The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1900-11-17
HOW LEDFORD
MADE MONEY
With The Water From
the Anaconda.
HE BUNCOED MUELLER
Who Made The Discovery.-The Green
Colored Water Yields Hundreds of
Thousands Annually.

One by one in this fin de steele age
are illusions dispelled. There never
was any Jack the Giant Killer, Co
lumbus did not discover America and
the pretty little fairy Story of how
| fortune came to j. l.. Ledford in an
Old tin can right here in Butte is
the latest yield to the touch of ma
terialsm
From time to time when an eastern
correspondent arrives in Butte he is
toll this story, and he writes it up
and sends it back east. All the big
eastern dailies have published it in
some form or other, the last one
being the Chicago inter Ocean. Like
the others it states that J. l.. Led
ford was prospector, broke and alto
gether out of luck. That part of
the tale is true. Then it goes on to
say that Ledford one day accident
alyy stumbled upon an old tin can,
which crumbled under his foot, and
he Immediately wanted to know what
the funny brown dust it crumbled in
to was. He sought an assayer, who
told him it was copper precipitate,
almost chemically pure. He went
home and thought about it hard, the
result being that he concluded that
the can gathered that copper from
the water from the Anaconda mine,
Whichwas flowing over it. And he
ter. And got rich. So rich that
ne was, as Butte citizens we'll re-
member not long ago, sued for
breach of promise right here where
he made his money.
The truth of the story is not so
romantic. Some eleven years ago a
German-Frederick Mueller-with his
wife and children arrived in Butte
from the east. Muller was of a
scientific bent, having studied in Ger
many, and he had decided pen
chant for mining pursuits. Not long
aA.er coming here he began keeping
house way out on East Broadway
down below the Anaconda mine. His
interest from the first was diverted to
the greenish water flowing down
from the Anaconda mine. Why was
it so green? Copper. Copper was
not worth so much then at it is now,
but he knew that if that copper
could be saved he would have a good
thing of it. He visited the mine
and learned all about the fire raging
in the lower levels of the St. Law
renee and how the water was turned
in,o the part of the mine which was
burning and after doing service in
eXtinguishing the flames was pump
ed to the surface. He learned also
that so strongly was the water i'm
pregnated with mineral that all the
machinery was spoiled by the action
of the acid in very short time.
That the only way to make them do |
any kind of service was to line the
columns with lead.
AS the water flowed down past his
house he began experiments at once,
and he found out many things, but
not how to save the copper; he had
rows of bottles on every window |
ledge. Then he built several small |
drains of wood and caught the water |
in them. His wife demonstrated |
with him, but he kept right on. His |
little daughter Lucy caught the in
fection and worked right along with |
him. His experiments cost money |
and his wife had little faith in them. |
Then he dug holes IN the ground in |
lie path of the water, and finally one |
day he thought OF another expert
ment.
He and his little daughter gather
cred up all the tin cans they could |
find and threw them in the holes in
the ground. Then he waited pa
tiently for the action of the water.
in a few days the cans had disap-
peared and in their place was a soft |
mass OF dull brown dirt, seemingly
a mass of corroded iron. Then he
cried Eureka" and began evolving
other plans. He went around and
collected all the old iron he could
find and dumped it in the holes. AL
though it took longer every inch of
it was eaten up, transformed into
ti.at curious-looking dull brown dirt,
as his wife contemptuously called
it.