The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1911-07-22
DISCOVERY OF CON. VIRGINIA
How Jimmy Fair Opened Up the
Big Bonanza On the Old
Lode Years Ago

q. O. Goodwin in Saturdays issue Of
Goodwin's Weekly gives some interest
ing personal "reminiscences of James G..
Fair tUncle Jimmie), and we quote
therefrom the incidents leading mp to
the discovery Of the Con. Virginia
Bonanza. which shows that chance was
q big factor. then as now, in the locst-
ing of ore bodies:
when the mining stock board was
established in San Francisco aud the
dealings in stocks became the great
feature Of that city. no one understood
better than Mr.. Fair its possibilities.
Ia the meantime he had learned to
know John W. Mackay well, and both
knew Flood and O'Brien in San Fran
cisco, and combine was made. The
San Francisco firm had some means,
and when from the Oomstock word was
sent to buy or sell stocks, or to buy on
margin or to sell short. Flood re-
sponded, and good deal Of money was
made. They soon became a factor;
then they began to get control of GER
tain OF the mines; they made one
diversion and lost $500, 900 in Silver
City, Idaho mine. and thereafter clung
with more tenacity to the great vein
under MouDt Davidson.
By 1870 they had obtained control of
the California Consolidated Virginia,
Best 81 Bslcher and Gould s. Curry,
all adjoining. Their hope was to ex.
plore the old workings of the California
and Con. Virginia. believing that good
deal Of money could be IN ide from low
grade ores that had been left in the
stope, as the cost of reduction and
transportation had been much reduced.
They worked with but Indifferent suc-
cess for six months, when one evening
Mr.. Fair met Captain Mackay. who
long had been in charge of the Gould
& Curry before the Bonanza firm OBJ
tained possession. Captain Mackay
was fine geologist and scholar general.
ly, besides being perfect miner.
Mackay said to Fair: "Why do you
not go to the bottom of the Gould &
Curry shaft and drift north? Toe shaft
is 200 feet deep; tunnel north from it
would be below all workings Of the Best
& Belcher, the Con. Virginia and Cali
fornia it would be in virgin ground.
aud il there are any deep ore bodies on
the fssure. the outcrop Of which was
the surface ore body Of the Mexican and
Ophir. by the trend of the vein you
ought to strike them"
II don't think there is anything in
II" was Uncle Jimmie's reply. but that
night three shifts of men were set to
work at the bottom of the Curry shaft.
1t was all blasting rock; it had to be
run back to the Curry shaft, hoisted
200 feet and run out on the dump. 1t
required good deal of nerve and money.
but it was pushed out through the north
end of the Curry, $50 feet, through the
Best & Belcher $50 feet, and l50 feet
into the south end of the Con. Virginia.
when the great bonanza was struck
about 30 feet below its apex. Had the
shaft been only 100 instead of 1900 feet
deep the drift would have passed over
it, and it might have remained undis-
covered still.
"When 1 left Virginia City it had
yielded $ll9.0Oo.ooo and hal paid in
dividends s67, ,OOO. 900. or course Uncle
Jimmie made some millions from it.
hut it did not change him; rather it
made him, as the boys on the Com
stock said, more 50. The anecdotes of
him were numberless, When the big
bonanza was fully opened up it was 40
feet wide in places and was laid off in
great galleries by wide drifts like the
streets of city"