An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 77

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 77
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 77
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 77

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

330

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

pany has sufficient ore blocked out to keep a smelter busy for years to come and is now devoting its energies to the erection of reduction works. Good cabins have been erected on the property, a fine shaft house has been built and a first-class hoisting plant is in operation. The Fortune property is without doubt a leading property in the district.

The Vanemps property, owned by Leavenworth and Seattle capitalists, is another Fortune creek mine that is being rapidly and thoroughly devel- oped. The company expects to reach the ledge, for which they are driving a tunnel, within the next 500 or 600 feet. This tunnel, when completed, will be 1,000 feet long. The mine lies just over the Fortune creek divide on the Mount Stuart, or west, side. A force of twelve men is engaged in develop- ing the property.

The H. O. Helm syndicate, formed a year ago by eastern capitalists, also has a force of men at work on its properties, known as the Grizzly Bear group, in which are about fifteen claims, carrying the same grade of ore which is characteristic of the district.

One of the wonders of the district is a quick- silver mine, recently uncovered. At the head of Boulder creek on the summit of the ridge between Teanaway and Cle-Elum rivers is a great porphyry dike, carrying this cinnabar ore, running east and west. It is fully one hundred feet wide and on the west side spreads to a width of not less than IIO feet on the Keystone claim. This great dike is crosscut by quartz ledges from four feet upwards in width, carrying copper, gold, silver and nickel. The Keystone group, consisting of six claims, is owned by the Washington Quicksilver Mining Company, of Ellensburg, incorporated in December, 1903, with the following officers, all substantial Kit- titas business men: John Somers, president ; Adolph Elsner, vice-president; Gerrit d'Ablaing, secretary and manager; Charles H. Flummerfelt, treasurer; John Somers, Adolph Elsner, Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, Charles H. Flummerfelt and Gerrit d'Ablaing, trustees; capital, $1,500,000. The property consists of the following claims : the Key- stone, Nickel, Cottontail, Keystone Fraction, the Clawson and the Green Bear claims. The main ledge is from 20 to II0 feet in width and carries cinnabar assaying from 8 to 23.50 per cent. of quicksilver, and from $2.40 to $15 in gold. A recent assay by Thomas Price & Son, of San Fran- cisco, showed 23.53 per cent. of quicksilver, which is equivalent to 470.6 pounds per ton of ore. The property is as yet developed only by open cuts and short tunnels, but upon each claim a showing has been made which gives promise of immense rich- ness. The current year will witness a great amount of development work upon this unique mine.

Among other prominent mines and prospects of the district upon which sufficient work has been done to prove the existence of rich ore bodies are the following groups and single claims: The Dutch

Miller, Tip. Top, Mountain Chief, Queen of the Hills, Ruby King, Mary, Gamblers, Dream, Snow Camp, Eureka, Ida Elmore, Sure Thing, Grand View, Epha, Cascade, Silver Dump, Maud O., Beaver, Wright, Cinnabar, Huckleberry, Gallaher's group of twenty claims upon which a small smelter will probably be erected this summer, Washington Copper Preferred Company's group, H. Robbin's property, the Westfall, Currency, the Cle-Elum Hawk, Groundhog, Copper King, Vidette, the Paddy-Go-Easy, Golden Rule, American Eagle, Early Bird, Ella, and many others.

Each year sees a greater development of the district, the discovery of more rich prospects and a steady advance in installing machinery, erecting buildings, etc. The erection of a smelter at sonie point on or near the railroad is expected, for the presence of large and exceedingly rich bodies of refractory ores has been proven beyond a doubt.

By the creation of Chelan county, Kittitas lost several small mining districts, the most prominent of which was the well known Peshastin, lying on the Wenatchee slope. This old district has been a producer for more than forty years, first of placer gold, then of quartz and the base metals. The rich Mount Stuart copper district, as yet in a pro- spective stage, is also practically all located in Chelan county.

THE SWAUK.

Kittitas county's noted gold camp, the Swauk district, lies in the foothills of the Cascade range, twenty-five miles northwest of Ellensburg, upon the stream whose name it bears. The district is easily accessible, either from Cle-Elum by a good wagon road sixteen miles to Liberty, the center of the district, or by an equally good wagon road from Ellensburg, a distance of thirty-six miles from Lib- erty. From Liberty roads radiate to the several small creeks, and so open are the valley and hill- side lands that in many places a buggy may be driven through the woods. The whole region is strikingly beautiful with its magnificent pine and fir groves, grassy plains, sloping uplands and low divides, while it is noted far and wide for its pure water and healthy, invigorating climate. Liberty is the district's business point and postoffice, a village of perhaps a hundred inhabitants.

As the history of this old mining camp has been given full attention in the general chapters of the county's history wherein is told the story of dis- covery and early exploitation, it is necessary to touch but lightly upon that period. Gold was dis- covered on Swauk creek in the fall of 1867 by Benton Goodwin, a deaf mute. However, its impor- tance was not then realized even by the discoverer. In 1873 Mr. Goodwin again found gold on Dis- covery bar and from this the real development of Swauk dates. For a few years a small though extremely successful and lively camp resulted ; then the placer leads were lost and for a decade the dis-

331

DESCRIPTIVE.

trict was all but abandoned. The present pros- perity of the camp dates from the middle eighties. The present district was organized at a meeting held in John Black's cabin, May 7, 1884, attended by the following pioneer miners: D. L. Evans, chairman ; G. L. Howard, secretary; John Black, Luke McDermott, T. Lloyd Williams, S. Bandy, James A. Gilmour, Zeb Keller, Moses M. Emerson, James Boxall, Daniel May, J. C. Pike, W. H. El- liott, Thomas F. Meagher, L. McClure, A. J. Wintz, Louis Quietsch.

One of the incidents that led to the rejuvena- tion of the district was the discovery in 1884 of the old channel on Williams creek by Thomas F. Meagher, Louis Quietsch and J. C. Pike, who had spent considerable time prospecting for it. This old channel runs a little south of west and north of east and is cut diagonally by the present channel about a mile from the mouth of Wil- liams creek. The gold is all coarse, and in flat, smooth nuggets, one of which is said to have weighed 171/2 ounces. The discovery of this old channel was made on Discovery claim. Edward and William Taylor and H. M. Cooper also made important early discoveries along this old channel on Williams creek.

Meaghersville was established on the Frac- tion claim at the mouth of Lyons gulch in 1892 by T. F. Meagher, and although the town was never formally platted, quite a little trading cen- ter was maintained there for several years. H. M. Bryant erected the first store and Mr. Meagher also had a mercantile establishment. For a long time Meaghersville was the distributing point for the Williams creek mines, but it is now aban- doned.

In 1892 a plan was proposed for the construc- tion of a bedrock flume to furnish water for the whole district. The Swauk Bedrock Flume Com- pany, composed of John A. Shoudy, Lewis H. Jenson and George O. Kelly, was organized with a capital of $500,000, but the financial strin- gency killed the project. Since the era of good times dawned in the late nineties, the Swauk has enjoyed steady prosperity and development, the consolidation of property and the exploitation of the quartz ledges being the principal features. In other sections of the state placer mining has quickly become secondary to quartz mining, but on the Swauk and its tributaries placer mining still holds first place. Quartz has only very re- cently begun to distract attention from the rich placers.

"The gold of the Swauk placers," says a re- liable authority, "is believed to have come from Table mountain on the east and the Teanaway range on the west, and is found in the bars which cover old creek channels along the banks of Wil- liams, Bowlder and Baker creeks, and of Swauk creek between Baker and First creeks, a distance of three miles north and south and about the

same east and west. The country rock is sand- stone and slate, with dikes of basalt and por- phyry, the bedrock of the old channels being slate, with occasional dikes of sandstone and basalt, carrying from two to three per cent. of iron. One theory is that the gold in Williams creek and in the Swauk below that creek came from the summit of Table mountain, for on this level plateau there is said to be good pay dirt, and all its drainage runs into the Swauk, and all the valleys and gulches carry more or less placer gold. However, the fact that little gold has been found in the Swauk above Baker creek, and that all the coarse gold is found on the bedrock of old channels between this stream and First creek, leads to the conclusion that the gold deposits in the Swauk itself were not washed down by that stream, but by its tributaries, Baker, Williams and Bowlder creeks. The upper dirt carries only fine gold in most instances, and the miners do not take the trouble to attempt to save it, but in the old channel big nuggets are found. The char- acter of the ground above Baker creek is also different, for it is all hill wash, while below that stream it is evidently channel wash, with boul- ders of a different character. The nuggets range in size from a pinhead up, the larger ones being generally rough, flat pieces about three-quarters of an inch thick, or in the shape of a network of wires, mashed together by the action of the water. They are found in the three or four feet of dirt next to the bedrock. The product of Wil- liams creek is worth $1.50 to $2 an ounce more than that of Swauk and Baker creeks, as the latter carries considerable silver. The Swauk gold is worth $13.50 an ounce, and that of Wil- liams creek $14.50 to $15.

"The good pay in coarse gold has led the miners to despise fine gold as not worth the trouble of saving, yet it has been proven by pan- ning the dumps that they will pay well for work- ing over, and that more careful and systematic work would bring good results. Experience has shown that the gold is finer toward the mouth of a stream, and thus it is that the nugget hunters have worked only the bars for two miles below Liberty. That there is good pay in the gravel beyond that point is proven by the fact that Chinamen who worked there many years ago earned from two to three dollars a day to the man, and that shafts sunk deeper than their workings showed dirt carrying twenty dollars to the pan."

Nuggets worth $1,120, $700, $450, $440, $320 and on down to $20 have been taken from the Swauk creek placers. The largest, which is known as the "Miser's Face," was taken out two years ago by the Elliott Mining Company, com- posed of Dr. J. C. McCauley and George B. Hen- ton, while developing the Elliott claim. Benton Goodwin says that in the early days of the camp

332

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

an unknown Chinaman stole a $700 nugget from his claim.

The first important step toward the consolida- tion of the placers and their working upon one systematic, general plan was taken in May, 1898, when The Cascade Mining Company, a syndicate of Wisconsin capitalists, acquired the following well-known properties: The Becker, Ritz, Eu- reka, Pat Hurley, Tenderfoot, Swauk and Wil- liams High Bar placers, Black, Halvor Nelson, Gustaf Nilson, Mascotte, High Stump, Lillie, Klondyke, Sunnyside, Bloomer, Why Not, Gold Channel, Fremont, Discovery and Theresa. This syndicate now owns the present channel of Wil- liams creek from its mouth to Lyons gulch and is now engaged in drifting and hydraulicking with a large force of men. Piping is going on in Deer gulch. Water is taken out of both Williams and Swauk creeks, between 5,000 and 10,000 inches being used by the pipes and an elevator. T. P. Carson is superintendent of this company. Mr. Meagher says that the Discovery and Theresa group of placers have produced at least $80,000.

Just above the Cascade Company's property on Williams creek lies the Bigney claim, now owned and operated by Miss Alice Barber, of Puget sound. This claim has produced, since its discovery in 1886, nearly $70,000. A force is drifting in on the old channel at this writing.

The Elliott claim, owned by Dr. J. C. Mc- Cauley, William Elliott and George B. Henton, is at the mouth of Bowlder creek. This is one of the richest claims in the district and has produced steadily for fifteen years. The Elliott Mining Company is now drifting.

On Bowlder creek the Bowlder Mining Com- pany, of Philadelphia, Carl Ennakole manager, is operating. Their properties comprise the Suther- land, Little May, Bowlder, No. I and No. 2 and a few other claims, all placers, besides which they have five or six quartz claims, now being opened. These properties were opened about eight years ago by James Sutherland and Gus Siegel. In 1902 a $320 nugget was taken out by the Bowlder Company.

No values of importance have ever been taken out on Williams creek above the mouth of Bowlder creek, except by Samuel Pearson, who owns four claims. Edward Minkel and Louis Quietsch, the latter being one of the oldest pio- neers in the camp, if not the oldest, own claims on upper Williams creek.

The Livingston claims, six miles above the mouth of Swauk creek, are the lowest claims mined on that stream. There are three in the group. Thence north to the district's limits is practically all controlled or owned by the Cas- cade Company. This corporation purchased the old Green Tree claims in 1898. Afterward it was found that the title to this valuable property was

clouded and before the matter could be arranged the claims were filed upon by other parties, who, it is understood, still retain possession. Costly litigation is expected.

Hitherto the miners of the Swauk have shown a decided aversion to outside capital, which would work the placers on a large scale by modern meth- ods and therefore more economically, but this spirit is being rapidly overcome and the Swauk placers bid fair to produce more lavishly in the future than in the past. The ground has been worked only enough to prove its value, only about one-tenth of the gravel having been worked. It is impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy the amount of gold that has been taken from the Swauk mines, but without a doubt seven figures would be required to express it. As time passes more and more atten- tion will be paid to quartz prospecting and mining, for fabulously rich ledges must exist somewhere in the region to have thrown off such nuggets as have been found.

The principal quartz mining company operating in the district now is the Home Mining Company, of which Thomas Johnson, of Cle-Elum, is man- ager, and W. T. Burcham president. This com- pany owns five claims on the north fork of the Teanaway river near its head, discovered as late as 1900, by N. S. Snow. The ores carry gold, with a small amount of copper and silver. The main ledge, which is fourteen and a half feet wide, is said to carry values of from $28 up. This ledge is now being thoroughly developed on the Surprise claim, where a Huntington mill was installed in 1902, though it was not operated until last fall. Besides this mill the company has two concen- trators, a Standard and a Frue Vanner. In 1902, also, the company built sixteen miles of road, con- necting the mine with Ryopatch settlement on the Teanaway.

KLICKITAT COUNTY.

Of the three counties of our group, Klickitat is, perhaps, the most picturesque. Its entire southern and southeastern boundary is formed by the ma- jestic Columbia, which for the sublimity and grandeur of its scenery takes rank with the world's greatest rivers. Travelers have compared it very favorably with the Rhine, the Hudson and the St. Lawrence and some have even asserted its superior- ity to any of these in point of beauty and variety. "Nowhere," said a newspaper man of Fort Worth, Texas, who had gone wherever the people claimed they had something novel and pretty or grand and inspiring, "nowhere have I seen anything that is entitled to be placed in the same category with the Columbia river. It is a scene of beauty from the time one boards the steamer at The Dalles until he passes out over the bar to sea. It has all the ele- ments of natural beauty. It brings one to pretty bits of scenery such as poets are prone to write of ; and then perhaps the very next moment one turns

333

DESCRIPTIVE.

about on the deck of the steamer to gaze at a mass of ragged, jagged rocks that rise thousands of feet in the air and impress one with majesty and enor- mity." It is doubtful if persons thoroughly familiar with the Columbia by reason of long residence in the vicinity fully appreciate the wondrous beauty of its sublime scenes or the effect they have upon the tourist who beholds them for the first time.

The Klickitat river, which belongs entirely to Klickitat county, is somewhat similar in the forma- tion of its banks to the great stream of which it is a tributary. The construction of the Columbia River & Northern railroad has introduced it to the attention of the public and caused its charms. to be quite widely advertised. It is a constantly chang- ing source of interest to the passenger, at times flowing languidly, and again with the impetuosity of a mountain torrent, forming small cascades or sometimes miniature falls. Two and a half miles above Lylé it makes a very considerable leap, devel- oping a water power which will not always go unharnessed. Just below the falls the railroad crosses the river for the first time. The spot is a very entrancing one. Far below the tracks is the rushing river, speeding between its rocky banks and over its rocky bed. Narrow and deep is the channel it has made for itself and long were the ages that the river was engaged in performing this miglity feat of erosion. As the train journeys inland numerous other scenes of rare beauty are presented to the gaze of the tourist, and the view is none the less picturesque when it has traversed the canyons of the Big Klickitat and Swale creek and has come up among the farms and homes of the famous Klick- itat valley.

Indeed there is hardly a spot in the county that is lacking in scenic charms unless it be in the heart of the forest, where one's view is cut off by the tall conifers on every hand. The gently rolling wheat fields of the Bickleton country and the Klickitat valley everywhere present scenes that are pleasing and inspiring and he who will take the trouble to climb in midsummer to the peak of some lofty emi- nence will be rewarded by a wondrous birdseye view of wheat fields, rank and green, or ripening for the harvest, and the deep black of the summer fal- lowed lands, while in the distance are lofty hills and timber clad mountains and far beyond the whole, the still loftier crests of the famous ranges of Oregon and Washington with their renowned snow capped peaks. From some points on the Columbia river divide a view may be had of almost the entire fairyland of the Northwest, with Hood, St. Helens, Adams, Jefferson and the Three Sisters all visible, some of them hundreds of miles away.

The beauty of the scenery, the purity and whole- someness of the water, the balmy, bracing air, the mildness of the summer sun, the abundance of the fish in the streams and the presence of game in the more remote regions have caused the Klickitat country to be visited by pleasure seekers annually

for many years, and it is thought that the number of those who come here for their summer outing will increase rapidly as the varied charms of the region become more widely known. The popular pleasure resort of the county at present is Trout Lake, which is easily accessible by stage or private conveyance from White Salmon or Bingen on the Columbia river. At low water the lake covers only about sixty acres, though during the winter season it spreads over an entire section. "Its bottom is generally covered with mossy grass, affording good teed for fish, while rushes thickly border it. The stream above the lake is called the inlet and below it the outlet. Thousands of fish have been caught in the lake and streams each season, but the supply is seemingly undiminished; yet it has been thought necessary to replenish the waters, and in 1901 there were planted 15,000 trout, hatched at Leadville, Colorado, and in 1902, about 20,000, hatched from eggs obtained at the same place."

"Although people have been coming here for outings in summer since 1884," continues the writer from whom the foregoing quotation was made, "yet if the advantages were better known the number would be increased five or ten fold. In the season of 1884 only forty or fifty people came, while this season (1903) the number will reach 1,000. Tents of campers are scattered along the beautiful creek, and the one hotel (Guler's) has its accommodation taxed to the limit. So far campers have not been required to pay any rental and supplies are readily obtainable at cheap prices. Rates for room and board at the hotel are only six dollars per week. Trout are so plentiful that many complain of being surfeited with them. Deer, bears, grouse and pheas- ants are found in the woods which on all sides sur- round the clearings of the ranches, while the lake is a great resort for anglers. Boats are obtained at a nominal rental, and the sportsmen anchor out in the shallow water and generally make a fine catch. The inlet is a succession of pools varying from four to sixteen feet in depth and ten to twenty-five feet in width. The water is clear as crystal, and its limpid depths teem with trout. Overhanging branches from the cottonwoods give shade which always brings coolness. Trout creek is a brawling mountain stream, in which are many riffles and small waterfalls. It is somewhat wider but shal- lower than the inlet and everywhere yields fish."

On all sides of the cleared farms is dense timber and a few miles to the northward is that grand peak, Mount Adams, contributing immeasurably to the im- pressiveness of the scenery. Another attraction of the region is the series of wonderful caves, situated about seven miles from Guler's hotel; chiefest among which is the ice cave, so named from the fact that huge icicles are present within it at all seasons of the year. Entrance is gained to it through a hole about fifteen feet in diameter. Dense darkness within makes it necessary for ex- plorers to provide themselves with torches and the

334

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

light, reflected from the surfaces of thousands of icicles, gives the cave the appearance of a fairy, crystal palace. The cave is reported to be parti- tioned off into great chambers of which the walls and floor are of ice, the dome of ice, adorned every- where with pendant icicles, and the pillars of ice.

But Klickitat county's scenery and its charm for the sportsman and the tourist are not the only things, nor yet the principal things, in its favor. While that which appeals to the æsthetic is always grateful to an intelligent people, the conditions of human existence are such as to render the wealth producing powers of the country paramount in in- portance and one of the first considerations of the homeseeker. Klickitat county is like most other portions of the state of Washington in having a great abundance and variety of only partially appro- priated elements of wealth. Almost every acre has a value for the timber or bunch-grass that is upon it, or the hay, wheat or fruit it can produce. There is wealth everywhere and that which has been appropriated is slight compared with that which remains to be garnered when conditions are more favorable and the population is greater and time shall have done its perfect work. In the Trout Lake country already referred to Stoller and Stad- elman and Pierson and other pioneers have proved that the soil is capable of producing hay and tame grass in abundance, also the hardy vegetables, wheat, oats, rye and other cereals and such fruits as apples, prunes, plums and cherries. As a result the country has become one of the leading dairy sections of the Klickitat; a number of capacious sawmills have been built and put in operation, a vil- lage has sprung up, and the wilderness has been converted into homes for a thrifty, progressive and prosperous people. A creamery and cheese factory lend encouragement to the dairy industry, making it abundantly remunerative.

Another little community in the western part of Klickitat county and not far from Trout lake is that occupying Camas Prairie and vicinity. The home of the people is a small, grass clad mountain valley and they get their 'mail at Glenwood postoffice, where are also an excellent general store and hotel. The principal occupation of the people is stock raising and dairying, the latter industry having had its inception in May, 1898, when the Camas Prairie Cheese Factory began operations. It was installed in a building put up by Oliver Kreps, though the machinery was furnished by T. S. Townsend, who was manager of the enterprise. The plant, aside from the building, has recently passed into the hands of Oscar Brown, by whom cheese will be manufactured for patrons at a given rate per pound. The plan of the former management was to buy the butter fat from the farmers at a price of two and a half cents per pound below Portland quota- tions, a plan which was not generally satisfactory.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 77

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146