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Return
to Silverton. Mining in the clouds. Lighting the fire with dynamite. Almost
frozen to death on the summit of Mt. Kendall. The enterprises of Tom Walsh.
On our arrival at the old camp I found that during my
absence the editor of the Miner had mortgaged the plant, left the country, the
mortgage had been foreclosed, and the paper was running under a new ownership.
With the extinction of my newspaper,
I fell back on my old standby, the Ariadne, with the aid of a sound physique and
robust health I was able to work the mine single-handed and ship several
carloads of ore, which gave me a good profit. We my new capital I decided to
promote some promising prospect rather than rob the Ariadne, and my choice fell
on the Star of the West, a mine located among the clouds on Mt. Kendall, which
claim I secured for a few dollars on bond and lease. I had the force of four
miners, including my old-time partner Byrd Wilson as a cook, and we made camp
under the shelter of a rock jutting out below the mine. The mine workings were
well above timberline at an altitude of 13,000 feet, close to the summit of Mt.
Kendall, and instead of packing lumber from town for a house, we built it of
rock, using a white sticky substance (which I afterward found to be rich in
gold) for mortar. We also erected a bake-oven of rock that would be bake bread
for a large force of men. The house, however, proved to be cold and damp and the
walls did not dry out that winter, although we had plenty of fuel and kept a
good fire, so that we were fairly comfortable.
The ore in the mine contained copper
and gold, not rich enough to send to the smelter, but a good concentrating
product. I had sent a carload to Denver to be tested for the most adaptable
treatment, and while this was being done the ore body, which was large, was
opened up and put in shape for production.
One forenoon, on coming into the
cabin, I found Byrd engaged in the act of thawing powder for the noon shots. He
had a piece of wood laid lengthwise on the plate in front of the stove, and
standing upright against it were fifteen sticks of dynamite, with the
nitro-glycerin running into the ash pan. Quickly gathering up the powder I
warned my cook that another break like that would find him either in Kingdom
Come or flying down the hill, as he seemed to have learned nothing from his
former experience in the Gunnison country. I carried out the threat a few days
later, when I caught him sprinkling dynamite on the kindling like so much
sawdust, which he said was "elegant" for making a quick fire.
It was late in the fall when we
started. I had not laid in our winter supplies, as we had no place to protect
them from the icy blasts of that region, and we had no liking for frozen
vegetables. Therefore, when our provender would get low and the trail blocked
with snow, a couple of men on snowshoes would bring up enough from town on their
backs to keep us going for a few more days.
Winter closed in upon us, and a food
shortage was looming. All four of us therefore went on skies to town for
supplies. When we started back the next morning, the thermometer stood at forty
degrees below zero. Our route lay along the south slope of the mountain, as it
was easier traveling than up the steep gulch on the north overlooking the town,
although the mine was on the north side and it was necessary for us to climb up
over the top and down the other side to reach the mine. After the laborious
climb to the summit, which we reached about noon, we stopped for a brief rest,
and thinking it would warm me up I took a generous drink from the flask I
carried. Perspiration from the climb and melting snow froze into my clothes, so
that I could bend only my knees with an effort, but the whiskey stimulated me so
that I thought I could make the descent to the mine and catch up with the others
before they reached the cabin, which was now in sight. The liquor deceived me
however, and its stimulating effects quickly wore off. I felt deathly tired, and
with a weak shout I called to the boys ahead to go on and I would follow. Then I
sat down in the snow, exhausted, perfectly helpless, and leaned back without a
care in the world. The next thing I knew I was being dragged by a rope feet
first to the cabin, where my icy clothes were pulled away and hot ginger tea
poured down me. By rubbing me with snow, which stimulated the circulation, the
boys successfully thawed me out so that I had no ill effects from my experience.
The process of freezing to death is not painful, especially in the last stages,
as only a delicious drowsiness overcomes one. It is much more painful to be
brought back to life, however, as the circulation is restored and the nerves
recover from their torpor, which brings an excruciating pain in every muscle and
bone. If warmed too quickly, the patient will suffer at times for the rest of
his life.
Shortly after this I made a trip to
Denver and sold my interest in the mine to an attorney for $7,000. It was with
great satisfaction that I brought this back to my wife, who had been patiently
enduring, if not enjoying, the hardships of a small mountain town while I was at
the summit of the mountain above, working the mine.
About this time, the great Cripple
Creek discoveries of gold took place that attracted miners and prospectors from
all over the West. W. S. Stratton, one of my former employees at the Ariadne,
was there and had located the Independence Mine. He had optioned his find to an
English company, who had given him $20,000 as a first payment, spent $50,000 in
prospecting the property, but after finding no values had turned it back to the
owner. Stratton, still having faith in the property, sank the shaft sixty feet
deeper, and inside of three months was shipping ore so rich that it went to the
smelter by express, protected by armed guards. This started a boom at Cripple
Creek, and as I was footloose after having sold the Star of the West, and my
wife enjoyed the novelty of the gold rush, we joined the crowd that was swarming
into the new camp.
My experience in Cripple Creek was
limited to a location on Mineral Hill, where we found plenty of low-grade stuff
but none that would stand the heavy treatment charges of that day. The divining
rod men were there in force, and one of them tried his doodlebug on our ground,
finally "locating" a rich ore chute under the table in our cabin. He
assured us we would strike $100 ore in thirty-two feet. We went him eighteen
feet better and sank fifty feet, but failed to get a trace of gold. The first
fire at Cripple Creek mercifully stopped any further expense by burning up our
hoisting plant.
We then followed the stampeded to
Creede, and after we had tried out the camp on the Rio Grande, we flitted over
to Silver Cliff, which also had an incipient boom. Silver Cliff got its name
from the surrounding escarpments, of which there are plenty, but the mineral
deposits are limited in extent, and the camp resulted in nothing more than a
temporary field for crocked promoters, gamblers, and thousands of tenderfeet,
most of whom did not know what they were there for, but just "joined the
stampede."
There is an old saying among
prospectors that "when you are dissatisfied with your own mine, go and see
others." Well, I had done that very thing, and returned to Silverton
convinced in my mind that there was no better mining camp in the West.
In the early nineties an English
company had built a smelter, but a slump in mining had closed it down, and its
idleness had accentuated the depression in Silverton. Thomas F. Walsh then
happened along and took a lease on the English plant. The Red Mountain district
was just opening, and Walsh found plenty of heavy sulphide ores, but he needed
siliceous ores to be used for flux. In his search for silica, Tom would scour
the district, and his pack train was a familiar sight at the Ariadne, where the
dump was highly siliceous and also carried sufficient values in the royal metals
to offset his cost for packing.
It was while Tom was looking for more
dumps that we encountered the Camp Byrd property in the Sneffels district. The
mine was owned by two brothers, one of whom was engaged in business and the
other did the work on the claim. When there was any assaying to be done, the
brother in town did it. In the days of the pioneer, gold was little thought of.
The smelters never paid for the yellow metal if they could help it, and the
whole San Juan was devoted to silver. In fact, it was widely known to be
strictly silver country. Under these conditions, when the brother at the mine
sent a sample to the brother in Ouray, the assayer merely weighed the silver
button, without parting it for the gold content, and let it go at that. Tom
Walsh was more careful, and on sampling the dump of the Camp Bird he found it to
contain $60 in gold to the ton. He secured an option on the mine for less than
$20,000 and paid for it out of the quartz already mined. How Tom took millions
from this accidental find, built business blocks and a palace in Washington, and
died a multi-millionaire, is a story of only one of the many individual
fortunes, which had their origin in the mountains of the San Juan.
With the passing of the years, my
life was subject to many changes. I alternated in the working of the Ariadne
with the leasing of other mines, which never failed to be called off if by
chance I should make a rich strike, which I frequently did. The Spanish War
brought back good prices for the metals, and thereupon began one of those cycles
of prosperity that was checked only by the free silver campaign of William
Jennings Bryan, the Boy Orator of the Platte
My old operatic friend, Bolt, who was
wont to say that what he owed was "a debt of honor," was then a rich
man, having accumulated a fortune through war contracts in partnership with a
man high up in administrative circles, and his palace on Seventy-second Street
is one of the show places of New York. So I still have 'opes!
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