Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-09
NEWS OF THE MINES AND OIL FIELDS
OLD YlQUI TOWN MUST
MAKE WAY FOR MINERS
San Antonio, Rich in History, Will
Be Torn Down by Placer
Workers

The search 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 So
nora, where there is activity in both
quartz and placer
Two hundred years ago a band of
hardy priests and their followers built
a small chapel in the center of the
present site of San Antonio and plant
ed 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 val
ley, with its rich placers and fabu-
lous wealth of quartz mines. The old
Indian workings in La Dura were re-
sumed by the MeXicans, who thought
they had found the "Golfo de ORC, >"
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 was founded early in
the eighteenth century, in the days
when the Spanish don drove the sons
of the Incas before him in the never
ending quest of gold. 1t had its days
of Spanish dominion, its days of mis-
siOnary zeal, its 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 great quantities of the
precious metal that found its way
into the suffetos of noted cathedrals
and the Golfers of the Spanish crown.
Every now and then, following the
heavy rains, a landslide exposes to
view an opening high up on the cliffs
which is the mouth of on OF these an
cient mines. 1t is but a natural con-
sequence that where the country is
so highly mineralized with gold, the
river bed and valley should prove prof
liable as a placer field, and it is in the
truth of this fact that the fate of San
Antonio is sealed.
During the Yaqui Indian troubles ii
is a curious fact that while the va
quis 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 on the
ground and work it. What the Chi
nese 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
l.. I,N-
ell of the workings got below tho un-
derground flow of the Yaqui river,
operations had to be abandoned.
Herman Wendler, a New York en-
gineer, 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
large scale. San Antonio is located on
a portion of the area included in
the announcement for placer devel
opment, and as a result all the build
ings will be torn down, the streets
bored for gold and the inhabitants
given new homes which are to be
erected on non-gold bearing land,
The destruction of San Antonio for
its colder cellars is akin to the de
struction of Cienega, in the Altar
gold placer fields, where the city of
10000 inhabitants in early days of
excitement there, away back in 1900,
has 'Deen torn down for the purpose
of extracting the gold from the adobe
walls of the houses and even the old
church, by the dry washing process.
Some day, through American inge-
nuity and American capital, the gold
in the cellars and walls of the houses
of San Antonio will be shining coins
in the strong vaults of Wall street,
and ready again for investment in the
rapid development of the sister re
Dublic