The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-01-29

C. L. Shelton, in the engineering anu
Mining Journal)
TN the early sos, the Hollingswortn
brothers. from the San Juan country,
i camped under the Independence gran
ite ledge for two weeks, prospecting Tor
si,ver-no one was looking for gold In
those davs. The Mt Pisgah excitement
1.-TWO miles west of the town of Cripple
creek1 which was a salted proposition,
brought several hundred people into the
district, but no one noticed the gold IN
dications.
In 1seo Cornish miner discovered the
FL Paso Gold King mine, up Poverty
C,ulch located and did his discovery
work. packed so to 40 pounds OF the ore
on his burro to Leadville, and gave 1t
IN his assayer, cautioning him to be par
ticular with it, as 1t was new discoV-
ery that he thought much OF. When ne
returned he was given certificate OF
az gold per ton. 1t was so different from
what the assayer was accustomed 10, 1t
;s evident that he threw 1t out the back
door and never tested it, for two years
later the rock that the Cornishman ielt
an the dump, and the face of his d1scov-
erv hole was shipped and returned s2oo
nor ron. the property is still shipping,
hut the cornishman lost out. This was a
wear before Bob Womack made ms as
oovery. which caused Cripple Creek to pe
known ON the maps OF the world
The conditions, formations and charac-
ter of the ores were such that up to Vs.
when Colorado became interested IN
something else than silver, Know OF
only one engineer, W. A. Parish, who mad
apv confidence in the camp, or even
smoke we'll of it, the other engineers and
and all old time miners were afraid of
il: it did not look good to them 1t was
the tender foot who made the
money at Cripple Creek lie
iumped in and made locations any
where: later it proved that any of these
in the inside mineral area, three miles
square. was valuable. 1t was question
of trenching on the surface Che debris
generally being deep and finding pay
ore, or sinking shaft and prosecuting
the country until pay ore was found
Very few veins were exposed on the sur
face. knew a 2io foot shaft, sunk by
leasers. and abandoned, later worked py
others. The first roupd of shots put In
at one side at the bottom of the shaft ex-
posed a Q foot vein of 500 ore, which
was stopped to the surface. There were
many cases in the early days of fortunes
lost by not prosecuting the country.
Few of the old time mining men made
money at Cripple-the conditions and for
nation were so different from what they
were accustomed to that they could not
catch on" but it taught most of us TO
assay anything thereafter. Up to that
! time the world had never seen such a
boom, especially in wildcat propositions;
stock was sold by the wholesale in nearly
every city. town and village of the coun-
try While in some instances stocks of
, properties on the inside area, which first
sold for 2, g. S to 10 cents per share,
eventually from development, ran up to
81 and 81 per share; the great majority
over 30 per cent were worthless. Prac-
tically everything outside of the three
miles square mineral area was proved of
no value.
| have seen claims in the red Pixies
Peak coarse corn granite six to eight
miles north of Cripple. sold for s100 each,
for stock purposes. 1 recall one instance
! of eastern clients wanting informat tion
regarding a certain stock, which eventu-
ally l found was based on a location
stake, situated on a patented claim or
| Gold Hill. In most cases it was neces
sary to pay cash for an option on ground
! situated in the inside, then il you found
| a buyer, very often he would manage tc
| beat you out of commission.
| The town was run wide open, gambling
| Of all classes flourished all of the 2.
hours. One of the early chiefs of polics
collected sieo per month from each fare
and roulette game as his personal per
quisite. The loss of $4,000 to Wells
Fargo & Co., by holdup of the stage
was afterward repaid by bank to the
| head detective of Wells. Fargo & Co.
on demand. without protest.
After the two fires in the spring of a6
the better class of citizens organized q