Mohave County miner., 1911-05-13
The Mine That Never Was.

Will the fabled Blue Bucket mine ever become more than legend of east. ern Oregon? Will the fabulous wealth It is said to hold ever be unearthed?
 This question is half century old, and more, yet prospectors are still trying to answer it. The Blue Bucket mine was one never found, never To- cated, and yet more people are said to have hunted for it than went in quest of the Holy Grail.
 Railroads are building into central Oregon, taking thousands of settlers into the new territory, adding to the number of visionary prospectors who hope to find it. They will chase this will-o'-the-wisp as long as the story is told of the wealth of the Blue Bucket, the mine that never was.
 Briefly, this is what the newcomer heard around the campfres and at the farm house tables of Grant county. In the late 40 and early 50, when people were going through central Oregon to California and southern Oregon, it is said that one outfit passed that had a blue bucket tied to the rear axle of the wagon. It was used by the party to dig up water and the children took it to gather pebbles in their play along the way.
 When the outfit reached it's destina- tion in California and united the buck ct, it was partly filled with nuggets that were nearly pure gold. Where had they been picked up? It was finally decided that the children had last used the bucket in the Grant County section, and that the nuggets had been gathered on Canyon or Dixie creek or some nearby stream, or per haps in crossing the John Day river. That party and other parties and in- dividual prospectors without end have ever since been trying 10 locat, the Blue Buc[et mine.
 Fortunes have been lost, murders committed, regulations shattered. fam lilies separated, hopes blighted, death has taken heavy toll oft thousands who have gone in search of this phan- tom-this will-O'-the-wis isl, this some thing that never was, and may never be.
 And the search still goes on. Many persons maintain they are absolutely sure they know where to find the mother lode from which came these fabled nuggets. Nor than one has lost fortune in outitting and hunting. Another, woman, has gone crazy over the same subject. and in the prisons, poorhouses and asylums are those who joined at time or another the horde of seekers for the treasure.
 Will it ever be found? Did it ever ever exist? Who knows?
 The placers of the Canyon Creek section have turned out over B, ,OOO, OOOS since the early gold discoveries in that section. The John Day valley was first settled by people brought there by the lure of gold, and many acres of land are covered with boulders, rem nants of the old placer days, when ev- cry foot of earth was washed away down to bed rock to glean the yellow particles from the soil and gravel hid ing it.
 The mother lode, where supposedly all this placer gold came from origi- nally, has never been found in the placer ground of Canyon creek and other creeks the outcropping of the phantom Blue Bucket and did these children at play really stumble upon an Fl Dorado, since lost, that was the richest gold deposit of the Northwest country?
 Thousands of people are sure this is true and that they will find it tomor- row, ever Mining Record.