Arizona weekly citizen., 1895-05-04
THE OLD ORC BLANCO.
A Property That in Days Agone Supported a Village
 of Mexicans.
while One Man Worked Two Stood Guard Against Indians and Bad Mextcans.

The following interesting descriptic , or the Gro Blanco country and of tt old Oro Blanco mine was written by Do
 U. Pickett, ex-superintendent of th
 QuiJotoa mines. The old time histor
 or the old gold mines of that famou
 district make mighty interesting rest
 ing. The report was addressed to P. 4
 Sawyer, of this city.
 The mountain known as the Or
 blanco rauge commences at a pom
 aoout sixty-five miles almost due soutl
 rom this place, takes 8 southerly cours
 through the southern part of Pimi
 county and enters Sonora, Mexico l about nine miles south of the little toWr of Gro Banco.
 The altitude of the Gro Blanco coun-
 try varies from 5000 to 45OO feet above
 sea level. The hills, mountains and
 canyons are in places broken, the elevs
 tions are smooth, grassy and we'll tini-
 oered for thIs part of Arizona, almost all
 the main canyons showing running wa.
 ter m greater or less degree.
 Just as you enter the range from the
 north, is situated the little town of Gro
 Blanco. Good mountain wagon roads lead from this place to the many camps throughout the district. The Gro Blan- co mountains and the Gro Blanco dis trict in particular, have been noted for years as gold and silver producing To- callty, and traces of the old works of Mexicans, and I may add of the Spsin- ards. can still be found on the hillsides and in the canyons.
 From the town of Gro Banco I fol. lowed good mountain wagon road for a distance of about six milee, in south. erly direction, to the Old Glory mining camp, past which my way led to the Oro Blanco mine. The Old Glory mill was ln active operation, and the fore man told me that they were putting through about fifty tons of ore per day. About one and a half miles down the canyon to the south, and about 200 yards from the wagon road, I came to the Gro Blsnco mine.
 The general formation in and about he locality is porphyry, with some yranits scattered throughout the hills md canyons.
 The Gro BIsnco mining claim consists 'f full sized claim, being 600 feet in width, by 1900 in length. The strike of he vein is little north of west and 'outh of east.
 As 1 followed the ledge over the sur ace, l found many traces of work done 'ears ago, no doubt done by Mexicsns ,r Spsinards; and at one place, imme- liately west of the shaft, the entire vein lad been taken out for length of 15O l eet, and to depth of least thirty feet. l This work had been many years hence nd from the fact that 1 could find but cry little tr6ces of dump" on or bout the mine, could only conclude hat the ore taken out had been worked o almost the last pound in the crude | 9ay peculiar to these early miners.
 From inquiry made in regard to this york, I was reliably informed that at | ne time, some 8 years ago, there were | z arrastras at work on this ground, and yer 150 people lived on the proceeds | aken from this ledge. In evidence of | his, 1 looked for and found many races of arrsstras in the canyon and lat immediately down from the work. | That the ore taken out from this long eep cut paid we'll in gold is beyond l uestion, else @ whole community could | lot have existed upon the proceeds by I heir slow and crude methods. From | he fact that no waste dump could be | ound in or about the canyon and flat | r at the mine, shows conclusively that | early every pound had been worked in | ome manner. The cut is filled to some | epth by debris and wash from the hill ide, carried down by the action of rain | nd storms, but the walls of the ledge | tand firm, and can be distinctly seen | throughout the entire length of the ex- avation. would say that at least 1500 | ons of ore have been taken from this | ut and other excavations along the | edge.
 That the mine ehould have been | bandoned by the Mexican owners of | hat time, was something of Q mystery | O me, and endeavored to find out the ] esson for it's abandonment. From John | Bartlett and R. N. Lesthsrwood learn l d that in the early 'sixties" about forty | antilles lived in the canyon, and vir- uslly gained their living by the gold produced from the Gro Blsnco mine. | But few white men lived in the country l t the time, but the few that did live | lere, concluded that if the mine was .ood for the Mexicsns, it was good for | hem, so a number of them banded to- ,ether and ran the Mexicans out, giving | IS reason that they, the Mexicans, not l ,elng citizens of the United States. | ,ould not own and work mining claims | within the limits of the United States. ,d by the head instiRators of the out age. While the arrastr8 process was sufficient to satify the slow going Mexi- ,ane, it failed to satisfy the more smbi- ,ieus Americans, and 8 ton per week to he arrastra together with the fact that while one man worked with the pick and shovel two must stand guard to protect the one from Indians and wandering bands of criminal Mexicans, soon con- vinced them that they had acquired something they could not utilize, hence the mine was abandoned and it lay un- claimed for 8 number of years, and time, storms and Indians obliterated nearly every trace and hsbltation of the people that once lived and prospered on the proceeds of the mine.
 In later years silver mining took up the time and attention of most of the miners of this county, and gold ores of sl5 to s20 per ton were passed over by miners in their quest for high grade silver ores. It is only in the past eight cen months that the demand for gold properties has sent the prospectors seeking the yellow metal in this quarter, and among the first claims taken up and located in this district was the old Gro Blanco, since that time new shaft has been sunk and the property slowly developed and under modern machinery and management it bids fair to become very valuable property.
 About fifty feet from the easterly end