The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-03-19
THE MINE WAS sALTED.
Brig Young and His Friends Caught
For Suckers.

Colonel Pat Donan, who is now in
the northwest, kindly sends The Her
aid copy of the Miner, published at
Rossland, B. c., with the following ar
ticle marked:
There is buzz of gossip among min
ing men from Spokane to Rossland
about the inglorious, if not scandalous,
ending of the boom over the Stanley
mine near Chewelah, Wash. It looks
very much like case of sailing. The
interesting question is who did the
sailing?
It will be remembered that the now
celebrated mining man, r. E. Browne,
000000 recently came by a decision of
the supreme court of the Transvaal
republic, was here last summer taking
a hasty look at the country. He was
even at that time a rich man, having
been very successful in his operations
at johannesburg. He purchased moth
ing while here or at Spokane, but Sc
lected a corps of experts and gave
them free reign to scour the entire
north Pacific coast and pick up a good
thing whenever it could be found.
Brownie" as he is Familiarity called
by those who know him well, has any
amount of nerve, and now that he is
possessed of plenty of cash his anlbi-
ton is to figure as a cosmopolitan OPP
orator.
One of those fortunate enough to be
chosen as an agent by Mr.. Browne
was Brig Young, not related by blood
or circumstance to the original Brig
Young of Salt Lake, but gentleman
who has a reputation of his own and
who is well known in this camp as a
very shrewd and wide-awake operator.
Mr. Young has been in the field for
several months and has bonded a
number of properties. He heard Of the
Stanley mine at Chewelah and the
story told was so roseate, so circum-
stantial and so convincing that he took
the trouble to go and see it.
The claim was owned by some ap-
parently unsophisticated and guileless
ranchers. He was shown a very large
body Of porphyritic quartz. 1t meas
ured about 100 feet in width and Mr..
Young was profoundly impressed. He
took some samples and the assays
were astonishingly good, considering
the extent Of the ore body. The range
was from $1S to $50 in gold. This was
high for free milling quartz.
The price Of the property was $4,000
with $4,000 down. Mr.. Young was not
altogether willing to trust his own
sampling, so ne sent another we'll
known mining man to see the great
Stanley. He took IS samples and they,
too. ran high in gold. This seemed to
settle it. The deal was closed and the
s, 600 paid The Stanley was then
written up extensively in the Spokane
papers and it was the sensation of the
hour.
Two or three prominent Spokane
mining men, old friends, asked to be
let in on this deal. This was agreed to,
the understanding being that a big
stamp mill would be put in Immediate
". But it struck one member. of the
syndicate that it would be good thing
to have Jim Clark go up and see the
wonder. He did, and the assays he
obtained did not return a cent. This
created a mild sort of a panic amorS
members of the syndicate. Another
expert was sent UP forthwith, and with
more than a dozen samples he was
no more fortunate than Jim Clark. II
was shown clearly that the ore was
worthless.
Very little has been heard of the
Stanley since, except in the way of
dark and mysterious whisperings.
There is a settled conviction among
those who are on the inside that it was
a case of sailing. But how it was done,
where or when it was done, or by