History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 69

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998

USA > South Dakota > History of South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 69

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The elevated region is heavily timbered with pine forests, supplying building material, mine timbers and fuel. However, most of the fuel and coke used in the steam power mining plants is furnished by coal mines in the northern and southern foot hills and from other points in Wyoming having railroad connection with the coal mines.

Water, one of the most essential auxiliaries to successful mining, is also abundant. The ele- vated plateaus and divides of the range are the source of many perennial springs and streams which flow out of the Hills in all directions.

The accompanying sketch is an ideal east- . west section illustrating the geological structure and gold measures in Lawrence county, the chief gold-producing district of the Black Hills.

The lowermost formation shown in the sketch is the ancient Archaen slates or schists-or Algonkian, a subdivision of the same. The Archaen is one of the principal gold-bearing formations of the district, the habitat of the ver- tical quartz veins and the great fissure lodes known as the Homestake Belt. These rocks con- sist of stratified, highly crystalline, metamorphic slates or schists with a general strike of north thirty-five degrees west, and south thirty-five de- grees east, with an average dip to the northeast of thirty-five degrees from the horizontal, with many local variations. Quartz veins, accompanied by eruptive dikes of the porphyry family, horn- blende and diorite, traverse the formation in con- formity with the strike and dip of the bedding of the slates. The "belt" is a well-defined system of parallel, more or less irregular and interlapping quartz veins, a highly mineralized zone one to two miles in width, which traverses the Archaen rocks on the easterly slope of the range.

It is not to be supposed that the great ore- hearing lodes of this system have an endless linear continuity; on the contrary, while in- dividual veins may consolidate and develop strength and persistency in strike, they may be

490

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

LEGEND

Archean Slates

Fissure Veins

Conglomerate Ore

Quartzite

Shale And Sand stone

Limestone

Ore

Ore Verticals

Dikes. Porphyry Phonolite etc

491

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

expected to again split into endless smaller bodies, spread out laterally over a much wider area and again reform or be replaced on either side by other interlapping veins; however, the great mineral zone, or belt, has an indefinite continuity on its strike, and is known to be prac- tically co-extensive with the Archaen formation, which extends through the entire mountain range.

The greatest development of the belt is in the Homestake at Lead and group of surround- ing mines, such as the Columbus, next north of the Homestake, the Oro Hondo on the south, the Hidden Fortune on the northwest, the Globe on the west, the Pluma on the cast and other mines in this neighborhood. Eight miles southeast of the Homestake the Clover Leaf, a producing mine, is developed to the seven-hundred-foot level, with various other active mine explorations in the vicinity. Thirty- six miles southerly from the Homestake on the trend of the belt, explorations have been carried to the depth of one thousand two hundred feet following the Holy Terror vein by the Holy Terror-Keystone Mining Company, at Keystone, Pennington county. Other companies are operating in this vicinity and exploratory work is in progress at various intermediate points be- tween the places named. Nearly all of Law- rence and the western half or mountainous por- tions of Pennington and Custer counties, com- prise the active mineral area and mining is con- ducted throughout the same. Gold, copper, mica and tin are the chief mineral products of Pen- nington and Custer counties.

Overlying and resting unconformably upon the vertical Archaen slates is the horizontal Cambrian formation some four hundred feet in thickness where undisturbed by erosive action. The Cambrian rocks consist of a conglomerate base overlain by quartzite, sandstone and shale, the whole being pierced by intrusive dikes and laccolithic sheets of eruptive rocks. The Cambrian is highly mineralized, containing the remarkable "blanket" deposits of the Black Hills. In the Bald mountain and Ruby Basin region some of these deposits on the quartzite are known to

have a continuous length of more than one mile, several hundred feet in width and of great thickness. In the upper shales similar blankets of ore and vertical deposits are found through- out the formation.

The Cambrian deposits cover a large area in the vicinity of Bald Mountain, Terry's Peak. Ruby Basin, Yellow Creek, Maitland, Custer's Peak, Carbonate Camp, Galena and Elk Moun- tain. Some of the principal producing mines in these measures are the Golden Reward, Horse- shoe, Penobscot, Wasp No. 2, Hidden Fortune, Imperial, Dorr & Wilson, Dakota, Portland, Co- lumbus, Iron Hill and Cleopatra.

Still another distinct geological formation up- permost in the Black Hills structure, the car- boniferous limestone, overlies the Cambrian with horizontal bedding in conformity therewith, as shown in the geological section, and is one thousand feet thick in the absence of erosion. Grouped around Ragged Top mountain, in the northwestern part of Lawrence county in the great lime plateau, extensive blanket and vertical deposits have been explored and the ores are being mined and milled. Among the chief min- ing companies operating here may be mentioned the Spearfish, Deadwood Standard, Potsdam. Balmoral. American, Little Bud, Ulster, Victoria, Eleventh Hour and Magnet. The largest mill, that of the Spearfish company, reduces three hundred tons of ore daily.

The variety of chemical and mechanical com- binations of the gold-bearing rocks of the Black Hills, necessitating radically different kinds of treatment for the several different classes of ore, has called for the application of the highest scientific methods of the metallurgists and skill of the mechanic for the economic extraction of the values. While many problems are yet to be solved and the industry still remains in the edu- cational stage, nevertheless, persistent applica- tion, years of experimentation and invention, have brought the business up to the present high standard of efficiency and results.

The ores of the Belt mines, known as free milling, are reduced by the ordinary stamp mill amalgamation process, with a secondary treat-

492

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

ment of the tailings by cyanide of potassium. The so-called refractory or siliceous ores of the Cambrian and carboniferous deposits are treated largely by the cyanide process, especially the oxidized lower grades, while the more refractory high-grade ores of this class are smelted. Pyritic or iron matte smelting is an outgrowth of con- ditions in the Black Hills and was first applied here from necessity and has proven highly satisfactory. The other new process, cyanide of potassium, has worked a revolution in the economy of mining in the Black Hills.

The cyanide process of recovering gold from refractory ores is a highly scientific chemical operation, the most valuable metallurgical dis- covery of modern times. The cheapness of the process permits of the working at a profit of low- grade ores not adapted to any other known method. It has turned old waste dumps and tail- ings piles into valuable assets ; abandoned mines are rejuvenated and their lean values made available by cyanide ; it has widened the mining field by transforming vast low grade areas here- tofore unworkable to active paying business.

There are now in operation in the various dis- tricts throughout the Black Hills nineteen stamp- amalgamation-mills working on free milling ores, with a total of one thousand two hundred and forty stamps, having an aggregate reduction capacity of four thousand nine hundred and sixty tons of ore each twenty-four hours; seventeen cyanide mills operating on crude ore with a total capacity of two thousand four hundred and ninety-five tons; and two cyanide mills treating tailings of eight hundred and one thousand three hundred tons daily capacity respectively ; and two pyritic smelters with a daily capacity of three hundred and five hundred tons respectively. While these figures show the total capacity of present Black Hills reduction plants, they do not represent the actual tonnage of ore reduced since the exigencies of the business necessitate periods of inactivity among the mills. New mines are being opened up and equipped with new mills, and each successive year witnesses the starting of new plants.

According to statistics compiled by Hon. Geo. E. Roberts, director of the United States mints, South Dakota stands third among the states of the union in gold production. The great mining states of Colorado and California only exceed the Black Hills of South Dakota ( the only gold- producing district in a great agricultural state) in annual production of gold.

The following table gives the total annual production since gold was first mined in the Black Hills from 1876 to 1903, inclusive :

Total

Year.

Production.

1876

$ 1,200,000

1877

2,000,000

1878

2,250,000

1879

2,500,000

1880

2,650,000

1881

2,550,000

1882

2,550,000

1883

2,525,000

1884

2,575,000

1885

2,750,000

1886

3,250,000

1887

3,420,000

1888

3,485,000

1889

3,550,000

1890

3,904,160

1891

4,619,270

1892

5,101,630

1893

6,750,000

1894

6,500.000

1895

6,800,000

1896

6,775,000

1897

6,524.760

1898

6,800,000

1899

7,000,000

1900

7,250,000

1901

7,500,000

1902

7,400,000

1903

7,229,000

Total

$127,408,820

From a mining point of view this young mineral empire occupies a unique · position and stands out in bold relief on the mining horizon, upon which nature has bestowed her choicest treasures with a bountiful hand. It may be said to contain practically all of the nobler as well as the chief useful metals and minerals of inorganic nature, the development of which brings new and buried wealth into circulation which ad- ministers to the comforts and pleasures of man- kind and adds to civilization and the commerce of the world. In the very infancy of develop- ment and production, yet its splendid record of

493

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

results shows continuous expansion with a future full of promise and unlimited possibilities. Its engineers and miners have perfected and applied economic methods to mining which have set the pace in other fields and placed the industry here in the class of legitimate industrial enterprise- with no more risk and far greater profit.

And yet the most important consideration, the basic principle upon which the whole mineral fabric rests, is the splendid geological conditions guaranteeing permanency and long life to the mines. It is a well established fact that the per- manent mining camps of this country-that the great productive metalliferous mines of the world are associated with eruptive rocks. With- out going into detail on the subject, suffice it to say there are fixed general principles accounting for the influence of eruptive rocks on the for- mation of ore bodies. The eruptive rocks and mineralizing agencies have a deep-seated origin and under powerful dynamic pressure, such as elevated the Black Hills, the eruptives were forced through the crust of the earth to the surface, opening channels and passage-ways whereby the mineral solutions could ascend and penetrate the strata, fill the fissures and deposit their values, thus creating and mineralizing the great primary veins and lodes famous from the earliest dawn of history to the present day in the annals of mining for indefinite continuity downward and workable longevity. Such mines are still yielding their treasures in Cornwall, Bo- hemia, Germany, Mexico and elsewhere under the same geological conditions, in contact or as- sociation with the eruptive rocks. Identical con- ditions prevail in the Black Hills, and its economic geology is equally favorable for long- lived and productive mines.

However, a demonstration of facts far out- weighs comparison, analogy, theory: Working shafts upon the lodes and the still deeper ex- ploration of the diamond drill warrant the state- ment that the great lodes of the Black Hills are. practically limitless and will continue to be worked on a merchantable basis by generations of the distant future.

THE IIOMESTAKE MINE.

The Homestake Mining Company was in- corporated under the laws of California in 1877 by several prominent mining men and capitalists of San Francisco, for the purpose of taking over the Homestake lode claim, from which the com- pany derived its name, given to the claim by Moses Manuel, the locator. The claim consisted of a gold prospect of less than ten acres, upon which an option to purchase for the sum of seventy thousand dollars had been secured by L. D. Kellogg, a trusted agent and mine expert who had examined and recommended the property. The prospect was visited later by George Hearst, the veteran miner, who approved of the same, and he, with James B. Haggin and Lloyd Tevis, became the active organizers of the company- responsible for the creation, development and success of the Homestake mine.

On the retirement and death of Samuel Mc- Masters in 1884, Thomas J. Grier, in the employ of the company, was promoted to the super- intendency, under whose conservative but able and forceful guidance of the working end, the Homestake mine in the past twenty years has grown and expanded to the magnificent propor- tions of today, the story of which will be briefly summarized in the following pages.

At the time of the purchase of the claim, ex- ploration consisted of small surface pits only ; and the prospect was considered by mining men as a doubtful proposition, but with favorable surface indications for the development of a mine. The Homestake Company, possessed of an abundance of capital and controlled by ex- pert miners, lost no time in further exploiting the property. Two shafts equipped with hoisting engines and various drifts were soon under way and the first mill of eighty stamps was con- structed and placed in commission in July, 1878.

The mine proved a producer from the first dropping of stamps, and the Homestake Com- pany from this small beginning entered upon that remarkable industrial career which has broken all records and set a new pace in the

494

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

world of gold mining. The values in the ore were small, but illimitable tonnage was placed in sight. Large mills and mining machinery and immense mechanical power to handle vast quan- tities of material with the most economic methods, were indispensable, under the conditions, for creating and upbuilding the most gigantic gold mining enterprises the world had ever known.

Guided by the development of the region, based on positive knowledge and results, uninflu- enced by the elements of chance, but governed by conservative business methods, the Homestake Company pursued a consistent policy of expansion and absorption. During the past twenty-five years it has acquired by purchase the properties of the Highland, Deadwood-Terra, Caledonia and Father DeSmet mining companies, besides other lesser companies and groups of claim's and many individual holdings. Starting with less than ten acres, the Homestake of today controls a contiguous body of mining ground extending from Deadwood creek on the north over the divide to Whitewood creek on the south, practic- ally a distance of two miles, comprising an area of two thousand six hundred and twenty-four acres, covering the strike of the great parallel lode system known as the Belt. The extensive mining operations of the Homestake are con- fined to this area, and the commercial and mining town of Lead, of eight thousand inhabitants, has grown up on and surrounding the property.

The enlargement of old and construction of new milling plants, hoisting and other machinery, the building of a great water-works system and extensive mine exploration have kept pace with the expansion in territory. The company now operates six stamp mills ; the smallest drops one hundred and the largest two hundred and forty stamps, with a total of one thousand stamps, which reduce four thousand tons of ore every twenty-four hours. Two cyanide mills treat the tailings from the stamp mills, of eight hundred and one thousand four hundred and fifty tous daily capacity respectively-both of which are undergoing enlargement.

Six shafts equipped with steam hoists, cages and modern appliances, from eight hundred to

one thousand one hundred feet in depth, are located at convenient points on the ground con- necting with the underground workings of the mine. All the ore mined is raised through these shafts, thence delivered to the mills by tramways operated by compressed air motors.

According to Bruce C. Yates, of the en- gineering department of the Homestake Com- pany, in a paper read by him before the Black Hills Mining Men's Association, there are forty- one miles of tramway track opened and laid in the underground workings; this does not in- clude the shafts, winzes, raises and other con- nections without tracks, which would make a total of many more miles of rock passage ways in the great mine. Air motors are being intro- duced for underground tramming of ore to hoisting stations, thereby supplanting horse and mule power in the mine.

The same authority gives the combined engine power, steam, electric and compressed air, applied to mills, hoists, rock drills, pumps, transportation, light, et cetera, to a total aggre- gating about ten thousand horse power in daily use by the Homestake Company.

The original capitalization of the Homestake Company of one hundred thousand shares has been increased on two separate occasions, the additional stock being devoted to the purchase, consolidation and betterment of the property. The company now has an authorized capitaliza- tion of twenty-one million eight hundred and forty thousand dollars, divided into two hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred shares of the par value of one hundred dollars each. In so far as the business of the company is concerned the par value is a negative quantity ; all individual holdings, transactions in the capital stock and dividends paid are computed by shares.

The Homestake Company began its marvel- lous dividend career in October, 1878, and each succeeding month since that time it has earned and made a contribution to its stockholders. From October. 1878, to April, 1904, inclusive, covering a period of twenty-five years and seven months, three hundred and seven consecutive monthly dividends have been paid, which aggre-

495

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

gate a total sum of $12,640,750-equivalent to $126.40 per share on the original 100,000 shares of the company. The combined dividends paid by the Homestake and the other mining com- panies prior to their consolidation with the Homestake amount to about twenty million dollars; and the total gross yield of the same is approximately seventy-five million dollars ; based on the United States mint returns, about ninety- nine per cent. of the values of the Homestake bullion is gold and one per cent. silver.

The annual gold production of the Home- stake mine is close to five million dollars, fifty per cent. of which is disbursed for the labor of two thousand five hundred employes carried on the pay rolls, and about one million dollars is profit.

In the various stopes and mine workings about one million tons of ore is always broken ready to draw from for supplying the mills. The great consolidated lode in depth with an ore body from three hundred and fifty to five hundred feet in width contains explored ore reserves suf- ficient for the operation of the company for a long and indefinite period of the future.

The Homestake Mining Company employs more labor than any other organization in the state, and is by far the largest financial and wealth-producing concern in South Dakota. (Bankers' Register, July, 1903.) It has created and put in circulation ninety per cent. more hard money than the combined paid-up capital, surplus and deposits of the three hundred and twenty- four banking institutions in the state. It pro- duces annually a sum equal to the paid-up capital

of all of said banks. The Homestake is es- sentially a great manufacturing enterprise en- gaged in the development of nature's storehouses and bringing new found riches from the depths of the earth to the light of day, the profits of which are disbursed monthly to two thousand stockholders-alike swelling the coffers of the affluent and bringing cheer and substance to many humble homes.

The exploitation of mother earth for the precious metals does not admit of unlawful monopolies or trusts ; it is a free and open field, accessible alike to the poorest prospector or the greatest financial corporation. The very nature of the business precludes monopolistic combina- tions for the reason that nature's most favored product, gold, the basis of all values, commands the markets of the world with an unvarying price as stable and immutable as the civilized gov- ernments of the earth. Legitimate gold mining despoils nature, not man, and however success- ful, its accumulations are not drawn from existing stores, but new wealth is transmuted from the stubborn rocks and diverted to the channels of commerce and the enrichment of mankind.

As a mine, the Homestake is recognized by the highest authorities as the leading producer of the world. The magnitude of its operations ; gross output ; twenty-five and a half years of consecutive monthly dividends ; immense un- broken ore reserves imparting vast longevity and unmeasured value to the mine, are conditions heretofore unknown and unequalled in the an- nals of gold mining.

CHAPTER LXXXV

ODD CHARACTERS AND INCIDENTS OF THE BLACK HILLS.

BY ELLIS TAYLOR PEIRCE.

[ Ellis Taylor Peirce, a Pennsylvania Quaker, is a native of Lancaster county, and came of English-Irish-Scotch stock. He is a cousin of Bayard Taylor, the celebrated traveler-author. Ellis was born April 24, 1846, and was educated at the Pennsylvania State Normal School at Mil- lersburg, from which institution he enlisted, in June, 1863, and rendered noteworthy service un- til March 16, 1865, when he was mustered out at St. Louis, a veteran of the Thirty-ninth Mis- souri Mounted Infantry. He arrived at Custer in February, 1876, and has from that time been an active citizen of the Hills. Having some knowledge of medicine and surgery, he was early called into requisition by ailing miners, whom he treated gratuitously and his cabin soon became a free hospital to which the destitute and friend- less instinctively turned. Peirce scouted in the Indian troubles, tried his hand at mining. chased road agents, and in 1878 was appointed sheriff of Custer county. Two years later he was elected sheriff of Pennington county and thus he came in contact with most of the hard characters who infested the Hills in the days of the early boom. Among his other exploits, he chased, with others, the Cold Spring road agents to the Missouri river. In 1902 he was elected to the legislature from Fall River county, where he now lives and is the manager of the Mammoth Plunge, at Hot Springs. Early in his Black Hills experience the old Oglala, Stinking Bear, gave the genial doctor the appellation "Bear Tracks," a soubriquet which still adheres to him. Mr. Peirce is a nat-

ural story-teller, and the following sketches indi- cate his method of handling the veracious history of an unique period.]

THE HINCH MURDER TRIAL.

On the night of July 9, 1876, John Hinch was stabbed to death in a saloon in Gayville. John McCarty and John R. Carty were after- wards arrested by deputy United States marshals down near Fort Laramie and held for the mur- der. Upon the last day of that July a wagon drove through the streets of Deadwood at a breakneck speed and those who saw it thought the team was running away. In that wagon was the person of John R. Carty, rolled up in blankets, in charge of Little Jack Davis, a deputy marshal from Cheyenne, who was bringing the prisoner back at his own request to stand trial. At the foot of Break Neck hill some one met Davis and told him it was unsafe to take the prisoner through Deadwood, as Hinch had many friends there who would certainly lynch Carty if they saw him. Davis consulted the prisoner and they concluded to adopt the ruse spoken of. When they arrived at Gayville, it being a very warm day, Davis unrolled the blankets and found the prisoner was about dead from suffocation, but he soon recovered. As soon as it was noised about that Carty was in town times became pretty lurid and the excitement was great. It was. however, agreed that he should have a fair trial, and the next day was selected as court day. On the morning of August Ist Deadwood Gulch re-

497

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

sembled a stampede, the objective point being Gayville. I followed the crowd and when we ar- rived at the town found the streets filled with ex- cited people discussing the coming trial and its probable results. One man had a rope in his hand and was explaining how they used to do up in Montana. Another one had a pair of Colonel Colt's equalizers, and was speaking very forcibly against Judge Lynch's court, saying they had hanged his partner, an innocent man, up in that country and it was the ambition of his life to live long enough to use his guns on a band of stranglers. Fearing he might conceive the notion that I did not agree with his views upon capital punishment. I moved on. The miners soon or- ganized a court, selected a man (O. H. Simon- ton) for judge, another (A. B. Chapline) to prosecute, and another (Mr. Mills) to defend the prisoner. A jury was selected and sworn in and given seats upon a big pile of logs in the middle of the street. A soap box was provided for the prisoner's seat, and twelve men sworn in as depu- ties to guard the prisoner. When all was ready the court ordered the prisoner to be produced, he having been guarded up to this time in a restaur- ant near by. The guards brought him out and you could hear a murmuring of threats, which made the prisoner at least feel very uneasy. The prosecuting attorney arose and began to outline his case, when big Bill Trainor got up and inter- fered. Johnny Flaherty, thinking that the court was not being properly respected, struck Mr. Trainor a terrific blow over the head with his big navy pistol and the jury fell off the log pile ; so did I; and in an instant every one had his gun in his hand. The guards rushed the prisoner into the restaurant and guarded the door, for it looked as if the trial was over. At this stage of the pro- ceedings, Little Jack Davis (a braver man God never made) mounted a box and addressed the mob: "Fellow citizens and miners-I arrested this man Carty and at his request brought him through an Indian country to stand trial for mur- dler, as he wanted to be tried by a jury of his peers-miners. Now if you will take him and give him a fair and square trial I will assist you, and if you find him guilty of that cold-blooded

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 69

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen Number of Pages: 998

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998