The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1910-11-17
LUST FOR GOLD
LEVELS A VILLAGE

Lust for gold will soon cause the
abandonment of the little Mexican
hamlet OF san Antonio, on the east
! bank of the Yaqui river, between La
Dura and Tonichi, in the state of
Sonora, say a number of mining men
who have recently returned from the
new Yaqui river placer and quartz
tdistrict.
Two hundred years ago a band of
hardy priests and their proselytes
built a small chapel in the center of
the present site of San Antonio and
| planted the standard of the cross
amid the fierce and warlike camps of
| the Yaqui Indians, who were living
at the time in the upper Yaqui valley.
As the years passed by the town
grew in size and became a stopping
point for the travellers and explorers
in their journeying through the valley,
with its rich placers and fabulous
wealth of quartz mines. The old In
dian workings in La Dura were re-
surned by the Mexicans, who thought
they had found the "Golfo de Oro,"
spoken of in the chronicles of Monte
yuma, and the gold seekers poured in
from all parts of the republic on a
wealth adventure, almost at the first
cry of discovery.
San Antonio wat founded early in
the eighteenth century, in the days
when the Spanish don drove the sons
of the Incas before him in the never
ended quest of gold. 1t had it's days of
Spanish domination, it's days Of mis-
sionary zeal, it's nights of native pill
lage and fire, its years Of Yaqui fear.
Out Of this turmoil of history is left
a village of 100 families, who are
miners and tillers of the soil in the
Yaqui river valley. The mountains
that rise on the bluffs above the river
supplied the Spanish colonists of the
early days with a great quantity of
precious metal that found it's way in
to the ~suffetos of noted c%athedrals and
the Golfers of the Spanishs crown Ev-
cry now and then, following the heavy
rain, a landslide exposes to view an
opening high up on the cliffs which is
the mouth of one of these ancient
mines. 1t is but a natural consequence
that where the country is so highly
mineralized with gold, the river bed
and valley should prove profitable as
a placer field and it is in the truth of
this fact that the fate of San Antonio
is sealed.
is is a curious fact that while the
Yaquis killed and drove out of the
rich placers in this region during the
days of the uprisings, the Mexicans,
they permitted the Chinese to go onto
the ground and work it. What the
Chinese have taken out of this ground
will never be known, but it has whet-
ted their appetites for placer mining
to such an extent that they are now
always the first to go into any region
where placer ground is discovered.
The San Antonio placer is an old
channel of the Yaqui river, which
has shifted its course. The Spaniards
worked down the gulches from the
mountains flowing into this bed, and
the bed itself, the Chinese following
the same methods. But when the
level of the workings got below the
underground flow of the Yaqui river,
operations had to be abandoned.
Herman Wendler, a New York engi-
neer, representing eastern capital, is
now testing out this ground to depth
with Keystone drills. The values have
been found to run high enough to war
rant operations with dredges on a
large scale. San Antonio is located
on a portion of the area included il
the announcement for placer develop