 1873 and 1874 was "the winter of our discontent." The Senator ore was " spotted," and the mine would not pay for working. The Chieftain (discovered by Tom Barrett and Frank Thomas), the M. T. (dis- covered by Nick Mast), the Leavenworth, and a few others, were yielding some good ore, but there was no shipping ore in camp. The Humboldt vein had only been opened on the Virginia claim, and had not yielded much high-grade ore. Times were dull, and the camp seemed likely to die a natural death for want of ore rich enough to ship, or for means of reducing what ores we had at home, when Col. Ira James, of Mattoon, Ill., early in the spring of 1874 came to our rescue, having concluded that, as the pork and corn business was dull in Illinois, he would start a smelter and try his luck in Colorado. So he got a boiler and engine and a large Root blower, which were set up under his own supervision; then he built a stack furnace.

The Colonel hadn't had any experience in mining nor in treating ores, but he had " handled hogs" and " knew a good thing when he saw it," and, with the usual self-con- fidence of a Western man, he was ready to take hold of anything that offered a large mar- gin. There was considerable business and wit about the Colonel. He soon had the smelter all complete and ready to fire up, with "Prof." Charles Rognon in charge, who was assisted by an experienced fireman from Golden, Colo. Ropes were stretched around

to prevent the crowding of the Professor and his assistants as they piled in the charges, mixed the fluxes, and would remove the bullion as it should run out. The eager crowd of miners and real estate owners sat around on the hillsides outside the ropes and compared notes with the distinguished visitors from the valley. Speculations were indulged in and discussed as to the local effect, and also the general effect, on the value of the precious metals when our ores could thus be economically treated at home. Plans were suggested as to the best method of displaying our first run of rich bullion to an admiring world. The plan that had most advocates was to run it out into 100-pound pigs, and, loading down a train of heavy wagons, draped witlı American flags and accompanied by a brass band, to send our first shipment to Pu- eblo, and then to St. Louis, and finally to Mat- toon, the home of our illustrious deliverer. But somehow the bullion wouldn't run at first. The Professor said the uyerts were too low,. or the blast was too high, or the flux wasn't just right, and he rushed around frantically, tapping it in front and shoveling in more charcoal and lime in the rear. At last the slag began to run out of the tap-hole. Real estate and undeveloped mining claims rose rapidly in value as a triumphant . shout from the assembled multitude rent the air and echoed from the surrounding hills. It was well the shout came in early on the pro- gramme, for the furnace soon chilled and the charge " froze" in the furnace. For three successive days it was started anew. Once it was coaxed into yielding a little lead with the slag; but alas! for mining hopes and real es- tate speculations, it finally settled down to a steady blast and a painful chill. Then Col. James was convinced, by the irresistible logic of facts, that it would be more successful as an ice cream freezer than a smelter of ores, and, being satisfied that the community had hardly yet advanced to that stage of luxurious effem- inacy when they needed ice cream on a wholesale scale, he joked over his experiment with the Professor, bought a mine, and, say- ing he still had lots of faith in the ores of the camp, and would return as soon as they could be reduced to the liquid form, he bade the

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HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY.

camp a gay good-bye, went back to Mattoon and got married. Such is life.

Soon a change came o'er the silence and gloom of the camp. Those who had reasoned well, from long expecience in the West, that when there is the least sign of Indians, then it is advisable to look out for them, and also, when there seems no chance for success, to have the strongest hopes. Events . occur without any adequate cause, and unexpected success from an invisible source is always over- taking somebody out West. When a mining camp is considered dead, it is the proper time to look for a big strike and good times for those who wait. In the spring of 1874, the Humboldt was discovered by Leonard Fred- ericks, and sold to Paul Georke, of the valley, a prominent member of the old German colony, and soon after, " bonanza " was struck by O'Bannion & Co., in the Pocohontas, on the same vein. It seems strange that for two years this rich ore body, from which $300,- 000 was taken in a little more than a year, should have been run over for two years at the edge of town, and not opened before. But such was the case. The same vein had pre- viously been opened and located, along the line on each side of this rich chimney, in the Virginia and Jersey, east of the Humboldt, and on the East Leviathan, West Leviathan, Stephen and Leavenworth claims, west from the Pocahontas. Such is mining. The Bassick was not opened till 1877, and California Gulch was worked nineteen years before the Leadville carbonate mines were found. Mr. Georke sold half of the Humboldt Mine to Messrs. Melvin and Bowles. Both mines were "in bonanza," yielding large quantities of 200-ounce ore. They were also in conflict for 300 feet where the pay was richest. The Humboldt, being the oldest location, over- lapped on the contested ground. A satisfact- ory boundary was soon established by written compromise, and all went merry as a mar- riage bell. Alex Thornton, who had been at Rosita a few months from the Canon City Coal Banks, where he had been in charge for two years, bought the Humboldt Mine for himself, his brother Thomas, and some friends in Sharon, Penn., and had got actively at work taking ore out of the mine, when he was

enjoined from any further work on the mine by a court writ, issued on the affidavit and at the request of Gen. Adams, a New York min- ing speculator, who had by some means secured the claim of William Bland, who had set up a stake on the disputed ground before the owners of the Humboldt and Pocahontas had compromised. The General made his boast that he could starve the owners out in six weeks, but missed his calculations, was beaten in the courts, then bought a controlling inter- est in the Pocahontas, paying part cash (which was furnished by Theo W. Herr, of Denver), and, shortly after commencing to mine in a legitimate manner, he died. Theo W. Herr & Co. then got possession of the mine, paying 75 per cent of the amount due the workmen by Gen. Adams, and soon had sixty to eighty men at work on it. The Humboldt was also running with a full crew.

While working a large force of men and shipping rich ore by the car-load, the Poco- hontas Mine was seized and held a week by Boyd & Stewart, of the Bank of Rosita (as described elsewhere). During this change of possession, which was made by the assistance and with the consent of the Superintendent left in charge by Herr & Co., the mine was worked right along, with but little change in the workmen, and was soon back in the hands of Herr & Co., the men who had worked for Boyd & Stewart being out the value of one week's work. At this time, Rosita was at its best. There were 1,000 people living in the town, and all branches of business were flour- ishing. But soon again a change came o'er the busy scene. In their earlier stages, all small mining camps have their ups and downs, especially when the rise or fall depends mainly upon one or two mines. Below the 200-foot level, the ore streak in both the Poca- hontas and Humboldt got both thin and lean, until it "pinched out," and the Pocahontas shut down, and the Humboldt company dis- charged most of their workmen. The Penn- sylvania Reduction Works shut down, the Vir- ginia shut down, the East Leviathan shut down, the Leavenworth shut down; in fact, it came near being a shut down all around. The Lucille, Invincible, Tecumseh, Twenty- six, Polonia, Chieftain and Victoria all fur-

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nished a little shipping ore, but not enough to keep up the town, and it seemed as if it would die a natural death for want of ore to ship or capital to develop, when, in January, 1877, the Bassick Mine was discovered, and over half a million dollars taken out in less than a year and a half, and the mine sold to a New York company for big money. Although this mine only gave employment to some fifty men, its ;richness and the yield of so much gold gave encouragement to other owners of mines in that vicinity, and development became ac- tive in the vicinity of Rosita; but it was be- ginning to get dull again when the Silver Cliff Mines were discovered by R. S. Edwards, Robert Powell and George S. Hafford, of Rosita. Hafford had crossed the plains with a wheelbarrow in 1859, and Powell and Ed- wards had prospected and leased mines around Rosita for three or four years. . The low, black-stained cliff in the prairie, near the old road which crossed the valley from Oak Creek Cañon to Grape Creek, passing by the north side of Round Mountain, had often at- tracted the attention of passing prospectors. Joseph Schoolfield and the writer picked into it in 1873, and had a test made of the rock, which only showed two ounces and a half of silver per ton.

In August, 1877, R. J. Edwards brought some of it into Rosita, and got Edward Norris to join him in getting it assayed and doing a few days' work on it. One assay, made by Prof. Braun, gave twenty-four and three- fourths ounces of silver per ton, and quite an excitement was raised by an assay of twenty ounces of gold per ton, made by Prof. Buell, and several claims were located in that vicin- ity by other parties. By the assay proving to be a mistake, the claims were abandoned until the following summer, when Mr. Edwards proposed that they should all go over and try the cliff again. The Racine Boy was located on the 29th of June, 1878. It was a few weeks before rich ore in quantity was found, but specimens rich in horn silver were found from the time of location. The mine was bonded for $26,500, for three months, to J. W. Bailey, of Denver, in August, $1,500 being paid down, and, within a week after, both the owners and the parties bonding were taking

out from the top of the cliff, and some seventy - five feet back from its face, ore that ran by the car-load from 80 to 800 ounces of sil- ver per ton. It is claimed that the money to pay the bond was thus taken out while the or- iginal owners, who had reserved the right to work the mine also until it should be paid for, took out an equal amount before the mine was paid for. Other horn silver and choride infiltrations were found in that vicinity, but none so rich nor extensive as this one.

There seems to be no reason why these in- filtrations may not be found below the surface debris anywhere else in the valley. Had this cliff been covered with the usual surface wash or alluvial deposit, the probability is that the richness of those horn silver ores would not have been known for ages to come.

Having been discovered shortly after the Leadville carbonate mines had begun to pay immensely, and the whole country was getting the Leadville craze, a rush was made to Silver Cliff, which had, in addition to its horn silver mines, carbonate fields, but which have since developed into fissure veins of low-grade py- rites of iron and zinc blende ores, that, as yet, have not furnished much metallic wealth to the world; but development is still going on, and, if continued, will doubtless result in something.

" The Cliff" grew apace, and soon was a town of importance, with lively competition for the town offices, and most of the modern improvements were adopted on short notice. Mines were sold and stocked, mills built, and times were booming. In two years, Silver Cliff ranked as the third city in the State, and is now in the third year of its rapid growth. The excitement about the mines around the Cliff drew attention to the mines about Rosita, that had been neglected by capital for years, and the whole of Custer County has had a steady growth for the last two years and a half. Mines have been opened along the Sangre de Christo Range, and all through the Sierra Mojada. Even at Hardscrabble Park, within a mile of Greenwood Post Office, tel- luride mines have been opened that yield rich ores, and cobalt and nickel have been found in the Gem Mine, a few miles northwesterly from Silver Cliff.

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HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY.

THE MINES DESCRIBED.

The Senator was the first mine from which paying ore was shipped. It is situated within the town limits of Rosita. The ore shipped in 1873 and 1874 was taken out at a depth of twenty to forty feet, and consisted of silver glance in round globules, imbedded in a very hard, blue, flinty quartz. The mine is now opened to a depth of 200 feet, and shows a large, soft fissure vein, with fine particles of low-grade mineral scattered through it. The croppings of this vein stood up above the sur- face like a stone wall, three feet high in some places, and could be plainly traced for 600 feet in length. It has the best surface show- ing of any mine in the county to-day, but, so far, development shows no more of the rich surface ores which assayed over one thousand ounces of silver per ton, and by the car-load ran 145 ounces per ton. This mine was worked extensively in 1873 and 1874, but, with the exception of assessments (the $100 worth of work per year required by act of Con- gress), there has not been much done on it since. There is a parallel vein some fifty feet below the main vein which carries quite a body of low-grade galena ore near the surface. This mine is in the condition of many other good prospects; part of the present owners will neither work themselves, nor sell, nor lease on such terms as would induce other parties to take hold and pay something for the chances of success. The Humboldt, Pocahontas, Leviathan (East and West), Stephen and Leavenworth Mines were all extensions of the Virginia Mine, first located by the Hoyt Mining Company in 1872. The Pocahontas happened to open the vein " in bonanza," and all along the line, in 1874, 1875 and 1876, the vein was opened for two miles in length. The rich pockets were along most of the Pocahon- tas claim, on part of the Humboldt and East Leviathan claims, on the west end of the Vir- ginia and on the east end of the Leaven worth claims; that is to say, out of two miles opened in length, about two thousand five hundred feet were found to pay, at (or near) the sur- face, and continued to pay to the depth of 250 feet or 300 feet. Although the theory is that a vein which pays in one place will pay all along its course, if sunk deep enough, it has

not as yet proven true in this case; perhaps more depth will find it. There is twice the development done on mines in Nevada, with- out expectation of pay, than has been done on the unprofitable claims on this great fissure vein. Most of the rich surface ores, which were mainly gray copper and sulphuret of copper in baryta, contained in a clay " gouge" or soft-rock crevice from two to four feet wide, gave out at the average depth of 300 feet, and all the mines on this vein have now shut down excepting the Humboldt. Most of them have been unworked for about two years. The Humboldt, which, under the able management of Alex Thornton, had yielded a quarter of a million of dollars above the 300-foot level, was carried down through a " fault " 400 feet deeper. Part of the time, there was very little yein, and no ore, to follow; the vein was badly broken up. At the depth of 700 feet from the surface, the formation became solid again, and Mr. Thornton commenced drifting, at right angles with the vein, up the hill. The vein had previously been dipping down, and with the hill, at an angle of about thirty degrees from perpendicular. He "cross-cutted". at the depth of 712 feet, until he found the vein in place again. It was 203 feet up the hill, on a level, from the bottom of the main shaft, and had a good granite hanging wall and a solid porphyry foot-wall. The vein was larger than at the surface (five feet wide), and the ore similar in character, and the con- tact vein thus found pitched up or into the hill, at an angle of about fifty-five degrees from the perpendicular. A shaft, or winze, has been sunk to the depth of 100 feet on this lower portion of the vein, showing it to be a continuous and well-defined mineral vein. Practically, this gives unlimited extent to the mine, and there is no doubt that work will soon commence all along the line. The indi- cations at present are that the Pocohontas, East Leviathan and Leavenworth will com- mence deep development in a few weeks, and probably R. N. Daniels will also start up the West Leviathan again, as he had a well-de- fined, large vein of spar, with galena and gray copper of low grade in it, at the depth of 350 feet, when he stopped work a few weeks ago. This development in the Humboldt also indi-

Pen Sabley

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HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY.

cates that all veins found in the porphyry belt, within a distance of half a mile from its northeastern surface contact, with the granite formation, will most likely be in contact be- tween the two formations before they shall have reached the depth of 700 feet. This is going to add greatly to the value of mines along this northeastern edge of the porphyry belt; as a contact between two formations, go- ing down nearly vertical, is considered the surest for permanency and the most favorable for the formation of large bodies of rich ore. The Comstock Mines of Nevada, the Tomb- stone Mines of Arizona, and the Horn Silver Mine of Utah, are all contact formations; and many of the best mines in Old Mexico, that have yielded immensely for generations, under

the Spanish rule, were contact veins.

With

the exception of the flat carbonate of lead contact deposits of Leadville (which lie below porphyry and above limestone), this is the only extensive contact vein, or ore body, known, and partially developed, in Colorado. The results of proper development on this mineral- bearing contact may soon bring Custer County to the front as one of the few big-paying min- ing camps in the world. The contact is plainly marked at the surface from Rosita to Grape Creek, a distance of about ten miles, and carries ore in veins and chimneys all along the edge, and, within a distance less than the Humboldt main shaft is from the edge, may be mentioned the following prom- ising mines: The Diamond X, adjoining the Game Ridge Consolidated Company's new mill; the Game Ridge properties; the G. W., Cymbeline, Victoria, Index, Polonia, Del Norte and Twenty-six, all near Rosita; the Horton,

Dominion, Hector, First National, Bassick, Poorman, Carolus Magnus and Ophir, near Querida; the Ophir, Del Monte, Melrose and Bunker Hill, near Carolina Gulch; then comes four or five miles of prairie, carrying the con- tact to the Bull-Domingo on the one side (in the granite), and veins of the carbonate beds on the other side (in the porphyry), with an immense oxide of iron vein directly

on the contact, which here seems to be nearly

vertical, judging by the results of boring

300 feet on the large iron deposit mentioned above. The greatest mineral curiosities of

Custer County are the chimney deposits, principal among which is the Bassick Mine, now 700 feet deep. For a few feet below the surface, it was only a small streak of watery quartz, and so discouraging that the first discoverer abandoned it. Mr. Bassick, who was then at work by the day in a tunnel close by, noticed the quartz streak in the four-foot hole that had been abandoned, as he passed it daily going to and coming from his work, and concluded to get some of it assayed. It ran seventy-eight ounces of silver per ton, which was much better than anything he had been getting out of his own prospects, so he located the abandoned prospect, and, at twenty feet, had opened up a chimney, ten feet in diam- eter, of bowlders coated with ore, that ran up to two hundred ounces of silver, worth $1.15 per ounce, and one ounce of gold, worth $20, per ton; and so it kept on increasing in value of gold and in width, with a close pinch at sixty feet deep that looked as though the mine was gone; but it came in all right again a few. feet deeper, with pieces of wood charcoal im- bedded in the bowlders of country rock at from 100 to 200 feet deep, and has continued to widen as it has been sunk, until it is about sixty feet in diameter at 700 feet deep. It has never had any pinch since the first one encountered at sixty feet deep, which was rather a split and break in the ore body than a pinch, and the proportion of gold to the silver in the ore, in value, has increased to 80 per cent of the whole amount. The coating, which was light at the depth of ten feet (where the bowlders were first found in the shaft), was quite light, and contained a good deal of chloride of silver; at 200 feet deep, the coating on the bowlders (which lay in a gangue of gouge cement and white talc), was from half an inch to three inches thick, many

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History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 95

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 1080

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 1080