Mohave County miner., 1906-05-19
White Hills.

White Hills.
 In the year 1892, White Hills, one of the greatest silver camps in the territory, was discovered. The dis covery was made by Indian Jeff, a Wallapai, several years before, but up to that time he was unable to at tract the attention of white men to the mines. Henry Schaefer, who was working in Gold Basin, was shown a piece of float rock from the outcrop of the veins and had an assay made that ran about 100 ounces silver. He was piloted to the locality by the Indian, whom he promised big reward should the mines prove valuable. After mak- ing a number of locations he returned to Gold Basin for help in monument ing the properties. John Burnett and John Sullivan went with Schaefer and these men discovered some of the best mines in the camp. The three men then went to work on the mines and were soon shipping ore fabulously ly rich in silver. This ore was found below the outcrop on many of the veins. Later Sullivan sold his interest to w. H. Lake and the latter sold to R. T. Root. Root also purchased the inter- ests of Schaefer and Burnett. After taking possession of the properties Root and his packers began syste- matic working of the mines with the apparent intention of producing all the ore possible in the least possible time. During the first fourteen months he shipped ore that netted at the Denver smelters 242,000S. This ore had to be hauled from White Hills to Kingman at big expense and shipped by train to Denver. The av- craze of the ore is said to have been over 20OS per ton. One carload of II tons contained 29,000 ounces silver and 80 ounces gold, and this was little bet | ter than the average shipments from the properties. Root had under loca- tion and by purchase more than forty claims, every one of which showed values in the vein outcrop. A ten stamp mill was built by the company to handle the ores from the various mines and it was kept pounding away for several years. Among the big producers of the camp were the Horn Silver, Occident, Norma, G. A. R., Treasure, Daisy, and Chief of the Hills, owned by the company, and the Prince Albert, owned by R. G. Pat terson. The latter claim was pur- chased by Root to avoid apex compli- cations. The Prince Albert netted Patterson thousands of dollars from royalties of tributers, and the Norma also made the leasers and owners rich from its valuable ores. In the Norma at one time there was a three foot body of ore that pick could be driven into like a mass of pig lead. This ore had an average value of about 5000 ounces silver to the ton. Everywhere that the veins were tapped rich ore was found and it is believed today that the mines are just as rich as ever, but that the company for some reason un- known refuse to work them nor will they lease them to parties who are willing to take chances on developing the ore bodies. The mineral belt of White Hills is really part of that of Gold Basin, except in the former camp the silver values predominate. It is situated about fifty miles north of Kingman in the broken part of the Cerbat range. The country is volcanic,
 but the lava flow has been eroded ex- posing the many veins traversing that region. The cap rock is an iron stained limestone and the country porphyry. The ore lies in anticlines, , the apex being eroded away. At no place has the permanent country been encountered, except in the shaft ot , the Grand Central, north of the G. A. R., where the shaft was run down with the expectation of cutting the 5 G. A. R. vein. It was not continued to great enough depth, although the l granite was found. It is expected 5 that when permanent formation is en- ? countered in the veins big ore bodie: . will be opened up. William Weston