USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 49
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If Prichard's statement be accepted, his discovery of placer gold was made,
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therefore. in the spring of 1880. He remained on the South Fork in 1880, work- ing on the Evolution lead and prospeeting, but in 1881 went over the mountains, alone, to the North Fork country, and prospeeted on Prichard ereck. From one pan of dirt there, according to Mrs. Prichard, he washed out $42. These were bonanza returns, and Priehard must have realized, as an old prospector, that if the faets became known outside they would ereate a sensation and precipitate a stampede. For that he was not ready, a faet which explains his quiet operations over a period of three or four years. He held infidel or "liberal" views, was a constant reader of the "Truth Seeker," and cherished a dream of a colony made up of people holding to his anti-religious opinions. In 1888 the Spokane Review printed a copy of a letter from Priehard to a "liberal friend," dated "Evolution, January 7, 1883." "I have made a discovery," he affirmed, "of a gold-bearing country that will give employment to at least 15,000 to 20,000 men. There are two streams that I have prospected well; one is sixteen to twenty-five miles long, as near as I ean judge; the other twelve to sixteen miles, and an average width of sixty to seventy rods ; have found gold on three other streams of near the same size, but have not tested them enough to know how they will pay. The two streams I speak of will pay their whole length, and probably most of their tributaries, with an abundance of good timber and water. Bedroek from five to twelve feet. Gold coarse and of good quality. There are two good and natural townsites where will be built eities representing thousands in less than two years, and the country is traversed with hundreds of mineral bearing lodes of quartz. And now for good reasons which I have not time to explain, I would like to see as much of this go into the hands of the liberals as possible, and also see them build a city where they ean have their own laws and enough of this vast mining region to support it, which they ean do if they will go at it cool and work together."
Meanwhile Priehard had continued his prospeeting on the North fork. In 1882. accompanied by William Dempsey, Phil Markson, Fanning and Gelatt, he located elaims near the mouth of Eagle ereek. and the party put in several months preparing to work the ground.
"In March, 1883," says William S. Shiaeh, in the History of North Idaho. "Mr. Prichard located, in the vicinity of the present Murray, the Discovery group, con- sisting of four elaims. one of which was for his son Jesse. one for Mrs. C. A. Schultz of Michigan, one for Mrs. Mary H. Lane of Illinois (this is the elaim which subsequently beeame known as the 'Widow's claim'), and one for Willard (). Endieott, a son of Mr. Priehard's old lieutenant. In each of these Prichard was to have a half interest for working and management. Besides the Discovery group he took a great many other claims on the creek bank for different friends by power of attorney. Gelatt took a elaim which developed into one of the lead- ing producers in the eamp. Dempsey located plaeer ground about a mile above Eagle."
Priehard derived little substantial or enduring benefit from his discoveries. He died in his lonely eabin, near Murray, a deeade ago, dreaming to the last of the glory that was his, and the hidden gold which lay, as he believed, in the claims he had retained so long, and so faithfully developed from year to year.
Letters from Priehard to members of Liberal leagues throughout the Rocky mountain and Pacific coast states and territories awakened widespread interest
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and by early summer, 1883, miners, prospectors and adventurers in large numbers were entering the Coeur d'Alene country. Prichard had done his work with thor- oughmess-had located for friends nearly all the valuable ground along Priehard creek, and in protest against his greed later arrivals started the practice of claim jumping. Prichard and his little group of partners on the ground saw that they could not hold claims for absentees, and sent a hurried call to friends in the Palouse country. "At least fifty responded," says Shiach, "coming in by every species of conveyance," and about that time another party of thirty, led by Wm. Stillwell, Barney MeAleer and William Osburn came upon the seene. "At first claims were held by those who could muster the greatest show of force to defend their real or pretended rights. but the numerous disputes were later taken into the courts and made the subject of protraeted and costly litigation."
The Northern Pacific, nearing completion that year, had been built at enormous expense through a wild and unsettled region. Foreign bondholders were beginning to question the soundness of Mr. Villard's judgment in placing their investments in so desolate a region, and officials of the company seized eagerly on news of the gold find to stimulate travel and foster the country's development. A circular they scattered far and wide in the summer of 1883 was later severely blamed for the midwinter rush of 1883-4, with all its attendant disappointments. hardships and suffering.
"The claims are very rich," said the railroad pamphlet. "Nuggets have been found which weigh $50, $100. $166 and $200. The ore taken from veins shows a great amount of free gold; in fact, it fairly glistens. Such is a brief sketch of the Coeur d'Alene mines, which surpass in richness and volume the most fabulous quartz and placers ever discovered, even the famous deposits of Potosi being inferior to those which underlie the mountains of the Coeur d'Alenes. As the mines of the old world. some of which have been worked since the eleventh century, are still employing thousands of men, the conclusion to be drawn in regard to the Coeur d'Alenes. a region far superior in every way. is that they are inexhaustible, and although thousands may work them. there will still be room for thousands more."
This was conjecture, pure and audacious, but the prophet divined even wiser than he knew.
Ambitious towns on the Northern Pacific engaged in keen rivalry as outfitting points for the new mines. Chief of these were Spokane, Rathdrum and Thompson Falls, Montana. Spokane and Rathdrum ran opposition stage lines to Coeur d'Alene City, where passengers took steamer up Coeur d'Alene lake and river to Kingston. There a train of thirty saddle horses conveyed them to Jackass. on the Mullan road three miles above Kingston. and thence over the divide to Eagle City, the first town to be laid out in the placer district. Town lots there in March brought from $200 to $2.000. Heating stoves sold at from $20 to $80, and cook stoves at $75 to $150. Mail was carried on snow shoes, and the carriers charged fifty cents for a letter. "Many a poor fellow is in camp who cannot pay fifty vents for a letter." protested the Nugget newspaper: "many a one who could do so cannot get his letters with any degree of promptness or certainty."
Conditions there were thus pictured by the Eagle in April. 1881:
"Eagle presents the appearance of a hard place. Its buildings are located on
CITY OF COEUR D'ALENE, IDAHO
INDIANS IN BARK CANOE ON LAKE CALISPEL
OLD COEUR D'ALENE MISSION
Sketched by Stevens' Expedition in 1853
FORT SHERMAN ON SHORE OF LAKE COEUR D'ALENE
Now abandoned
Y ..
LAKE PEND D'OREILLE, FORMERLY CALLED LAKE KALISPELM
V 3.IL LIBRARY
ILUV FOUNDATIONS
ME NEW YORK 'PUBLIC LIBRARY
AUTOA LINUX
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lots from which snow to the depth of four feet has been excavated and dumped into the street, so that between the buildings and the streets there is a solid wall of snow. The buildings are composed of logs and shakes. Great tents with gaudily painted signs loom up in endless variety, while from within eome the sound of revelry and strains of music, the click of chips and metallic chink of hard cash as it passes over the bar. The streets and publie plaees are thronged night and day with miners and prospectors waiting for the snow to disappear, so they can get off into the mountains on their annual prospecting tour. Then there are the packers and transient population, a tough-looking erowd, but very orderly, who stand around enjoying the luxury of a sun hath.
"On the corners are knots of men talking mines and, mining, and criticizing ore specimens that pass from hand to hand, The stores are thronged disenssing the locality and merits of the last new thing in strikes. The report of a pistol shot will bring a hundred men to their fect for an instant, and the saloons will disgorge twice as many more in the same moment, all on the alert to cateh a sensa- tion, which has never oceurred yet. Then there are the arrival of pack trains and toboggans in a more or less advaneed stage of dilapidation from hard usage on the different trails. . This is about the status of Eagle today. Every branch of business is well represented. We have two banks, several stores of general merchandise, and more saloons and lodging houses than you can shake a stick at."
"In the late fall of 1883 Coeur d'Alene was struck, but there was not much doing till the early summer of 1881." says M. M. Cowley. "Spokane was then a town of 900 to 1,000 people, but what they were lacking in numbers they made up in energy, perseverance and pluek. When gold was struck the movement of mining men towards the Cocur d'Alenes was picturesque and characteristic of the early inhabitants of the country. There was a stage line established in the winter of 1883, to take passengers to Coeur d'Alene City, in opposition to one from Rath- drum to the same place, and a rivalry sprang up between the two towns to get the people from the Northern Pacific railroad to the lake. Those who were not finan- cially able to ride on stages, steamboats or on horseback, went afoot, with their blankets and food on their backs.
"When the excitement was at its height, in the early spring of 1881, a young man passed by where I then lived, at Spokane Bridge, with his blankets and a very limited supply of food. He was a talkative chap, and in the conversation about the mines I asked him where he came from. He replied San Francisco, where he had been working for Murphy. Grant & Co., a large firm in that eity. 'Have you any mining experience?' He answered no. 'Well,' said I, 'you take the advice of an experienced person. Go baek now, if your job is open, and resume the dry-goods business. You are too young for this opening.' He went on, and in the late fall he turned up again, on his way back to San Franciseo, and he had made over $1,000 in a very peeuliar way. He had started a lodging house by driving pickets in the ground in a circle, with an opening for a door, and got tentage enough to cover it on credit, as he had none, er very little cash, and charged fifty cents a night for allowing a person to spread his own blankets inside the enclosure. Of course he kept the place elean, and kept a lock on the door. and all his patrons were satisfied with the aecommodations."
Vol. 1-25
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Soon Eagle City had its rivals, and before the end of 1884 Murray had taken the lead. Mushroom towns sprang up that year, flourished a few fevered months, and became a memory. In this class were Beaver City, Carbon City, Butte City (later Littlefield), Raven City, and Myrthe.
Development proved that many of the 2,000 placer claims staked out that year in the North Fork country were good producers. A number of them yielded an ounce a day to the man, and a few were much richer, but the diggings fell short of expectations. and never approximated the wealth of old Pierce City, Orofino and Florence. Hundreds of disappointed men, taking the back trail after a few weeks of idleness or superficial effort at prospecting, were emphatic in denuncia- tion of the country and the men and interests who were blamed for inviting the stampede.
But men of pluck and persistence, plenty of them, stayed with the country. They saw that it was full of mineral, both quartz and placer; that time is required to test a new mining camp; and that a determined fellow, not afraid of work and hard fare in the virgin wilderness, stood an excellent chance of turning up a fortune. Of this type were Phil O'Rourke, seasoned by years of experience in Colorado, N. S. Kellogg. Con Sullivan, "Dutch Jake" Goetz and easily several hundred others. Time has amply sustained their judgment. for within a twelve- month after the district's fierce denunciation. came discovery of the marvelous treasure vaults of the South Fork region, mines which literally have surpassed the famous historie producers of old Potosi.
Most famous of them all perhaps comes the Bunker Hill and Sullivan, dis- covered in the fall of 1885-not by the historie donkey. although the donkey figured conspicuously and profitably to its owners in subsequent litigation. but by the trained eye of Phil O'Rourke.
Early in the sunumer of 1885 Cooper & Peck of Murray "grubstaked" N. S. Kellogg for a prospecting trip through the hills. Thus provided with $18.75 worth of provisions and tools, and a Mexican burro as beast of burden. Kellogg scouted over the South Fork country for sixty days, and returned to Murray with samples from a big iron-capped quartz ledge he had discovered, near the present site of the town of Kellogg. Cooper & Peck showed this ore to John M. Burke. who saw at once that it was not free milling gold rock, and when so informed the grubstakers expressed their disappointment in pretty sharp terms to Kellogg.
Jacob Goetz ("Dutch Jake") says Kellogg showed his samples to Phil O'Rourke. and "it didn't take Phil a minute to see that they gave promise of producing some galena or carbonates like the ores that made Colorado famous. Phil came to me and told me we'd better join Kellogg in staking that ground, so I turned our cayuses and provisions over to Phil and Kellogg, and they struck right off for the South Fork. Meantime Kellogg had notitied Cooper & Peck that he had quit the grubstake deal with them."
On Milo creek they lost a packhorse, and while old man Kellogg went in search of it. O'Rourke scouted up Milo gulch. Near its head he found "Boat" galena, "and though it was dreadful hard work to get through the brush and fallen timber, he climbed up the hill about 500 feet, and there he stumbled upon the great Bunker Hill ledge, sticking right up out of the ground. There was nothing
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in sight but glittering galena, and O'Rourke knew he had found the greatest thing ever discovered in the northwest."
O'Rourke told the writer, several years later, that at sight of that shining mass of ore, glistening in the autumn sunlight, his strength forsook him, he turned weak in the knees, and was unable to walk until he had sat down and rested for half an hour. "That night," says "Dutch Jake," "he wrote out the location notice and called the mine the Bunker Hill, after the battle of the revolution. But he decided it would be better to have Kellogg sign the notice as locator.
"Next morning they started up the gulch about two miles to make the loca- tion, but their cayuses had strayed away. As luck would have it, they found the old white burro that Cooper & Peck had turned over to Kellogg as a part of his grubstake. The burro had wandered away when Kellogg was there first. They caught the beast, and loading their picks and grub on it, went up the gulch to the Bunker Hill lode. Then Kellogg happened to think that maybe he'd better not appear as locator, for Cooper & Peck might claim an interest on account of his first grubstakc. So they threw away the location notice, with Kellogg as locator and wrote a new one, with O'Rourke as locator and Kellogg as witness.
"They went back to Murray next morning, and the sight of their samples set the camp crazy. Everybody knew in a general way that the find was on the South Fork, and although O'Rourke and Kellogg wouldn't tell folks exactly where it lay, the miners were getting ready for a stampede.
"Phil took me off to one side and wanted me to locate the extension of the Bunker Hill. He thought that I'd better take Con Sullivan along with me. Sullivan was a sort of side partner of Phit's. That night at 10 o'clock Con and I started out in a furious rain, without even a pack horse."
Goetz and Sullivan lost their bearings, wandered over into the St. Joc coun- try, and for two days were without food and almost destitute of water. . They rambled in a circle, and finally came out on the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene, Sullivan went on to the discovery, but Goetz returned to Murray in a rage, think- ing O'Rourke had tried to deceive him by giving wrong directions. "But when I reached Murray I got word to come back to the strike, so back I went, and found out that Phil had made a mistake.
"Meanwhile Cooper & Peck had been over there looking at the strike. They found the first location notice that Kellogg had thrown aside, and they learned through the talk of Kellogg and O'Rourke that the two used Cooper & Peck's burro in making the location. That was enough for Cooper & Peck. and they com- menced suit against the locators for a half interest in the property on account of their original grubstake. They didn't think of locating the extensions to the Bunker Hill, for O'Rourke had put up some fictitious posts to cover the ground. So when I got back there Sullivan and I located an extension, and we called it the Sullivan mine, in honor of John I. Sullivan, the pugilist. It was staked Sep- tember 10, 1885, just ten days after the Bunker Hill was staked.
"When Cooper & Peck's suit for a grubstake was brought in the district court at Murray the jury gave a verdict against them. However, Judge Norman Buck, who presided. reversed the jury's verdict and held that the real discoverers of the Bunker Hill were Phil O'Rourke. Kellogg and the jackass, which was the property of Cooper & Peck. He gave them a quarter interest in the Sullivan
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and a half interest in the Bunker Hill. It was shown in the trial that Messrs. Cooper & Peck only went good for a grubstake to Kellogg, amounting to $22.85. They had paid $2.10 of it and the balance is unpaid to this day. W. B. Heyburn, now senator from Idaho, and Major Woods of Wallace, Idaho, were counsel for Cooper & Peck. Our attorneys were Albert Allen, Judge Clagett and Frank Ganahl. The lawyers all got interests in the mine for their fees. We appealed the case to the supreme court of the state, but while it was pending there a deal was made to sell the mine to Sim Reed of Portland, Oregon. It was necessary to give him a clear title, so we compromised by paying Cooper & Peck $76,000.
"The sale was made in May, 1887, and it was put through by Colonel 'Jim' Wardner. Harry Baer and 1, who were partners in all our mining operations, got $200,000 cash in one lump for our interests. Phil O'Rourke got over $200,000, Kellogg got $300,000, Con Sullivan got $75.000, and Alex Monk, a sort of side- partner of O'Rourke's, got $75,000."
Sim Reed of Portland sold the great property to D. O. Mills and a San Fran- cisco syndicate. Mills entrusted the presidency and management to John Hays Hammond, and Ilammond chose Victor Clement for his superintendent. A few years later Hammond was employed by Cecil Rhodes as chief engineer of his Sonth African gold mines, and Clement went with the noted mining engineer to Johannesburg. The two became involved in British intrigues against the Boer goverment, were arrested, tried and convicted of high treason and sentenced to he shot. Powerful American and British interests intervened, and President Krueger commuted the sentence to a $300,000 fine against Hammond and $100,000 against Clement, on condition that they leave the country and never return. They were glad to escape with their lives.
Meanwhile other prospectors had been active in the hills and gulehes around the present towns of Wallace, Burke and Mullan. A number of claims which sub- sequently were developed into great producing mines had been discovered prior to the finding of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan. To John Carton and Almeda Sey- more, who discovered the Tiger lode on Canyon ereck, May 2, 1884, belongs the distinction of finding the first silver-lead mine in that district. After they had revealed its possibilities by development work they bonded it to John M. Burke, and he in turn bonded it to S. S. Glidden of St. Paul, a pioneer merchant, mine developer and railroad builder of keen sagaeity and enterprise. F. R. Culbertson became manager in 1885 and he and Mr. Glidden entered on a vigorous policy of mine development, entting trails to Placer Center (now Wallace) and Thompson Falls. Montana. Mr. Glidden organized the Canyon Creek railroad company and later sold it to D. C. Corbin.
J. G. Ilunter and F. A. Moore, Montana prospectors, found the Hunter mine. near Mullan, May 15, 1884. The famous Standard group, one mile from Burke, was discovered May 7. 1885, by Timothy Mccarthy, Timothy Hynes, Frank Han- son and John HI. Simmons. This rich property passed to the ownership of syndi- cate of Youngstown, Ohio, capitalists, and under the management of John A. Fineh and A. B. Campbell, was long regarded as the richest prodneer in the Coeur d'Alene country.
In September. 1887. the Poorman claim, just across the gulch from the Tiger mine, and located the day after discovery of the Tiger, was sold to Mareus Daly, ,
SIMEON G. REED Who bought the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mines
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
TUVIV FLANVATIONE
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Patrick Clark, B. C. Kingsbury and other Montana mining men, and under the active management of Mr. Clark became the first dividend payer in the Coeur d'Alenes.
George Goode loeated the Morning mine, near Mullan, in 1884. It subse- quently passed to the ownership of Charles and Warren Hussey of Spokane.
From the beginning Spokane profited tremendously in the discovery and de- velopment of the Coeur d'Alenes. It became an important outfitting point in 1883-4. A large part of the money received from the sale of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan was immediately invested here by "Dnteh Jake," Harry Baer and others, and from time to time the enterprising mine owners and managers citber made this place their home or their base of operations. Among these were Fineh and Campbell, D. C. Corbin, Patrick Clark, the Husseys, S. S. Glidden, F. R. Culbertson, Porter Brothers, "Jim" Wardner, John M. Burke, Charles Sweeny, F. Lewis Clark, the Greenonghs, and a host of others with the drifting of the years.
A history of the Coeur d'Alenes which omitted the drama of the great Her- eules mine would be the play of "Hamlet" without the melancholy prinee. A writer in the Spokesman-Review says that Harry L. Day and Fred Harper were the original loeators. They left Wardner for Sunset Peak, where they intended prospecting. They did not have enough money to purchase a ticket to ride as far as Burke, and therefore had to walk over the hills. This was in the summer of 1889. Without meeting with sueeess on Sunset, where there are now good mines, they decided to go to Burke, but were driven back by a heavy forest fire. After the fire died away they proceeded to the hill above Burke, and it was then they found rich float brought to view by the fire. They located the Hercules and the Fire Fly as they were driven baek. Mr. Harper sold ont a short time later to C. H. Reeves, his father-in-law. for $100.
"Mr. Reeves was a barber in Wallace. Mr. Day and Mr. Reeves barely did their assessment for the next few years. The property was located on the trail running to Sunset and hundreds of people passed over that way. Those who saw the two men trying to hold down their elaims tried to discourage them, saying it was foolishness to work in such a formation. They were the laughing stock of the mining fraternity for years, but still they had confidenee. Mr. Day did not know much about mining, but he was satisfied there was something there. Previous to loeating the claim he was engaged in delivering milk on a paek-horse in Wardner from his father's raneh in Government gulch. The Day family came in from Cal- ifornia. All the family worked to get sufficient money to carry on the work at the property. The principal money was given by Miss Ellen Day, who was teaching. and who contributed every eent of her small salary. She later married Edward Boyce, the noted labor leader. Mr. Reeves was foreed to sell out his barber shop to obtain his share of the money used in prospeeting the property.
"In 1895 August Paulsen, one of the noted characters in the group of owners, beeame interested in the property by getting a quarter interest for $500. Mr. Paulsen is a native of Denmark and worked for some time on a milk ranch neal Spokane. Later he worked on a milk ranch near Wallace, for several years, as foreman for Markwell & Sons. and there is where he saved his salary of $10 per month to become interested in the property. To show what little he knew
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