The copper era., 1907-04-18
THE FAMOUS LOST PEGLEG MINE.
Many Men Have Lost Their Lives Vainly
Seeking These Fabulous Placer
Di9eineS.

LnenClCdCeQ OF all the lost mines. 1t
has been located four or Ave times
during the past seventy-five years,
and its whereabouts is pretty well
known to within a radius of less than
100 miles. But it is in the midst of
the most Godforsaken desert on the
face of the earth, and few people who
have ever seen it have been able to
go back to it. Those who did were
always killed in one way or another
without revealing their secret, and
the Pegleg still remains lost to the
world at large.
If any one wants to look for it he is
welcome to the following directions:
1t lays somewhere off the Los Ange-
les trail between Los Angeles and
Yuma. 1t is dry placer located on
the highest of one of the neighboring
peaks, presumably not far from. the
turn off to Warmers Pass. The gold
is on the surface and is of peculiar
appearance, darker than most placer
nuggets and known among the mining
men of the. west as sunburnt gold.
There are specimens of it in a num-
Der of mining museums. And anyone
who can find it and get out again
alive has his fortune made
"Pegleg" Smith, gentleman with
one wooden prop, was it's original dis
coverer way back in 1887. He was
crossing that section of the desert
between Fort Yuma and Los Angeles
when he tried to take a cutoff in the
neighborhood of Warmers Pass.
Quite naturally he lost his way and
came near dying before he got back
to the trail.
He picked up a lot of curious look
ing nuggets on the way out but was
ignorant of their value until d year
or more afterward when he showed
them to man in Los Angeles. The
latter got excited over the find and
when Smith realized how near he
came to making his fortune he had a
tit of brain fever.
The fever did not have much to
operate on, according to those who
hLCW nInI, OQI II hlllCu OIlllIn
how, and of about fifty men who fol-
lowed his trail into the desert trying
to locate the famous placer, nearly
all died of thirst or went crazy or
broke.
Many years later a miner who had
drifted into the same desert country
came out with about $1,000 in nuggets
of the same sunburnt gold. He had
struck the same mysterious placer,
but he died from privations and ex-
posture and his secret with him.
Not many years ago an Indian
squaw, three-quarters dead from
thirst, drifted into a construction
camp on the Southern Pacific, not
far from the edge of the Salton Sea,
that great dry lake of the southwest
that has been full of water for about
three years within the memory of
man. She and her man had gotten
lost in the desert and climbing peak
to try and get their bearings they
ran onto the Pegleg placer. The
Apaches know what gold is we'll
enough, and the squaw had about ten
pounds of it in a handkerchief. She
had seen the smoke of the construc-
ton train, so she said, from the place
where she found the gold, but she
refused to lead any of the workmen
to it.
The latest discovery of the Pegleq
on record was in 1896, when a Next
can vaquero on ranch near San Ber-
nardino came in with about 10000
worth of nuggets. He had better
luck than his predecessors, for he
went back to the place time after
time. He gambled and he drank, he
made love to all the girls in the re-
gion and he spent money as though
he had the treasury of the United
States behind him. When he went
shy on gold he would disappear for a
few days and come back loaded with
it.
Tell where he got it? Not much
But it was Pegleg gold, all right, and
just from the region where the mine
he was trailed and followed, but he
had better sense than to ever take
the same trail twice or allow himself
to be tracked by his cache. An east
erner may think that this shows a
lack of enterprise on the part of the
people who wanted the secret, but a
cowboy skilled in desert craft can
come near losing a whole settlement
once he gets the start-of them into
that desert country. Finally, the
Mexican got cut to pieces in knife
fight at ball, and since then the
Pegleg has been undisturbed, though |
there are people hunting for it every |
year. The vaquero had $1,000 in gold |
on deposit at a home ranch when he
was killed.
With a three-inch machine drill |
and ninety pounds air pressure forty
five to fifty feet of holes should be !
drilled per shift in medium ground.