The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-12-12
LURED BY MYTHICAL MINES
Search For Lost Cabin and Other
Mysterious Treasure Camps.
Omaha Bee.)

Omaha Bee.)
The reported discovery of a Lost
Cabin mine" in the Big Horn noun
tains of Wyoming conveys the informa-
ton that it is the real thing and the
only Lost Cabin" mine in the whole
range of raining tradition and fiction.
Yet the Wyoming discovery is but one
es hundreds Of mysterious mines which
have lured prospectors on and on for
half a century, and are likely TO re-
main an irresistible attraction while
fortune hunting anirIates the pros
pector's breast.
There is nothing more romantic in
modern gold mines than the legends
and myths of golden and silver ores,
whose rediscoyery would bring fabu-
lous riches TO the finders. Nearly all
prospeetors, no matter how long and
severely buffeted by hard fortune, have
an abiding faith that some time they
viii strike a lost mine and be unspeak-
ably wealthy. Every mining camp in
the west has its own characteristic
stock of stories of incomparably rich
mines once found by some lonely pros
pector. miles away from any human
being, and in a region barren of read
able landmarks, and then lost by some
fateful incident, some tragedy or some
strangely accidental circumstance.
Every mining camp has its veteran res
idents, each of whom has some set
theory as to how those lost treasure
beds may be relocated. Nothing else
in the realm of mining has such
charm upon the prospector's mind as
the stories of lost mines. In every
mining region every year men risk life
and fortune in searching for legendary
lodges once found and then lost. Last
year some fifty men gave up months
of their time, travelled over burning
deserts, endured severe privatiOns for
weeks. at a time. and came back to
civilization older, poorer, haggard and
ragged, after a search for the Peg Leg
Mine among the Cocopah mountains,
There viii undoubtedly be as many
more men go hunting for the Peg Leg
this year.
A Frenchman came into Helena.
Mont, many years ago, bringing with
him thousands of dollars worth of gold
dust. He told his friends that he had
found some placer ground richer than
any ever worked. The dust he brought
down had all been panned out With
sluice boxes thousands of dollars could
be washed out in day. OF course. this
news created the greatest excitement.
His friends prepared to accompany him
back, but ere the day for their depar-
i'll and died. Just before his death he
managed to gasp:
'BlackfOot country, two small lakes,
cabin between them I built
Now, this information was very in
definite. There are two Blackfoot
countries. One is that great eXpanse
Of forest in which rise the Big Black
foot river and its tributaries; the other
was, in those days, the eastern slope of
| hn fQ n
Saskatchewan. The miners wondered
which one ne meant Party after party
was organized to search for the Lost
I Cabin mine. Both countries have been
/ explored again and again. Year after
I year has gone by and parties are still
searching for it, undaunted by the fall
ure of their predecessors, hoping ever
| that the morrow will reveal TO them
/ two little lakes nesting in the depths
of the forest. and. between, a rude little
cabin. long since in ruins. perhaps, but
still the evidence of untold wealth.
! The Vallagrana mine is the famous
\ lost mine of Lower California. 1t was
a silver mine, and the ruby ore from it,
I so tradition says, was so rich that Don
/ Thomaso Aguila, the richest man in
/ Monterey. Mexico. in the sos offered to
/ buy one-third of it for $4,000. Jose
| VaIlagrana was a Mexican governor of
/ the district of Lower California who
/ fed 70 La Paz. at the extreme southern
| end of Lower California, in 1850, during
d political revolution. On the way he
and his party took refuge in an Indian
camp, and the Indians there, taking a
fancy to their courteous visitors, took
them out into a canyon and showed the
/ outcrOpping of a silver ledge The
! tradition runs that the silver ore could
be clearly traced along the mountain
/ side for some 1880 feet, that the ledge
/ at the surface was over twenty-five
feet wide, and that there were indica-
tiOns that il widened rapidly below the
surface of the earth. Governor Valla-
grana promised not to disturb the In
dams in their ancestral rights there
and to keep the silver ledge always a
secret. On that promise he and his as
sociates we're permitted to take away
/ with them seven specimens of the sill
yer ore. The next day the governor
and his party started on mules some
200 miles farther over an unbroken
I barren wilderness toward La Paz In
the course of two months the party was
at the City of Mexico, where they were
political prisoners for nearly year
When they were freed only one of the
party had kept his specimen of the rich
ore An assayer in the City Of Mexico
assayed a part of the specimen, and ht
reported that such ore ran 5000 ounces
to the ton. Silver was then worth s.
an ounce.
Every year since 1851 men have gone
in parties of a dozen or twenty Il
seek the silver ledge. First and last
several thousand men have climbed
over the mountains, toiled across th'
arid wastes and brOiled in the sumnel
and shivered in winter while the.
prospected for the ledge that Vaiia
grana told about and from which tn
specimens had come. Time and again
the poor, ignorant indians of Lowe
promises to lead prospectors to tn
Vallagrana mine, but each time IT ha
been an instance of a savage bunco
ing a trusting miner. In 1893 Cover
nor Lopez of the district of Lowe
California officially reported that tina
year some 200 men had been vainl.
trying to get clue. to the mythica
! Eallagrana.
The pitiful story of Death valley vic
Tins in 1854 is connected with the Gun
sight mine narrative Sixty-two EN-
igrants to the gold fields of California
by OK and mule teams. IN the sum
mer of 1854, were trying to find
southern passage through the Sierra
to California. They were persuade
at Salt Lake City to follow what wa
known as the southern route in pref
erence to the more frequented on
farther north. The new route too
them through southern Utah. acros
1.-the Colorado, and into the terrible an
then little known Colorado desert L
few days they reached the drear