The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-08
GOLD FIELD STAMPEDES
"REMINISCENCES OF SOME GREAT
BUSHES IN THE SOUTHWEST.
The ProspectOr Always Ready-Terri-
Bile Experiences on the Desert
and In the Mountains.
Pomona Ccal) Letter in St. Louis Globe

Pomona (Cal) Letter in ST. Louis Globe
Democrat
All the mining men in California are talk
| ing about the extraordinary stampede of
men and youths of all descriptions from
every part Of the country to the new min
ing fields in Alaska. In intensity, spon-
taneity and generality there has been moth
| ing like it since the days of 40. Naturally
the rush of gold-hungry men to the Yukon
| mas revived recollections of famous stam-
! pedes to other mining fields. In every min
| ing community, these days, "reminiscences
| OF the Tombstone, the Harqua Hala, Col
| orado river and other excitements because
| Oh the finding of great wealth hidden in the
| rocks and gravel are related every day. A
! host of grizzled, hard-up, ever-hopeful and
| philosophic old fellows in this locality have
been in every rush for new mining fields
| FOR a generation. There is hardly a miner
or prospector of the old school anywhere
IN this region who has not Joined in several
| stampedes from played-out camp for the
district where the latest pay rock has been
found. The history of the Pacific coast and
the Territories, from the discovery of gold
in this State in 184S to the present time
abounds in stories of unrealized expecta-
| tons among miners and of sufferings and
privations endured in attempts to reach dis
| tant mines from which reports of riches
| had gone out.
Probably the widest and crazest stam-
| pede ever known in the Southwest was that
to the Rocky Belle camp, in northern Ari-
iona, in the region of the Moqui Indian
reservation, in December 1874. The region
is eight thousand feet above the sea, and
lies among snow-clad mountains. 1t was
/ liz
went abroad that Hank Binford and his
| companion had struck a whole mountain
of gold rock that assayed over $500 to the
| ton. The report seemed incredible at first
but when samples of the ore were seen by
miners in Tucson, Albuquerque and Los
| Angeles they proved sufficient to satisfy the
most skeptical. A week more and over two
| thousand miners from every part of Ari-
| IONA and southern California were moving
| day and night, scarcely stopping for food
and sleep, toward the Rocky Belle camp.
Hundreds of men travelled seven hundred
ana eight hundred miles on foot and with
| mules and donkeys to the new diggings,
and nearly all travelled across desert and
| mountain for q distance of 250 to 800 miles.
| AS the multitude journeyed on the report
Of the richness of Hank Bnford's find grew
until it seemed as if wagon loads of rich
| gold ore awaited the travellers. Merchants
and professional men in Maricopa and
| Tucson and that part of southern Arizona
miners and, turning their business over to
| others, Joined in the movement on Rocky
| Belle. The hardships that the fortune seek
ers suffered In the mountains will never be
| fully known. A large number of men, COM
| ing out of the warm, balmy air of the semi
| tropic valleys lost their lives amid the
snow banks and ice In the mountains, and
many a man was made an invalid for life
| because Of exposure to the biting cold dur
in the mountains for several days while the
miners were slowly trudging through them.
In one party OF over one hundred men from
New Mexico four men were frozen TO death
one morning, and 1t is thought that fully
twenty more died in the same way in the
mountains at that time. To this day there
are in California and Arizona gray-headed
miners who lack a finger, a toe an ear
lost in the terrible cold of that stampede.
When at last the Rocky Belle diggings
We're reached it was soon seen that there
was no ore in the district worth the dig
Binford and his friends, and that the re-
ports of their find had been exaggerated
beyond all reason. Binford's own mine
petered out a year or two later, and he got
only a few thousand dollars from it. The
specimens of ore shown in Tucson and Los
Angeles were the very choicest from the
mine, and not hit or miss pick-ups as had
been said of them
STEVENS'S AND TOMBSTONE.
Along in the summer Of 1878 a miner
named Stevens wrote to a friend in Phoe-
nix that he had found a claim that beat
anything in mining this side of the Com
stock lode in Nevada, and that with a COM
mon iron mortar and pestle he had pounded
out from $40 to 500 worth of gold dust a
day. The claim was located 100 miles north
west from Kingnan, near the since famous
Harqua Hala mining region, and there was
chance, so Stevens wrote, for other men
to strike it rich up there. OF course, such
news could not be kept quiet 1t Travelled
with miraculous speed through every camp
in the Salt river valley and over to Pres
colt. In less than two weeks all that part
of Arizona was deeply stirred by the re-
ports, which no one seemed to have time
to investigate Of the richness of the mines
that Stevens had found. A thousand or
more miners caught the fever SO badly that
they started on foot across the country for
Stevens's camp without delay 1t was a
hot, dry summer, and the journey entailed
several weeks of severe physical labor, tor
turing thirsts and the endurance Of a tenn
perature that usually stood over ITO degrees
in the shade. dozen men died from fever
and in wild delirium under that awful sky,
ana as many more miners never recovered
from disorders caused by the priVations of
that stampede across the desert OF Arizona.
Having arrived at the Stevens camp the
excited men realized that there were claims
worth working by about one hundred men.
Several hundred claims were staked out in
less than a day after the excited miners
got to the scene, but in fortnight the
camp population fell from 200 to less than
| four hundred. In d month more about one
hundred persons were left to do all the
mining. The camp was abandoned entirely
| ten years ago.
With the possible exception of the rush
| to the I4eadVille mining district in Colorado,
| there has been none anywhere in forty
| years attended with excitement that fol-
| lowed the news of the finding of great de-
| positS OF gold and silver in Tombstone in
| 1879. Miners from every part of the Pacific
| coast caught the fever for gold, and as
week after week samples of the Tombstone
rock were more widely circulated, and ru-
mOrS went forth concerning the fortune this
| or that man or company was getting out
| of the hills and mountains about the new
| camp, thousands started for Tombstone.
! Hundreds of young men and youths in the
| older States were wild with zeal to hasten
to the new Eldorado, and started across
| the continent with little or no preparation.
! In less than four months after Grid and the
| Hawknses began getting several thousand
dollars a day from their mines there were
over six thousand persons in the camp
| and several months later Tombstone had
| population of over ten thousand men and
| two hundred women. There never was an
| other camp in the Southwest like that at
| Tombstone in 1879 and 1880. Indeed there
! have been very few similar communities in
| the world. For over seven months the
| daily output Of precious metal averaged
! about $4,000. over a dozen men went there
| penniess and came away worth over $780,
| 900 III less than a year, and six or seven
| men struck it rich and sold out for over
| 81, 600 900 each. Fully half the population
| walked hundreds of miles to get there. No
| railroad ran through southern Arizona in
| those days, and the awful Colorado and
| Moiave deserts had to be crossed in wagons
| or on foot by the multitudes of fortune
| seekers from California. Desert sand
| storms were encountered, and for days
frarr Iar<, 70 hGfn a NOR