Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1893-06-23
WILLOW CREEK DISTRICT,
cnaaees fsr she Development Of Sew.
eral Mines This Year.

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This district, on the summit, three
or four miles west Of this place, give.
promise of becoming one Of the best
In the county. The veins all carry
free-milling gold ore. But little de.
velopment work has been done, bu,
enough to prove that the veins are
we'll defined and the ore of good
grade. They are all in the bands Of
poor men, and as the claims will have
to be worked by means of shafts in
stead OF tunnels, the district needs
capital. A three-stamp mill was put
up there last fall and considera BILE ore
crushed which ran from $40 to 425
per ton. Ore was crushed from the
Beck boys claim, and also from a
claim owned by Travis and Dunlap
and crushing was made from Char
ley Small's location. Another claim
there, owned by Gus Schlosser, car
ries high grade ore on the surface,
and a tunnel has been run quite a
distance but has not yet tapped the
vein. Two other promising claims
are those owned by Keane & Hall, a
short distance northeast of those
mentioned, and southwest about a
mile is the Mayflower, owned by B.
F. Simpson. A shaft was sunk thirty
or forty feet OIL this ledge in early
days. The ore was extremely rich,
and was packed to town and worked
in a hand mortar. The vein widened
from a few inches to three feet, and
while it would not, after widening,
pay for working by the hand mortar
process, the ledge, at three feet wide,
carries the same amount of gold that
it did at few inches. That is-the
ledge carries the same amount of
gold, but more rock. There is now
ore lying on the dump that in
early days was classed as waste
or too low grade to be of value
and while that was true in those DAYS
of high prices of labor and supplies,
is not so now. THIS ore will mill $50
or s25 per ton. Gold is plainly visi-
BILE to the naked eye IN a good deal
of it. This claim will have to be de-
veloped by sinking. Many claims
that were abandoned in early days
are now proving to be good proper
ties, and Willow creek has number
of these old claims that are coming
to the front. The little three Stang
mill put up there by the Beck boy:
has proven the ore to be much better
than any one had any idea it was
and considerable prospecting and de-
velopment work will now be done
If Willow creek district was in Col
orado it would create an excitement
that would cause a wild stampede
but in this slow-going county, thf
wealth of which is not yet generally
known abroad, it has not caused tn,
excitement that it would have Gre
ated if located in some well adver
tised mining section of Colorado o
some other enterprising mining State
The people of other States unite il
making known to the outside worl,
the wealth they possess, but the peo
pie of Idaho are slow and apathetic
They simply patiently wait. Th'
newspapers are all doing their best t.
advertise our mining and other re
sources, but they receive but littl
, aid or encouragement from the peo
pie. OF all the slow and sleepy sec
) tions of Idaho, this county is un
doubtedly the slowest and sleepies
notwithstanding it has more goo
gold mines than any other county c
the State. What it needs is capits
: to bring them to the front as valua
Bile producers, but to bring the cap
tai our mining resources must b
= made known. The people of tn
county will, ere long, we hope, awak
from their sleepy ways, do MOI
: prospecting and development worl
and let capitalists know what the
have. Another suggestion we woul
offer is-don't ask a fortune for
prospect. You need not expect,
- these days, to blossom out into
millionaire all of a sudden on Il
. sale OF prospect. There was tin
-. when this could be done, but tn
&c time is past.
MIKE LEATCH, of Pullman, on Il