Bisbee daily review., 1907-01-13
B|G WILD CAT SCHEME
 WORKED IN ARIZONA
Dr. Flower of Spenazuma Mining Company Fame Is At Last In the Tois-Story of How Newspaper Correspondent Exploded the Fake Mining Promoter at the Risk of His Life.

The capture of Dr. R. c. Flower, the notorious mine swindler mentioned in Associated Press dispatches a few days ago to the Silver Belt, is of more than ordinary interest to Ari- zona people, and particularly in this part of the territory. His greatest scheme to get rich quick was the Spenazuma alleged gold and copper mine located near Mt Turnbull in Ora. ham county, in what is known as the Black Rock mining district, thirty-fiye miles south of Globe. It was this scheme and it's subsequent exposure that startled the mining men of the west and started the authorities in New York to ferreting out what proved to be a gigantic fraud.
 Flower was the promoter and finan- cier of the Spenazuma Gold Mining & Milling company. He succeeded in in- teresting some of the leading men ln New York city, the late Walter S. Lo- gan being its president. Other capl- talists well known in the mining spec ulation of seven years ago assisted Flower, but none of them ever saw the property. They believed what Flower told them, that he had the richest gold mine in the world. The mines were alleged to have been visited and exam- ined by the greatest mining experts of two continents" whom the late Editor Rockwell of the Mining and Scientific Press of New York afterwards failed. after exhaustive research, to find ever lived. Commissioners were sent to eastern towns to lecture upon this wonderful discovery, and after the lec- ture stock was offered for sale. Of the ten million dollars capitalization { is estimated that a million dollars of the stock sold.
 The prospectus was filled with the romantic story of Montezuma and his hidden resources of fabulous gold; tie story led the reader from Mexico to t1e scene of the Spenazuma, and the mysterious mine of gold which had been discovered by the Aztec chiei and was handed down from generation 10 generation, until it got into the possession of an unworthy descendant who gave the whole snap away to Dr. Flower It was a pretty story, inter. esting and alluring. The ingenious doctor was careful to whom he sent the prospectus, and it's greatest cir culation was in the rural districts of i1e New England states.
 The operations of this comDauy were carried on so carefully that few Arizona mining men knew what was going on. The first intimation they had was when the doctor arrived at Bowie with a special car loaded with eastern people, the most of them wom- en, and all of them tenderfest in the west. He took them to Gsroaimo or Ft. Thomas, where he loaded them in stages and took them to the camp st the head of Goodwin wash. One of the members of this party was a lady representing an investment company that handled funds of widows and or- phans and she was authorized to in- vest in whatever scheme appeared feasible and guaranteed good returns
 Long before the visitors arrived men were engaged in packing ore from the San Carlos strip on burros and this was dumped at the workings and some of it shipped east. A "mill' was in The course of erection, the largest tim bers Tn it being so fraiI that an ore crusher would soon shake the building
 
 afterwards bought by Globe parties and is now in use here. There was scarcely any ore in the district devel- oped, and the fabulous placer dig gings" described by Dr. Flower would scarcely reveal a color He claimed to have ten square miles of timber, and there were glowing accounts of this wonderful property printed 1T New York papers-paid for by the stock buyers.
 Very litfleswas known of the opera tions of Flower in Arizona until in- ouiries began to come to mIning men here regarding the mine. Tn May, 1899, George H. Smalley of Globe, now clerk of the United States district court here, then mining editor of the Arizona Republican at Phoenix, was 30urneying over the territory writing