Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1907-08-10
ENTHUSED over
GOLD MOUNTAIN

the biggest gold camp in the world.
The lodges are big and strong and
the values are everywhere. | spent
half a day taking samples from old
shafts and tunnels and wines, and
put in half the afternoon panning and
never got a skunk. | took the sam
pies from an ore belt that / walked
over for 5000 feet, and could see for
a mile or two farther. If | owned the
mine / sampled, the Nevada Empress,
| would have a mill on it just as
quick as / could get the machinery
there. Gold Mountain is all right,
and all that mine needs is a mill,
says Louis X. Koontz in the Gold.
field Chronicle.
Louis X. Koontz, one of the best
known and most conservative mining
men in Goldfeld, and a recognized
authority on gold mines, and John
Thin, a wealthy stock man of Texas,
for ten years a partner of Governor
Sparks, went down to Gold Mountain
Sunday, tho guests of w. Fl. Stills,
president and general manager of the
Nevada Empress and Richmond
mines and j. G. Starr, president of
the Gold Mountain Eagle, which adj
Joins the Empress. MI. Thin, UNI
familiar with mining, had heard of
the fame of the old camp and want
ed to see for himself. He saw, to
his satisfaction. Koontz had heard
and, as most hard-headed mining
men in Goldfield, doubted the stories
that had reached his ears. To both
men was revealed a condition which
has ceased to astonish the two mine
presidents they accompanied. With
them was the mining editor of the
Chronicle, who has seen too many
big things in Nevada to be aston
ished by anything in the mining line.
Twenty-eight years have rolled
their length away since A. P. An
derson, known to all the desert rats
as Pete went first to Gold Noun
tain. The camp had long been known
to the prospectors and miners of the
Southwest even then, and the mem
DRY Of the Oldest goes not back to
the time when gold was not dug from
its granite hills. Then 1t was a jour-
ney of zoo miles to the nearest rail-
way. Today the iron horse snorts
its defiant way across the western
most edge of the great Ralston desert
within a dozen miles of the camp.
Then nothing but the highest Of the
high grade would pay a proft-today
1T is possible to handle one ounce ore
by means Of modern mills, and the
resident of Goldfeld, then peopled
only by the Jack rabbit and the
skulking coyote, can enter his a
and in three hours (if the car does
not buck, as ours did will arrive at
Old Camp.
A miner and prospector of expert
ence, Anderson, nothing daunted by
the isolation of the camp, but with a
better knowledge than his predeces-
sors, built him a house of stone, de-
Teloped a fine underground stream of
pure water and located a number of
claims. Later an arastra, the most
antique form of ore reduction, fol-
lowed. Anderson never left his
adopted home. He made half a doz-
EN- fortunes, which were squandered
in the way that is usual with men
who live apart from society for
months at a time. Last winter he
died, just as he had completed with
Mr.. Stills a deal that made him indie
pendent for the balance of his nat
ural life. His holdings, including the
precious water, the old stone cabin
which he had built with his own
hands, the arastra, now in decay, and
all his earthly possessions were trans
ferred TO a stranger, but to a man
who realized their worth. From a
luxurious life in Chicago, Stills was
transported to the desert of South
ern Nevada, took kindly to the
changed conditions, and started to
work with a vim to make of the An
derson mines and some other choice
locations which he acquired by pur-
chase n of the really big mines of
the world. How well he has sue
>eeeded is outlined by the views ex,
pressed by Mr.. Koontz and will be
related more in detail in the lines
to follow.
The Nevada Empress embraces six
claims, 100 acres, in the heart of the
/. Gold Mountain district, and on thu
same big mineral belt as the Bonnie
Glare, now operating a 20-stamp mil
on ores of the same class. On the
Empress group are a number of true
assure veins coursing from east tc
west through the granite. They vary
in size from one foot to ten feet be-
tween their walls, but every one il