The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-06-23
FOR BIG "STRlKE"
Aged Mining Prospector Takes
One More Chance.


Recently news came that the Oldest
active mining prospector in the world,
Sam Conger, eighty-nine years old.
was going back to the Rockies, deter
mined to make his last big strike.
sam Conger," the story said, lis
the Grand Old Man of the Mountains
he has ~srospected in the Rockies for
more than seventy years. In addition
to locating many of the best paying
gold and silver mines in the state, he
discovered tungsten, The rare metal Of
Colorado. He is known TO every old
mining man and, despite his eighty
nine years, Sam Conger, game TO the
laden with pack, pick, pan and shovel,
resolute in the faith that he will make
one more big strike"
1t was in Boulder county that he
made his first big strike with his dis
covery OF the Buckeye lead in 1862,
while the battle of Antietam was be-
ing fought. Since then he ~prospected
in California, Oregon, New Mexico,
Arizona, and studied leads and veins
and strata in every mining section OF
Colorado. But it was always to Bou!-
der county that he returned TO make
the big strike. One time it was the
Caribou mine, later sold to capitalists
of Holland. Then, after long pros
pecting in other sections, he came
back to Boulder and discovered the
Poor Man mine, where the ore ran
$4,000 to the ton. There we're the
Fourth Of July and the Diantha and
many others.
Near Boulder City in the middle
'90s he came on a strange black
mineral. Sam Conger did not then
know that he had discovered tungsten.
In Oregon he learned the great value
of the mineral. He hurried back to
Colorado and, in the streets Of Den
yer, met his old partner, who in Ari-
IONA had also learned that the black
ore vas tungsten.
Sam Conger's tungsten claim was
offered to the Allis company Of Mil
waukee and turned down. There is
not n great demand for tungsten" an
official said. "and if it should be found
In such quantities as Conger says, the
price will fall to the lowest point"
Conger's option expired. Then An
drew Carnegie took over the tungsten
claims. Each year since they have
produced their millions.
Conger was BORN in Ohio. AS q lad
of seventeen he heard that the lead
mines Of southwestern Wisconsin
were the places for big stakes, but in
Wisconsin all the talk vas of the rich
ness of the lead deposits Of Missouri.
And In Missouri he heard of the re-
Gently discovered gold at the junction
Of Cherry creek and the Platte river,
out where the Ute Indians lived, across
the Great American desert.
Sam COnger was one of a party TO
drive across the Great Plains with
"Pike's Peak or Bust" on the wagon
canvas and then began his 20 years Of
prospecting for the precious metals.
Later Sam Conger went to New
Mexico. He read how mutiny smoul-
dered among the Indians, how they
arose, murdered borh Spanish con-
Querors and Franciscans and filed up
the mines.
Sam found one Of these mines-the
st. Lazarus. And until the body Of
gold ore was worked Out it was q good
producing mine.
Sam has always wanted riches-not
thousands, but millions. Then he could
Elk everybody up" and he has notions
Of "en-dow-ing" something.
Sam is the last of the old prOspec-
tors-simple, kindly, brave. And ut
eighty-nine he is still walking over the
mountains in paths he trod when he
wns a lad -~NIIuauknE Journal