The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1910-09-24

n TtttUI lScuC Ut - AAhAh AhNCSNV
of Denver, olo., contains a New Yorl
editorial letter written by Wing r
Allen. Inasmuch as it touches Gold
fields greatest mine and is interesting
from several standpoints, it is herewith
reproduced:
Originally there were a million shares
of Goldield Mohawk Mining Company
A little over half of the stock went fol
the purchase of the ground from the
first owners and the balance was placed
in the treasury of the company to be
sold a; ten cents a share for the benefit
of the company to be used for develap-
ment work. There were two or three
shafts sunk about 80 feet and consider
able more surface trenching done, and
then the work was suspended and sew
eral blocks of the ground leased out.
That happened about a year and a half
after the first excitement in Goldfeld
when the production of the whole camp
had fallen to almost nothing-exeept
that the Goldfeld Combination Mining
Company mill kept on grinding away
on ores from that ground. The Jumbo
property, from which leasers had ex-
sracted an even million dollars the first
year, was tied up in litigation. The
famous Reilly lease on the Florence had
expired after a production of some
thing over $500, 900. The Red Top had
made its first shipments and work was
u~naccountably tagging there. The
~leasers (miners do not call them "les-
sees") who had found so much rich ore
on or near the surface in the Sandstone
were giving up. And that was a great
disappointment for the camp. Why
didn't Sandstone make a mine? Fifty
feet down in half a dozen holes very
high grade ore was found. There were
large chambers where ever the dust
from the drills was carefully swept up
with small hand brushes and sacked and
shipped. Many of the richest speci-
mems ever found in Goldfeld were tax
en- from that ground. AT any time for
a long time visitors allowed in the
workings could literally fill their peck
cts with beautiful free gold rock.
In the early part of 1906 the huge
camp of Soldiers of Fortune had a fit
of the blues only partially dispelled by
the continual pounding of that mill on
Combination Hill. The fortune seek
ers commenced to leave, one by one,
family after family. Mohawk shares
stood at IA cents ON the afterwards
wonderful little Goldfeld stock ex-
change. d. III. Peery from Salt Lake,
who is now dead, one of the early en-
thusiasts of the camp, and who took a
leading part in all its affairs, made the
rounds of the mines one day and came
in and fguratively threw up the sponge
for himself and many followers. He
closed his offices and got out. Every
body felt worse. Many more would
have skipped out if they had possessed
the stage and railroad fare. Things
certainly looked bad. 1t was a boom
camp, after all. The "veins didn't go
down.
But while there was life on Comb
nation Hill, there was hope. That com
pany continued to pay ten cents per
share per month and about five or six
thousand people stuck to the camp, and
most of them were securing the hills
and hammering the rock and looking
for more gold. 1t must be there! A
lot of it had so far been found on the
following properties and in the order
named: Combination, January, Jumbo,
Florence, Sandstone, Kendall, Simmer
one, Black Butte, st. Ives, Red Top,
Great Bend and Daisy.
There were many trails leading to all
parts of the district and one foot-patb
leading right across the Mohawk prop
ertv. There a deserted shack stood,
containing a forge, where ~prospeetors,
passing that way, frequently stopped
and sharpened their tools. just below
the shack was where the Mohawk com
pany had done considerable trenching.
| Nearby was a sort of blowout IN the
rocks. This rock was discolored and
burnt in spots and the place looked
more like an extinct miniature volcano.
The sun blistered down, sage brush
would scarcely grow, lizards crawied
about, vast silence reigned. Ever
sshearn the silence of Nevada s desertf
1t is fierce. I passed that way fire.
~ouently with an old ~prospector from
Deadwood. He. was a Seotehman'
grown old as only a prospeetor VINO