Los Angeles herald., 1906-11-05
CLEANING GOLD IN
RICH NEVADA MINES
RESULT OF RECENT BIG DISCOVERIES
Historical Sketch of Pioneer Operators Immense
Benefit to Los Angeles-Activity in Mining
in CalifOrnia-Nugeets of News

known as a barren waste that con-
tained few producing mines and 1t
was believed by many that the great
est OF her treasure troves had been
worked out. In fact, the decadenoe
of the Comstock boom marked the
beginning of long period of depres-
sion throughout the state in the min
ing business and even those who re-
sided within the borders of Nevada
looked with skeptlcism upon any ef-
fort to found new mining districts.
This was the condition that existed
at the time that Jim Butler discov-
cred Tonopah and when he brought
the rich groupings from the wonder
ful Mizpah ledge into Carson City the
backs of capitalists and other moneyed
men were turned upon him. Same
old story" they said, another pros
pector thinks he has found a bonan-
za.' And so Jim Butler, determined
as he was, came near falling down
In his attempt to secure funds for
the assessment work on the present
$40O00,OO0 Tonopah mine.
When he did interest T. L. Oddie,
q young lawyer, to sufficient extent
to accompany him to the scene of his
discovery Oddie's friends said he had
gone off on a wild goose chase and
that he would return from his jour-
ney sadder but wiser.
Stores of Cleaning Gold
The story of the Tonopah mine is
now in front of us, and for his temerity
in giving aid to Butler Oddie made
a million and Butler made two or
three; great mining camp was
founded and the nucleus was formed
for a boom that promises to surpass
by many fold the Comstock days of
FIoOd and Fnir
Like spokes radiating from hub,
new camps have grown all about Ton
opah and Goldfield, Manhattan, Bull
frog and Greenwater are, but a few
of the places where holes punched in
the ground have opened up limitless
stores of cleaning gold.
AS a result of the initial discovery
and excit tement having taken place at
Tonopah the first wave of boom days
was confined to the camps, in the
northern part of the state. In other
words, the boom was geographical in
it's limitations and when Shorty Harris
drove his pick into the original Bull
frog mine and Bob Montgomery put
four stakes on the Montgomery Sho-
shone everybody said, sit won't go
any farther SOUTH"
Lincoln a Rich County
most important counties in Nevada
in making their calculations-Lincoln
county-the largest in the state of Me-
vada, and second in size to San Ber-
nardino county, California, the largest
in the United States. The wiseacres
had forgotten that Lincoln county had
produced $50, 100000 in precious metals
since 1866 They overlooked the fact
that it's production was greater than
Nye and Esmeralda counties COM
bined and they had forgotten that
Searchlight on the western border of
Lincoln county had been steady pro-
ducer of gold bullion since 1885, the
year Old Man Swiggart discovered the
"Quartette" mine.
1t is a fact that at the present rate
of production Nye and Esmeralda
counties will take three years to catch
up with Lincoln county in the matter
of actual bullion shipped and that this
consummation is but a dim possibility
Is shown py the steadineSS with which
the mines of Searchlight are shipping
gold bricks to the mint as well as the
regularity with which new producers
are being added. Not only are the
mines of Scarchlight showing up in
.exhaustible quantities of ore but many
new mining districts near there are
being opened up, while all of the older
camps, such as Vanderbilt, Ivanpah,
Phoebe and Muscal, are again enter
ing the shipping class. At Ell Dorado,
eighteen miles east of Searchlight, the
mines have been worked continuously
for thirty years and in the days when
there was no railroad nearer than
forty miles thousands of tons of ores,
running SIS ton, were piled on the
dumps and left unmined in the slopes.
These bodies of mineral are today an
ha nf a
fortunate property owners, for it will
soon be possible to concentrate such
ores in the proportion of six to one
and ship them by rail from Searchlight.
A good profit will be realized and by
removing the lower grade ores from
the slopes opportunity will be given
to develop the mines down to the water
level.
Under the LimeIight
OF all of the camps which are near
to Searchlight and in line of the zone
of greatest mineralization, Gina is
attracting the most attention. Pri-
marily this is due to the fact that the
mines are copper producers and on
account of the present high price of
the red metal, gold mining has taken
a back seat to copper mining. At %
cents pound the profits exceed those
realized from gold ore and there are
indications that the metal will be SELL
ing at 25 cents before the end of the
year. This condition of affairs has
the Standard Oil interests
in their search for permanent copper
mines and the hand of Wall street
has already shown itself at Gina,
where Colonel Hopkins and the Crock
ers of Boston have bonded the Copper
King and other mines. Their lead has
been followed by the' millionaire Will
son brothers of Salt Lake, who are
operating the Johnnie mine with twen-