Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1918-12-28
.EMERSON'S DEATH RECALLS
 VISIONARY MINING PROMOTION

The death recently of Willis George Emerson in Los Angeles, the mecca of all men of his caliber, recalls the days of the Ferris-Haggerty mine at Grand Encampment, Wyoming, high-up in the Sierra Madre range. In the hey day of the camp many people went from Mohave county in the belief that the camp was to see one of the most wonderful mining booms in the his tory of the mining west. Just how Emerson became acquainted with Haggerty, a sheepherder, we cannot say, but Emerson came out of bank in a small town in Kansas with noth- ing except a mind inhabited by vis- ion of the wealth to be extracted from the mines or by the Notation of shares of stock in mining property.
 It was along in the latter part of the century that Emerson ran across Ed. Haggerty, who had found a good looking vein of copper ore in the rol- ling hills of the northern Rocky mountains. Haggerty disposed of his holdings for about $50,0O0, and upon these holdings Willis George Emerson erected the fabric of one of the lar gest mining swindles of the age. He organized company known as the North American Copper company and unloaded the mines on it for $1,0000,- 900. Soon thereafter he organized other companies, including a railroad and subsidiary companies upon which stock issues said to have totaled $20.- 000,000 were issued. Tramways, fumes, viaducts, railroads, smelters and other enterprises were laid out and some of them completed, but the crash came. and the, shareholders never received one cent on their investment. Encampment has gone the way of all enterprises built upon nothing and today it has only few men who have tried to'eke out an ex- istence by "chloriding" the old mine.
 The method pursued by the com pany was to pay dividends to certain stock issues for a period at six per cent, later increasing to eight per cent. While the mine showed excellent bod ies of copper ore, which was stated to be in excess of 20 per cent in val ue, the returns from the shelter show ed slightly in excess to four per cent. The superintendents report showed vein 10 feet wide, 75 feet deep and $50 feet in length, in 1907, but it was shortly after this that the company gave way in miserable failure. En- erson got out from under, but claims that his retirement was caused by be- ing squeezed" by the Standard Oil company. The stock was placed on the Londan market to the amount of about $9,0OO,0O0. Among the schemes that grew out of the original Ferris Haggerty mine are the Haggerty Copper mining company; Battle Lake Tunnel Site Mining company; En- campment Shelter company; Encamp- ment Tramway company; Encamp- ment Pipe Line Ditch company; En- campment Water Works; Encamp- ment Land and Town Lot company; Carbondale Coal company; Emerson Electric Light company; North Amer ican Mercantile company, and the Sar- atoga and Encampment Railway com pany. While bonds in the sum of $60O,O00 was issued for the building of the railroad no sale was had, the road being built out of surplus funds on hand. All of these companies were subsidiaries of the parent North Am erican Copper company, which was later taken over by the Penn-Wyom- ing. On January l, 1907, the com pany presented balance sheet show ing over $8,O00,0 100000 in assets, but shortly thereafter the company found itself in most embarrassing condition and thereafter went into bankruptcy.
 But the career of Emerson was me teoric and spectacular in the extreme and had he the gift of management he might have been one of the big ones. |