Mohave County miner. [volume] (Mineral Park, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1882-1918, 1906-03-10
Land Laden
With Minerals
The Treasure House
of the Ancients.

The pursuit of the golden treasures
of earth has drawn mankind far afield
since the dawn of life on this old earth,
and will continue to attract the hardy
adventurer into its farthermost cor
ners for all time. 1t was the quest of
gold that brought to the New World
the hardy voyageurs of old Spain, and
their lust of the yellow metal lead
them into the desert regions in search
of the mines of Montezuma, of which
they had heard fabulous stories. 1t
was while searching for the source of
the Aztec wealth that many of the
wonderful mines of Mexico were dis
covered, but the conquered Indians
never would reveal the whereabouts
of the mines of gold and silver from
which their vast boards were taken.
The pioneer of explorers in Arizona,
New Mexico and California, Father
Marco de Nito, says that the wealth
of the Aztecs was taken from the
mines west of the great forest section
of what is now called San Francisco
plateau, between Juniper mountains
and the great desert of California. In
support of this Alarcon, the discoverer
of the Colorado river, found evidence
of the work of the Indians in the
mountains contiguous to the river and
spread the belief among his people
that wonderful mines were to be found
in the great stretches of desert lying
on each side of that turbid stream. In
the search for this treasure land thou
sands of the adventurous sons of old
Spain died by desert thirst and at the
hands of the savage Indians. For de-
cades a war of determination was
waged between the donS and the saw
ages until the latin race was practic-
ally wiped out north of the present
line of Mexico. Among all the writ
ings of the early explorers of this
country the impression is given that
here would be found the great mines of
gold and silver. and later research has
bourne this out.
In the early sixties the first extern
sive. and at the same time methodical
explorations were made in what is now
the county of Mohave and the region
contiguous thereto. by white men fresh
from the gold mines of California.
These men made discoveries of Won
derful rich mines of gold in the noun
tains on the east side of the Colorado
river and now known officially on the
maps as the Blue Ridge range.
The mines then found were called the
Moss and California Moss, after the
discoverer. From the Moss ore was
sent to San Francisco that netted more
than 50,000S to the ton. The finding
of this great vein brought a rush to
that section and in the years following
explorations were carried into the
mountains to the east and west by
prospectors from California and Neva-
da. Owing to the hostility of the
Wallapai and Pahute Indians explora-
tions were confined to the Blue Ridge
and Cerbat ranges, but in the early
seventies the thrush from Nevada
overawed the savage tribes and made
the life of the hardy pioneer more
safe, although many was the lone
searcher after wealth whose bones
were left to bleach on the mountain
sides of the county.
In 1872 hundreds of men came in
from Phoebe and the gold counties of
California and the rich veins of the
Cerbat and Wallapai mountains were
discovered. The ores from these mines
were so rich that big profits were re-
turned from them, although the eX-
pense of freight and treatment ran
into the hundreds of dollars per ton,
owing to the fact that ores had to be
packed long distances on burros There
being no roads in the county at the
time) to the Colorado river, thence by
river steamar to Port Isabel, down the
gulf to PIT. Arena and up the coast to
San Francisco. from which point ii
was later shipped to England for treat
ment. Although one small custom mill
was erected at Mineral Park in the
later seventies this was the method OF