Mohave County miner., 1912-08-24
The Wrath of Santa Rita.
By l.. H. Davis in Fl Paso Herald.

disclosures, in few weeks ever made in mine in Arizona or the southwest" :" says Tom B. Johnson, general mana ger of the Bonanza Belt Copper Min ing company, who has returned from Johnson camp, Arizona.
 "I expect to exhume the skeletons and grinning skulls and jaws of 50 former human beings, and l assure you, when accomplished, it will be one of the most gastly collection of relics of pioneer days of Arizona, marking a tragedy scarcely known to the pres ent day Hassayampais. But what l am after is the rich ore.
 "Ever since took charge of the Pea body mlne, l have noticed depres- sion or sink in the surface ground be- low an old dump. My first impression was that it night have been due to sorne seismic occurrence, possibly to the earthquake of 1887, which rent the earth along the western slope of the Sierra Madre, destroying the old town of Bavispe, Sonora, and cracking the earth in wide yawning Assure which was traceable for over 100 miles, even into Cochise county, Arizona. But this depression was due to a catastro- phe of an earlier time. Fortunately. received visit short time ago from one of the oldest residents of that dls trict, an old Mexican, and he gave me the first reasonable explanation have heard of this strange phenomenon which was as follows.
 "A little over 30 years ago. remark ed the patriarchal Mexican, I was a miner and worked in this mine, long before the camps of Tombstone or Bisbee or other mines were known to the Americans. In those days Cochise was the red handed king of the dread ful Apache nation and spread terror throughout Arizona and Sonora. There were no railroads then. and ali ores were either packed on mules or hauled in wagons. No one but an adventurous Americana would have ventured to mine in this country and none but the richest kind of ore would have tempted him.
 "At that time, an Amerlcano, whose name l have forgotten. had somehow come into this section and had located what IS now the Peabody mine. He soon began operations with quite a force of miners, mostly Mexicans and Yaquls, whom he brought from Sonora. He struck ore so rich at the very surface that it fairly bristled with metallic silver and copper. Soon he had trains of wagons and pack mules hauling the ore to the nearest seaport, which was Guaymas, with armed guards accompanying them. He shipped many hundred tons of this ore on ships clear around the Horn and over to the smelters of Europe, l think they called it Swansea. Oh. it was a wonderful sight to see the shin- ing, glittering metal in the great stopes and drifts! There were masses of copper 'pitancr,' or copper glance, and red and black copper oxides, through the pores of which the white wires of native silver oozed out like the eyes of potatoes. This big stope was called the "Cueva Encantada", or enchanted cavern. It was a glorious sight under the lights of the 50 candles of the miners.
 "The Americana was an irreverent man and was so greedy after the won- derful wealth in that treasure house that he never stopped work on the holy Sabbath and he never thought of placing the holy crosses h the old workings in honor of the patron saint of the miners, Santa Cruz. Little by little the miners became superstitious and had presentment of impending gloom. Often in the dead hour of night they could hear strange noises, like what are called gnomes or what the Americano called Tommy Knock ers, for this miner was Cornishman.
 "Finally, when the mine was in It's greatest bonanza and the Americana was piling the great heavy acks of rich ore away Tn one end of the great stope preparatory for loading on the return ing pack trains, and all the miners were busily engaged in knockinu down