SILVER MINING.
My son Benjamin and I worked as contractors almost a year in 1868, upon
the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, and we were present at the
Promontory when the Union and Central Pacific roads met, and saw the
gold and silver spikes driven into the California mahogany tie. It was
regarded at that time as the greatest feat in railroad enterprise that
had ever been accomplished in this or any other country, and it was a
day that will be remembered during the lifetime of all that were present
to witness this great iron link between the two oceans, Atlantic and
Pacific. My calling as a freighter and overland stager having been
deposed by the building of telegraph lines and the completion of a
continental railway, I was compelled to look after a new industry, and
as the silver mining at that time was just beginning to develop in Utah,
I chose that as my next occupation, and my first experience in
prospecting for silver mines was in Black Pine District north of Kelton
some twenty-five miles, and I believe in the northwest corner of Utah.
The district proved to be a failure, but leaving it, I met with Mr. R.
C. Chambers, who, upon acquaintance, I found to be a very pleasant
gentleman. I left the camp and went to Salt Lake City, and wrote Mr.
Chambers that I thought mines in the mountains were a better show for
prospectors than the Black Pine District, and in a few days he came to
Salt Lake City, and we then engaged in prospecting in the American Fork
and Cottonwood districts, which lay in the Wasatch Mountains,
twenty-five or thirty miles southeast of Salt Lake City. We had some
success, but were not able to find anything in the way of bonanzas. We
were connected with each other more or less until 1872, when a gentleman
came to me one day in July of that year and told me that he had a bond
upon McHenry mine, in Park District, and that the mine was a remarkably
rich one. He desired me to telegraph to Mr. George Hearst of San
Francisco to come to Salt Lake City and go and see the mine. He said
that he wanted me to send the message because he knew Mr. Hearst, with
whom I had become acquainted through Mr. Chambers, would come for my
telegram, when he would perhaps pay no attention to his. I sent the
message, and received a reply forthwith that he would start at once for
Salt Lake City. He arrived in due time, and we together went to the
McHenry mine. Upon arrival we found it was not what was represented. We
were thoroughly disappointed in our expectations. But while sitting,
resting on a large boulder, a man by the name of Harmon Budden (who a
day or two before had discovered and located the Ontario mine)
approached us and spoke to Mr. Hearst. Mr. H. said he did not remember
him, but Mr. Budden said he had previously met him in some mining camp
in Nevada, and remarked that he had a prospect that he would like us to
look at, only a short distance away. We went with him to the location.
His shaft was then only about three feet deep, and when Mr. Hearst
jumped down into the hole that he had dug, the surface of the ground was
about as high as his waist, and he could jump in and out by putting his
hands on the earth. I saw that he was very much interested in the
appearance of the ore, which at that depth and at that time did not show
more than a streak of eight or ten inches of mineral. I was at that time
what they called a "tenderfoot," and had not been in the mining business
long enough to be an expert, and to my inexperienced eye there was
nothing unusual in the appearance of the ore, but Mr. Hearst did see
something, and he determined then and there to purchase the Ontario
prospect, and arranged when we returned to Salt Lake City with Mr.
Chambers to keep a watch over its development, and purchase it when he
saw an opportunity to do so. Mr. Budden and his associates asked $5,000
for the prospect when we were there, but Mr. Hearst thought it might be
bought for less, as it was nothing but a prospect. But as the
development of the mine progressed they raised their price for it $5,000
every time they were asked the terms, until at last it was up to
$30,000, when Mr. Chambers purchased it for Mr. Hearst and his
associates in San Francisco, Messrs. Tebis and Haggin. Mr. R. C.
Chambers was made superintendent of the mine, and has remained its
manager from that period until the present, he being one of the
stockholders, as well as the superintendent. The mine has grown and
developed until it is one of the great mines of the Rocky Mountain
region, and under Mr. Chamber's supervision has been extremely
successful and profitable to its owners. Its output, up to 1892, has
been over $26,000,000, over $12,000,000 of which has been paid in
dividends to the stockholders. This showed that Mr. Hearst was an
expert, for he was really one of the best judges of minerals I ever met.
Utah has furnished the mining industry with some very remarkably rich
silver mines, among them the Eureka, in Tintick District; the Eureka
Centennial; the Chrisman Mammoth, a large gold and silver mine, and the
Beck and Hornsilver, in the Frisco District; the Crescent; the Daly, in
Park City District; and Ontario, as well as a great many smaller mines
in the various parts of Utah. In Montana we have one of the greatest
copper mines in America, called the Anaconda. It is the leading mine in
Butte City, though they have many other remarkable mines in that
district. Then there is the Granite Mountain, the Drumlummen, in
Marysville District, also in Montana. But the greatest output from any
mine yet discovered was the Comstock, in Virginia City, Nev. It has
produced more millions of dollars than any other silver mine in the
United States, its output being about one-third gold. The mining
industry of the Rocky Mountain States and Territories is only in a fair
way for development. The State of Colorado furnishes some very rich
mining camps; also New Mexico and Arizona.
In Colorado there is the Central City and Black Hawk, and the adjacent
mining district, from which there has been millions of dollars in gold
extracted; also the Leadville, which has produced its millions in silver
and lead; the Aspen District, with its Molly Gibson and other immensely
rich mines. Then there is the Crede District, with its Amethyst and
others, now producing large amounts of silver and some gold; the
Silverton, where there are a great many rich mines being opened; the
Ouray District and Cripple Creek, a newly discovered gold camp, with
various others in that State too numerous to mention. Nearly all of the
entire mining camps of the State produce both gold and silver in greater
or less proportions, and with more or less galena or lead contained in
the ores with the precious metals, and this great mining industry, when
it is allowed to go on as it did before the demonetization of silver,
will prove to be among the greatest and best paying industries in the
whole Rocky Mountain region.
The Black Hills mining district of South Dakota is a very large mining
camp, where millions and millions of dollars in gold and silver have
been taken out, and where, no doubt, hundreds of millions more will be
produced.
Idaho has also proven to be a very rich State in mineral wealth, both
gold and silver, with many places where gold is washed out of the sands
and gravel of the valleys.
Silver City, in New Mexico, has produced a great many millions in gold
and silver, and at present seems to be a mining camp of great merit.
The mining industry of the mountains has, of course, been the means of
influencing the building of numerous railroads through and into some of
the most difficult mountain ranges; in fact wherever there has been a
flourishing mining district the railway people have found a way, with
capital behind them, to build a road to it, and it has now become
apparent that a rich mining camp will have a railway connection sooner
or later, no matter how difficult of access it may be. I think the men
and the companies who have had the building of roads through and into
the Rocky Mountains, and the interests of the country at heart, are
deserving of great praise. No doubt, as many camps are discovered, it
will be necessary to build many more roads than are now in existence,
without which the mining industry could not be conducted with profit.
I may, in concluding this chapter on mining, speak of the great future
there is for both Washington and Oregon as mineral States.