Arizona weekly citizen., 1881-05-01
DEER CREEK COAL FIELDS
All About the Coal Fields The Thick ness Of the Veins-How Railroad Can Reach the Fields.

EDITOR CITIZEN: Accept letter from Deer creek for your paper. It is a place of interest now, and doubtless will soon be more so. There is cer- tainly abundance of coal, an article which providentially comes In just as wood is getting scarce throughout this whole region.
 Imagine q basin of country ten miles long, beginning fifteen miles to the west of San Carlos, among hills high and rugged enough to be called mountains, the south side having a general bearing west, with the creek running along ii, near the mountains. On the north side of this basin the line of the highest mountains bends northward till, about the middle, 1t is five miles across, winding around southward again till finally Deer creek washes down through deep gulch to the Gila river. Within this basin there is but little level land, but great hills and gullies, which make 1t hard for horse or man to get through. All the gulches finally empty into Deer creek on the south side.
 Now the coal, SO far as found, seems to lie all around this basin. At the head of the basin eastward was the first find and the first develOpment- the Andersen brothers claims--tbe Bonanza. They have gone down the dip of the vein (which IS about 45 de- grees southwark some % feet-sbOut an eight-fOot vein. Under this. how ever, with a stratum of sandstone, a foot or more thick, they have Un- earthed another vein of coal IA feet thick. They think 1t will soon all run into one veln. They have also sunk number of pits from two to ten feet deep, finding coal in many places. This Is a high region, certainly as much as 1000 feet above the lower part of the basin, and after one gets there the coal is found in quite level places-right under foot one may say, perhaps half a mile from the noun tains.
 All along on the north there are croppings found, and the places To- cated down 10 the middle of the ba- sin, where it is said Dr. Lord, of Tucson, has bought of some parties. Latin and Finch have gone down on their claim few feet. Bates and Brown, and, just west of them, Esa- dOre GOtthelf have ciaims on sort of divide, where the gulches cease running so much sOuthward, and start oil westward. A man named Winkeman has located claims in a very rough section, but still there ap- peaIs the black shale, indicating coal, as at the head of the basin. The lowest there l hear of is owned by a man named Swingle.
 Now, on this north side the dip Of the coal veins k sOuthward under the basin, and only 2j or 30 degrees from the horizontal; less inclined than at the head of the basin.
 Coming from the Bonanza down the line on the south side we find few claims, one by kautZ and others down lj or 20 feet, and the veIn perpendic- ular. A little below this the land has been tumbled SO exceedingly in the upheaval that no claims are found till near midway down, where a fine vein has rather recently been found by w. R. Gleason, of Tucson, quite good coal appearing on the croppings, which burns readily and beautifully. | think none other in the whole basin has been found which does this. This Is called the Pima. West of this, and somewhat higher, is the Anzona, claimed by D. Messenger. There are several others located along here; think the last by Charles Hudson, of Tucson.
 It would s6em that these locations, if they all promise as well, on deyel- oping, as the Pima (which has tun- mel ID some 15 feet will be very de- sIrable, as a road, once into Deer creek below, could so easily be made to these. And to one passing from here up to the head of the basin, unless road might come in from the east, it looks next to impossible ever to make railway, whereas railroad could come up the GIla and enter Deer creek at it's mouth, and run up the center of the basin with comparative ease.
 The dip of the vein of coal on the south being more or less 40, 30 and, at the lower end, perhaps 20 degrees down and northward under the basin, inclines all who have examined it to the belief that the whole basin has great stratum of coal underneath, making in the neighborhOod of thirty square miles of coal MT. Hicks, of Globe, said last night he thought it would supply the whole country for the next 300 years. NJ.
 Directory of Tucson.