The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-11-09
How a Sheepherder Discovered
Montana's Famous Sapphire Mine

One hot day In the middle 's0s,
sheepherder was lettering idly on
slope of the foothills of Little Belt
mountains, some Is miles west OF the
town OF Utica, in Fergus county while
his herd grazed in the rolling country
near him. He stopped to light mis-
pipe, dropped the match and stopped
down after it. AS he did SO his eye
was attracted by blue, transparent
pebble which he took at first to be
a piece of blue glass. He picked 1t
up. wondering how 1t came to be there,
but a glance convinced his 1t was not
glass.
In that idle moment that flockmas-
ter had discovered the only sapphire
mine In the world; a property which
In the twenty odd years that have In
tervened has yielded millions of doll
lars in Values mine with such In
exhaustable possibilities that 1t can
be worked for thousand years, turn
ing out enough to supply the worlds
markets, without draining 1t dry OF It's
wealth.
A few weeks before sapphires had
been discovered a few miles away in
Yogo creek, which, 1t afterward was
found. cuts the lead that the sheep
man had found. The discoverer of the
gems in the creek bottom was Jake
Hoover, an old time hunter and pros
pector, who had been grubstaked by
s. s. Hobson, now a resident of Great
Falls, to placer mine for gold In Yogo
creek.
Hoover, while panning along the
banks of Yogo creek, had found some
OF the blue stones in his pan. He
showed them to Mr.. Hobson and told
him he thought they were gems OF
some kind. The latter took them to
Helena to a Swiss lapidarian, who
went into transports of joy when he
had examined them. He pronounced
them sapphires Of the finest quality.
1t happened that Mr.. Hobson, to-
gether with Dr. ]. A. Bovett, re-
sident of the Judith Basin, had just
completed the construction of a ditch
FIlCfi CdIIlcu WdlCl llOli upPCl LObc
creek out onto the foothills which
were cut by the sapphire lead The
ditch had been built for placer mining
for gold.
A thorough examination of the sap
phire lead showed that every portion
of it could be reached with the waters
from the ditch.
Organize Company.
Mr.. Hobson and Matt Dunn of
Great Falls then proceeded to stake
out every foot of the sapphire lead ex-
cepting one claim on the west end,
and buy the one or two claims along 1t
that had been taken up by the sheep
man who first found the sapphires on
the lead They organized a company
to mine sapphires and sold some stock
to George Wells of Great Falls. Mr..
Wells went to London and interested
an English firm of gem merchants,
Johnson, Tolhurst & Walker, who
bought a considerable block of stock.
The company was incorporated as the
New Mine Sapphire Syndicate.
Later Messrs. Hobson, Dunn and
Wells sold their interest to the English
people The latter subsequently pur-
chased the ground at the western end
Of the lead owned by the American
Sapphire company, and now every foot
of the sapphire ground Is owned by
the Englishmen.
This is the only place in the world
where sapphires are found in the
ground. In the orient, where the
worlds supply previously came from,
the gems were found in the bars of
rivers.
The sapphire is the crystal of corln-
drm, a substance which is used largely
l. the manufacture of emery wheels
and emery stones for sharpening tools
The sapphire lead consists of corun-
dunn in varying degrees of disintegra-
ton and deposits of yellow and blue
clay The stones are found scattered
through the corundum and clay
The first method of securing the
sapphires was an extremely crude and
wasteful one, and entailed a heavy
percentage of loss of the stones.
Lead Four Miles Long.
The sapphire lead runs through the
foothills for a distance of about four
miles appearing at the eastern end
on one side of coulee and running in
a westerly direction to Yogo creek.
The lead is we'll defined all that dis
lance, averaging perhaps a dozen feet
in width. In some places 1t widens
out and in others is narrower. There
10 nothing on the surface of the
ground to tell the casual observer of
the presence of the sapphire bearing
lead beneath, but careful inspection
makes the lead easily traceable, as the
Gopher's holes at intervals along the
surface show, where the ground rs
disturbed, different character of soil
on the lead from that along the SIDES
In places, also, slight depression in
the ground shows where the lead runs
The country through which the sap
phire bearing dyke runs is rolling in
character, the lead crossing a number
of fairly deep coulees with steep sides.
The first method of mining was to