USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume II > Part 59
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Until his death, in 1880, Mr. Lynch was the master spirit in the hy- draulic development of the placer fields. During the five years in which he owned and operated the ditch their output was very large. The Low- thian ground yielded $75,000 in one season's run. with only one hydraulic. A claim on Willow creek yielded forty ounces of gold to the box-that is, a piece of ground twelve by twenty-four feet. Spanish bar was equally as rich, while the tract in the Moreno river just below Spanish bar, owned by the Central Company and now in possession of the Oro Dredging Com- pany, was then, as now, considered the richest ground in the camp. Lazy gulch produced as much as 120 ounces per week, while New Orleans Flats is known to have yielded as high as 228 ounces in one week, valued at $19 per ounce.
After the death of Matthew Lynch, the ditch passed into the hands of his two brothers, James and Patrick Lynch, who operated it for a num- ber of years, but it has gradually fallen into disuse and is now practically inoperative. Attempts were in the meantime being made to extract the gold by means of shovels and dredging machines. For several years these enterprises failed because the plants were crude and too light to perform the desired work; they were correspondingly expensive. It remained for the Oro Dredging Company. under the presidency of H. J. Reiling, of
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Chicago, to put in operation a successful dredge. In August, 1901, it was christened the Eleanor and put to work. The great machine handles 4,000 cubic yards of dirt daily, and the electric plant on the boat makes it possible to operate it twenty-four hours continuously. Very little water is required for the operation of the plant, as the water in the sluice box is used over and over again. The values of the placer gold ground handled are from thirty cents to three dollars per cubic yard, and during the first year of its operation the dredge cleared over $100,000, or about one-quarter the gold production of New Mexico. Mr. Reiling is a pioneer in this method of placer mining, introducing the first dredge into the gold fields of Montana.
As already stated, Matthew Lynch and Tim Foley went across to the east side of Baldy mountain, in 1867, and began prospecting on Ute creek. They first struck rich float, some of which was more than half gold, and finally in June, 1868, after about a year of hard work they uncovered the Aztec mine at the foot of Baldy, on a little ridge which separates Ute creek from South Poñil. At the time it was the richest gold lode discovery made in the west. A 15-stamp mill began operations October 29, 1868, and Aztec's richest vein yielded as high during the first few years of work as $21.000 per week. According to a report made to the general government in 1870, the ore averaged $68.85 per ton. The mine went into litigation and was shut down in 1872, after producing about $1,500,000. The Aztec has since been spasmodically worked, although never since 1872 with pro- nounced success.
The Montezuma, another old lode producer on the Ute Creek side of Baldy, has a record of about $300.000. In the Poñil district is the noted French Henry mine. In the Moreno Valley district the most important group of lode claims is perhaps the Red Bandana, consisting of eight mines which apparently center in one mother vein farther down. The Gold and Copper Deep Tunnel Mining and Milling Company has also commenced what promises to be important developments on its 115 acres of property on the west slope of Baldy. It owns twelve claims in this locality, and its object is to develop both gold and silver prospects by running a tunnel directly east, 3,600 feet long and 2,000 feet deep.
The Aztec mine at Baldy, Colfax county, which has been in operation several years, has been worked under a lease for the past four years by A. G. Ward, who came from Colorado to Baldy and began operations in the fall of 1902. Mr. Ward has been engaged in mining in Colorado since 1875, and is well-known throughout central mining circles. He is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. To his new field of labor he brought enterprise and industry and has contributed largely to the development of mining re- sources in this part of the country. The Aztec is a lode mine located on the side of Baldy, the highest peak in Colfax countv.
The only mining dredge in operation in New Mexico is that now employed in the development of the placer fields near Elizabethtown. It was constructed by the Oro Dredging Company in 1901 and began opera- tions about September I of that year. It was at first located on the creek about two and a half miles below Elizabethtown. As it has proceeded up- stream it has made its own body of water as the result of its operations, and is now nearly opposite the once prosperous mining camp. Its opera- tion is confined to the spring, summer and fall months. This giant dredge,
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named the "Eleanor," contains machinery weighing three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Its sixty-five buckets, weighing half a ton each, weighed eleven hundred and seventy pounds each when work was first begun. They have cut into the earth to the depth of twenty-two feet, bringing to the surface the gold-laden soil; and when attacking a gravel bank high above the level of the little stream they have cut through fifty feet of earth. The average capacity of this monster placer miner is fifty thousand cubic yards of earth per month. The Oro Dredging Company was organized with H. J. Reiling as president and F. Z. Hunt as superin- tendent. John S. Butler, of Chicago, is now president and treasurer, and J. H. Funk is superintendent. Their enterprise is unique in the history of mining in New Mexico.
The Gold and Copper Deep Tunnel Mining and Milling Company, which is now operating in Mount Baldy, directly east of Elizabethtown, was incorporated October 20, 1900, with a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars. It has driven a tunnel into Mount Baldy about two thousand feet and is finding gold and copper in paying quantities, the quality of the ore improving the further the mountain is penetrated. The promoters of this enterprise are confident that they will ultimately find the parent ore body which supplied the placer field below.
John H. Funk, superintendent of the placer dredge of the Oro Dredg- ing Company, of Elizabethtown, was born in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, April 8, 1863; was reared in his native town, receiving his education in the common schools. He learned the trade of machinist with the Frick Engineering Company at Waynesburg, and was in the employ of that firm for thirteen years before coming west. It was in 1899 that he landed in New Mexico, having come to the Territory on a prospecting tour. His first work here was in the Anchor mine at Elizabethtown. The mine not proving profitable, he sought other employment, and soon went to work for the Oro Dredging Company, that had set up a dredge in the placer gold fields of Elizabethtown in 1900. By his ability and his faithful serv- ice he won the confidence of his employers, and May 15, 1905, was ap- pointed superintendent of the dredge, succeeding L. N. Parks. Mr. Funk is a member of Montezuma Lodge No. 10, Knights of Pythias, at Eliza- bethtown.
Captain Thomas C. Sewell, Elizabethtown, New Mexico, is identified with the mining interests of this place. Captain Sewell first came to the Territory of New Mexico in 1892, and at that time bought six claims in Last Chance Gulch. Previous to this he had been at Cripple Creek. After remaining here a short time he returned to that place, and it was not until 1897 that he came again to Elizabethtown and took up his residence here. At present he is superintending the construction of a tunnel known as the Isabella B., for Homer C. Chapin, of Chicago, who owns claims or options on all land the tunnel will tap. For eighteen months the work has been under way and the tunnel now extends a thousand feet into the mountain. It has crossed numerous rich veins of ore and the prospects are bright for · a rich mine when the railroad is built in the valley.
His own claims that he purchased in 1892 Captain Sewell still owns and contemplates developing as soon as railroad facilities and a mill are brought to the locality.
Orestes St. John, of Raton, for years geologist for the Maxwell Land
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Grant Association, has been a resident of New Mexico during all the years of the modern practical development of the resources of the Terri- tory. He is undoubtedly more familiar with geological conditions in the northern part of the Territory than any other man, having devoted the best years of his life to their study, and is recognized as one of the highest living authorities on the mineralogy of the southwest.
W. P. McIntyre, of Elizabethtown, superintendent of the Gold and Copper Deep Tunnel Mining and Milling Company, was born in Brook- lyn, New York, and was reared in Iowa, where he acquired his education and followed the occupation of farming. Leaving home he went to Colo- rado, where he became familiar with the processes of mining. In the fall of 1898 he arrived in Elizabethtown to look up the gold and copper prop- erties. He is interested in five claims on the old Baldy mountain, and is conducting a profitable business as superintendent of the Gold and Copper Deep Tunnel Mining and Milling Company. This company was incor- porated under the laws of the Territory of New Mexico, in October, 1900, with a capitalization of two hundred thousand dollars, divided into two hundred thousand shares of a par value of one dollar each, full paid up and non-assessable.
The company has one hundred and fifteen acres of ground, consisting of twelve claims in one body, lying parallel and running north and south on the west slope of Baldy mountain, Colfax county, New Mexico, about thirty miles south of the Colorado state line. A number of shares will be sold to provide capital to run a good-sized working tunnel through all the claims, a distance of more than one-half mile (thirty-seven hundred feet). Almost one-quarter mile of this tunnel is now completed.
Joseph Henry Lowrv. mine operator. Elizabethtown, Colfax county, dates his birth in Detroit, Michigan, April 6, 1840. He is a son of John and Maria (Martine) Lowrey, the latter of French descent. When he was a child his parents moved to Montreal, Canada, and seven or eight years later to Troy, New York. Joseph was sent back to Montreal to attend school, and after he had been there about four months ran away from school and went to Stillwater, Minnesota. For about two years he was employed in rafting on Lake St. Croix, that state, and one year was in the pineries. The next two years he worked on rafts on the Mississippi river, going down as far as St. Louis, and after this he followed steamboating, on the lower Mississippi and Red rivers, for four or five years. He was in the south when the Civil war broke out, and in 1862 he joined the Con- federate army, becoming a member of Colonel Neely's regiment of cavalry, under General Forrest, and was with General Forrest at the capture of Fort Pillow ; was in the army three years, most of that time on the skirmish line. In 1864 he came from Fort Leavenworth to Denver, as teamster for Captain Caldwell, and subsequently worked in Central City and Black Hawk. In 1866 he started out on a prospecting tour in Wyoming, and spent two years in prospecting, after which, in 1868, he set out for Texas to buy cattle. Arrived at Patterson's ranch, his progress was delayed be- cause at that time it was dangerous for small parties to cross the plains alone. After waiting two weeks, and as there were yet not enough men to organize for the crossing, he and seven others as venturesome as him- self, struck out in the direction of Texas. After they had driven about forty miles they were met by a company of soldiers who compelled them
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to return. Thus diverted from his original intention, Mr. Lowrey, after remaining at a ranch a week, decided to come to Elizabethtown, lured hither by stores of gold discoveries. And he has ever since been engaged in mining at this place. For a period of four years he was also interested in cattle ranching, on Ponil creek, but with this exception his whole time and attention have been given to mining operation, in which he has been reasonably successful. He now has a placer field and other mines and has a patent from the Maxwell Land Grant Company. Also, he has mining interests on Red river.
Formerly a Democrat, Mr. Lowrey now votes an independent ticket. He has served his district as school director. June 20, 1881, he married Miss Elizabeth Moore, who was the first white child born in Elizabeth- town, and in honor of whom the town was named. She is a daughter of John Moore, who was a soldier in the United States army, and as such was stationed at Fort Union and other points in New Mexico, and who came to this locality during the first mining excitement here, in 1867. The fruits of this union have been nine children. The first born died in in- fancy. The others in order of birth are: Jane Matilda, May Lillian, Bessie, Laura, who died in Elizabethtown August 14, 1891 ; Annie, Joseph, Jr., William and Maud. Bessie died in Trinidad in the spring of 1904.
Lead and Zinc District of Eastern Socorro County .- West of the town of Socorro, toward the northern end of a range of mountains, is Mount Magdalena, which takes its name from the outline of a face and bust, formed by a combination of rocks and shrubbery into a fair resem- blance to a female figure. The figure, which in the early years is said to have been a sanctuary to which the hunted fugitive, whether white or red, could flee in safety, gave the name of Magdalena to both mount and range, and in this region lics the former great lead producing district of New Mexico, and the region which. of late years, has obtained prominence for its large yields of zinc. It has the honor of being the only considerable producer of the latter metal in the Territory, and is becoming one of the most important zinc districts in the country. Up to 1904, when the zinc ores commenced to be discovered in commercial quantities, the production of the Magdalena district in lead and silver amounted to $8.700,000, more than three-fourths of this value being in lead. The Kelly and the Graphic mines alone yielded nearly $6,000,000 worth of the metal. As the car- bonate lead ore had been practically exhausted from these mines, it was fortunate, for the continued prosperity of the district, that not only were large bodies of smithsonite and other forms of zinc ore uncovered, but that it was found profitable to work over the refuse from the old mines which contained rich carbonates of zinc.
Even during the later years, when the lead production of the Magda- lena district was not at its height, the lead mines of Socorro county yielded from two-thirds to a half of the total output of New Mexico. In 1902. of the 2,490,885 pounds of lead mined throughout the Territory, 1, 189,004 pounds came from this county, Luna and Grant counties producing nearly all the balance.
Colonel J. S. Hutchinson ("Old Hutch"), with a Mexican peon, made the first location in the Magdalena district, in the spring of 1866. They were looking for rich float, which had been found at Pueblo Springs dur- ing the war, but instead discovered rich outcroppings of lead. First they
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staked out the Juanita lode, and about three weeks later the Graphic mine. Soon they were taking out the lead ore, smelting it in an adobe furnace and sending the bullion to Kansas City by bull teams. Before the advent of the railroads that city and St. Louis were the chief markets for the district. The Juanita mine was subsequently sold to Col. E. W. Eaton and others, while the Graphic was also disposed of-the latter at the com- fortable figure of $30,000.
The Graphic mine is now the largest producer and the most valuable piece of mining property in the district, although for many years the Kelly took the lead. Its present weekly shipments are 2,000 tons of zinc and lead ore and 200 tons of copper. Two rich veins of lead and zinc are benig worked, and new developments are going on 200 feet below the old mine. The zinc ore body of the Graphic is pronounced by experts to be the largest in the United States, and probably in the world. Since March, 1904, this valuable property has been in possession of the Graphic Lead and Zinc Company, which was incorporated in that year by Messrs. W. H. Cunningham and J. G. Fitch.
The pioneer work in zinc development was done at the Graphic mine when it was controlled by Fitch & Brown, in 1903. They first blocked out 50,000 tons of the zinc-lead sulphide ore, upon which they experimented with profit. They then discovered that there were thousands of tons of carbonate of zinc ore in the old stopes of the mine, which they extracted and commenced shipping to the smelters of Missouri and Wisconsin as the first zinc ore ever sent from New Mexico mines. This was in the spring of 1903.
The famous Kelly mine was also discovered by Col. Hutchinson soon after the Graphic. He turned it over to his friend, Andy Kelly, who was to locate the property. This he did, but later owners failed to do the necessary annual assessment, and "Old Hutch" jumped the property, sell- ing it afterward to Messrs. Hanson and Dawsey. Gustav Billing, the next owner, erected a smelting plant at Socorro, where the product of the mine was treated. So important did the Kelly mine become as a lead-silver producer that the Magdalena branch of the railroad was built only under the guarantee that it should furnish a definite tonnage of ore. Since 1904 the development of the mine has been chiefly in the line of zinc, and its present shipments amount to about 21,000 tons of zinc carbonate per year.
The Cooney (Gold) District of Socorro County .- Socorro has always stood high among the counties of New Mexico as a producer of gold, its record depending upon the yield of the Cooney district in the Mogollon range, about fifteen miles from the Arizona line. Although a German is said to have entered the region first, in 1870, the district is named from James C. Cooney, a brave scout and guide, and for a time connected with the cavalry service at Fort Bayard. He was offered a commission in the army, but declined, as in 1875 he had discovered high grade silver and copper ore, during one of his scouting expeditions in the Mogollon moun- tains. In the spring of 1876, immediately at the expiration of his term as scout, he organized a prospecting party, consisting of George W. Will- iams, Frank Vingoe and George Lambert, of Georgetown, and Harry Mc- Allister, William Burns and George Doyle, of Central.
The Apaches attacked the party repeatedly, and finally all the loca-
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tions were abandoned, except the Albatross, made by Burns. Two years afterward the other original claims were located, among them being the Silver Bar, better known as the Cooney mine. From the 28th to the 30th of April, 1880, there was a series of fights between the Apaches, under Victorio, and the miners and settlers on Mineral Creek, now the mining camp of Cooney. Several miners were killed, including Cooney himself. He was forty years old at the time of his lamented death, and his rude tomb, with a simple cross at its summit, is a revered landmark of the dis- trict.
Soon after this sad occurrence, the brother of the deceased, Capt. M. Cooney, arrived from New Orleans and commenced the active develop- ment of the Silver Bar. He organized a working company, built a 5-stamp mill, and his first year's shipments to the Argo smelter, at Denver, were valued at $360,000, some of his concentrates running as high as $1 a pound. This work continued until the accumulation of low-grade milling ore was in the way, and greater reduction facilities were imperative. As it took $65 per ton, at the mine, to cover expense of operation, freight and treatment, the stockholders hesitated to install improved machinery, and the mine lay dormant for seventeen years, when, through a vendor's lien, it passed again into the full possession of Capt. Cooney. The property was then leased to the Captain's nephew, Tom Cooney, who in six months took out about $65,000. On the expiration of the lease, Capt. Cooney sold the mine to Colorado parties for $50,000, who, within two years, took out over $300,000. It was later sold to the present owners, the Mogollon Gold & Copper Company, and under its operation has produced about $200,000.
Up to the present, the production of the Cooney district has been be- tween $6.000,000 and $7,000,000. Of this sum about $1.500,000 has been from the Cooney, $1,500,000 from the Little Fannie, $1,500,000 from the Confidence, and $100,000 to $500,000 each from the Leap Year, the Maud S., the Last Chance, and Deep Down, and others.
The holdings of the Mogollon Gold & Copper Company are the larg- est of any in the district, comprising about twenty-eight mining claims, mill sites, water rights, 125-ton modern concentrating plant, modern min- ing and hoisting machinery, office, residence and store buildings, etc. The mining properties include the famous Cooney and Leap Year mines, and the Little Charlie, the Florida, the Independence, the Bloomer Girl and the Ninety-eight groups. All of these have produced shipping ore, yet on the greater portion there is but a small amount of development work. The ore in sight is about as follows: Cooney mine, $270,000, and in the other groups, $75,000 (gold and silver).
The Last Chance, owned by the Ernestine Mining Company, has had a strenuous history. In its operation and the attempt to reduce the ores (gold and silver) at a profit, there were many disappointments, but since the early part of 1905 the production has been at a profit. In the lower levels, where recently ore was being blocked out in a seventeen-foot vein, averaged about $40 per ton, a depth has now been reached where the ore runs at $100 a ton.
The Little Fannie group, comprising five claims, has had a production of $1,500,000, with $1,000,000 now blocked. This property was recently purchased by the Mogollon Mountain Investment Company. During its
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long period of idleness the old workings of the mine have caved in to such an extent that the new owners are now opening another main shaft.
The Maud S. group is owned by the Colonial Company, of Boston, and has produced about $900,000 from a shaft 600 feet in length. The ore from the lowest level exceeded $100 in value per ton. There is con- siderable surface development, and a 15-stamp pan amalgamation mill. At present the property is idle.
The great drawback to the development of the Mogollon district has been the distance from railway transportation, and lack of proper reduc- tion methods. The percentage of saving by pan-amalgamation only amounted to 45 to 60 per cent, which meant too great a loss. Cyanide has been given severe tests on these ores, and, taken in connection with concentration, shows a saving of about 90 per cent of the values.
Other than those mentioned in the Cooney and Magdalena districts, there is no mine of great importance in Socorro county except the Rose- dale, at the north end of the San Mateo mountains, west of the southern extremity of the Magdalena range. The first to enter the region was J. W. Richardson, who, in 1882, came thither by way of San Martial. It is claimed that his wife found the first float, which she prevailed upon her husband to have assayed, and which proved to carry good values in gold. For several years the property was jeopardized by incursions of the dreaded Apaches, who managed to drive nearly all the prospectors out of the re- gion ; but for a long time the work has been continuous and productive of good financial results, so that now the Rosedale mine is among the leading gold lode producers in New Mexico. It is the mine which first drew attention to the fine prospects of the district.
The mining operations in the Rosedale district have become more important than ever before. Gold is the principal ore found. The Rose- dale mine, which was sold in 1905 for $160,000, is still rewarding its pur- chasers with excellent returns. Over half a million dollars worth of ore is now in sight, principally birdseye porphyry, in true fissure veins. The rock is full of trachite, the veins are solid and heavy and of good width, growing richer as they are developed toward the divide. When the Rose- dale camp was opened in the early eighties, the stories of the discovery of gold there obtained slight credence in other quarters; but the develop- ment work of the past few years shows that the conditions there are even more favorable than they were in the Cripple Creek district at the same stage of the work, showing greater width and better values. There are now five company properties in the camp, besides many individual claims. Second to the Rosedale mine, the New Golden Bell mine is the most im- portant in the district. L. M. Lasley has induced considerable capital to enter the camp in recent years, and the outlook is promising. The fact that there are five true fissure veins on which good properties are located, that some veins, sixteen feet wide, contain free gold, and that all the ores in the district are free milling-none being refractory-speaks well for the future of Rosedale.
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