Arizona republican., 1908-09-21

knew that here in Santa Cruz county work was being quietly pushed by the head of one of the greatest electrical manufacturing concerns in the world, to secure control of and develop cop per mines big enough and rich enough to free him from the clutches of the worlds greatest trust-the Standard oil company.
 For years the Duquesne Mining and Reduction company, backed by George Westinghouse. had representatives in Santa Cruz county, buying copper claims in the Washington Camp dis trict. No property was developed, but claims were bought from prospectoTs and patented as soon as possible. Scores of claims were bought in by the company and some seventy or .seventy-five were patented and finally plans were made for the development of the mines. The properties to be first developed were selected and the plans drawn up that would have re- quired two years of work, at an eX- pense of S3,0OO.OGO and furnishing em
 ployment for four or five hundred men. At the end of the two years work it was believed the mines would be in condition to produce ore and the smell
 ters would have been installed on the Santa Cruz river. when active mining and smelling would have been conn menced, giving employment to several thousand men. In a few years a big mining camp would spring up where is now the almost deserted camp of Du
 quesne and a large smelting town would grow up amid the groves of ccttOhWOOds and walnut trees on the banks of the Santa Cruz river. Ac- cording to the best estimates that could be made Westinghouse would then be in a position to furnish cop per for his big electrical manufactur- ing house at about : cents per pound, and the mines and smelters in Santa Cruz county would supply millions of pounds of the needed metal. The news papers in this section were requested not to say much of the plans formu
 lated or of the work being done, and the occasional small paragraph that told of the doings of the ,Duquesne company were not such as might give to the outside world an idea of the magnitude of the project. But the master trust had been watching the operations of Westinghouse for many years, while the people of Santa Cruz county paid no particular attention to rumors of the battle of giants going on in the industrial world. That seemed to be an affair of vital interest only in financial circles in the eeast and not at all likely to interfere with the development of Santa Cruz county mines. None here thought a year ago that the very rivalry that seemed to be bringing prosperity to the county would soon quash, temporarily, at least, the great work that had been just commenced. And the eagle, talk ing his morning vapor bath in the clouds above the mountain peaks. had to raise his eyes upward to read the prices on real estate in Patagonia and Nogales. Week after week the force at the Duquesne camp increased and then, less than a year ago-well, panic seems to have been due and no doubt would have come if there had never been a mine in Arizona. The crushing process was commenced. The embarrassment of the Westinghouse concern is matter Of national his tory It's temporary effect in Santa Cruz county is known only in Santa Cruz county.