Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1907-08-15
AILANTA'S VAST
MINING RESOURCES
Something About the Great Work 6oing On
In the Mining Territory About
Mountain Home

snow. Winds and snowslides often
make it impossible to keep this road
open, leaving only the mail carrier
and others with snowshOes to brave
the mountain blizzard and shifting
SHOWS. Starting from Rocky Bar
and travelling seven miles down,
lands you close to the blue waters
of the middle fork, where the Yuba
river comes in to swell its volume
Up stream two miles is the village
of Atlanta, where the valley widenS
some and where several gulches
open out on the left bank of the
stream Here are trees, small
meadow patches and hot springs
The town has three general stores,
two hotels, several saloons and
restaurants and a good many COM
Portable dwellings. AS you gaze
at the faces of the mountains,
where the forces of nature have
eroded the debris away and left
them cold and bare, you observe a
granite country, cut by diSes of POI =
phyry and lime; you see it scanned
and chiselled and butressed in the
handiwork of the Master Builder.
Rising above the town is noun
tain spur that puts out from the
Sawtooth range, connected to the
latter by a saddle. This spur trends
nearly east-west and has a length
of several miles and contains the
mineral zone on which are the Mon
arch, Petit Minerva, TahOnla and
other mines and these will be de-
4 scribed further on
I Placer mining began here on the
Yuba and in Quartz gulCh about
1868, the same time that 1t did at
Rocky Bar. Quartz mining began
some time later.
Quartz gulch, which extends
southerly from town, was the scene
of much gold production in early
days, when surface workings yielded
free gold. The Mammoth, Buffalo,
Last Chance, Tahoma, Big Lode and
Jessie Benton are all located On this
gulch and their ore dumps, open
cuts, shafts and tunnels attest to-
day to the activity of those earlier
days. Down at the river are rel
les of old mills and a roasting
furnace, illustrating the point that
no one then thought of hauling
out any kind of product except
bullion; and when you go over such
a mountainous road as the one be-
tween Atlanta and Mountain Home
it looks much like the same kind OF
a proposition yet.
{
the Atlanta mines, comprising {
consolidation of the Buffalo, Last
Chance and Monarch. The group is
locally known as the Monarch II
was acquired some SIX years ago by
MIR. Barnsdall who placed Dan Kir'
by in charge. The latter with ar
ample force, explored and tested fOl
five years before starting to eI ect (
MILL He can now show 10, 0Oi
feet of workings in the mine, no
, counting crosscuts and raises; am
) Mr. Kirby states that he has il
! sight sufficient tonnage of ole I
z keep their new mill busy for fiv
a years, and its capacity will be 5
f tons per "a hours In fact, he ma
: greatly cut down his mine force
S because there is no necessity of ere
= ating large ore reserves till the mi
t has operated for a while to reduc
+ them.
/ The Monarch ore zone strike
E northeast-southwest. This nOthe
r lode appears to have been divide
n by dixie of prophyry running long
o tudinally with the lode, making
appear as two parallel veins. Bi
q those in charge now consider it OF
s vein, split by the porphyry dix
r The width from one granite wall
d the other is about 100 feet. tt
s actual ore shoots range in widt
from to IS feet, the strongest Oi
:. body being on the south side OF Il
dixie. The gangue is quartz, quart
n ite and tale, the values conprisiI
o free gold, with gold and silver ass
= ciated with iron sulphides- II
/. vast body of the ore IS estimated
It run from Ss to SIS per ton, thoug
e there are sections of the vein tn
y CONTINUED OK PAGE SIX