The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-18
BUTTE NEWS.
IDAHO'S GOLD DEPOSITS
Hundreds of Acres of Gravel
That Is Very Rich.
BEEN WORKED 80 YEARS
Rod Leggat Controls the Water Supply
for American Hilr'-There Are Mil
lions in Sight-A History of
Disaster, However

Idaho has a mysterious gold deposit
hundreds of acres of rich gravel and
millions have been extracted. There is
much more of the same kind of gold in
that freakish section of land. The
gravel has been worked for so years
and many fortunes have been made,
and it still holds many more millions
to be washed out by future lucky gen
erations.
In early days camps sprung up nush-
roomlike and as suddenly moved away
The ground was worked gopher fash
ion. The gravel had to be wheeled to
the river. Improved methods of work
ing the ground resulted in larger
yields; but the inconvenient part of it
all was the lack of water.
Rod Leggat of this city according
to the Lewistown Teller, newspaper
devoted to the mining interests of
Idaho, controls a water supply which,
1t is said is worth millions, as it can
be turned into the ground and made to
reduce the enormous gold deposit to
money on comparatively short notice
This being the case, Mr.. Leggat owns
about the best thing in Idaho. The
Teller. in an interesting summary of
the mines in the neighborhood, has
the following to say about the big
deposit:
THE Buffalo Hill and American Hill,
near Elk City, are the most mysterious
gold deposits in the United States. The
auriferous deposit is a gravel wash,
an old river bed miles away from a
river or other large stream. The de-
post consists of hundreds of acres and
it is upon and makes high hill. This
pay gravel has been worked for So
years, has yielded millions in gold dust.
and still holds other millions to be
washed out by future generations of
miners.
THE Elk City diggings of early days,
very rich camps, were the deposits
from this great gravel bed that spreads
over a succession of high mountains.
The available places We're washed out
year by year, then the industrious
miners drifted like gophers on the pay
streak until it was not rich enough to
compensate for the toll of wheeling the
gravel to the water.
over and above the pay streak.
which the white men and then the
Cinnamon followed in early days, there
is a deposit of gravel that will pay we'll
with hydraulic equipment The Ameri-
can Hill company took out $4,000 in
one year by means of a hydraulic eeva-
tor from this gravel deposit. This
large sum of money was taken out of
less than half an acre of this vast de-
posit.
Buffalo Hill is just as rich as Ameri-
can Hill. Rod Leggat, a Montana capt.
talist, now controls the water supply
of this hill. The history of this great
claim has been one of disaster. 1t has
broken up many good, confident, en-
thusiastic owners. There are millions
in sight 1t is only a question of gath
ering the gold 1t is apparently sim
pie process. The water is accessible
the necessary dump seems possible, and
there are millions to pay for the de-
Velopment as sure as the value of gold
coin in the United States treasury. It
is there, and it has been practically in
sight for 80 years, yet no man has
ever got value received for labor and
money spent in trying to work this
placer ground
1.-The question of water and dunn
have been the stickers with the min
5ng men who have tried to work the
Buffalo Hill and the American Hill
This question was solved by the Ed.
ward Jeussen company, who utilized al
elevator and realized a fortune. BY {
stroke of good fortune this company
set the elevator in just the right place
The pit they dug by was in the lowest
point in the bedrock and the deposit
there was extensive, and the hydraulic
system put in as an experiment, was
a great success. More money ant
much engineering skill was applied tt
the Buffalo Hill group of claims.
The good luck of one company wa:
reversed in the case of the Buffalo
company. They first ran a TUNE
through a great mountain for a sluic'
and for a dump. They learned whel
TOO late that the tunnel was above th'
gold deposits. This engineering blum
der broke up the company and set then
ITO fighting so that one partner was sat
isfied If he could ruin the other. TIT
ruin was mutual
Later a long bedrock f1ume was ru1
by new company It was found to b.
too high above the bedrock to be prac
teal. So thousands of dollars hav,
been expended on this mine, and yet it
millions, though in sight, have neve,
been appropriated.
This old gravel bed is in many ways
mystery. The gold is distinct from
that found in the lodges in the vicinity
1t is reasonably coarse and could no
have washed far. The belief now il
that this gravel bed was once the bee
of Clearwater river. In that prehis
toric age the various branches of TIL,
Clearwater must have been united il
one great river. Some volcanic up
heaval must have divided the strean
and left the old bed of the great rive
on a mountain top. The gold in thi
deposit must have been ground int
this great river by glaciers that grOunt
the sides of Buffalo Hump This heaE,
gold could not have Travelled farthe
than the great mountain that over
shadows the district to-day
iSf