[Sam C. Dunham, Tonopah and Its Gold, Sunset, May 1903]

 

Tonopah and Its Gold

Sam C. Dunham

            In the search for gold the scenes are shifted with lightning-like rapidity and the center of the stage changes with the wind. Just now Tonopah is the star toward which the greedy eyes of the gold-hungry are set. It is the center of the stage, and all over the world the nameless thing that attracts men to the feast, even if crumbs be their share, is working and the coming months will see the tide of fortune-seekers flowing toward the teeming camp of Tonopah. There is one good feature in this latest change in the gold-searcher's map, and that is the fact that the new diggings are fairly accessible. It is a great change from the frozen confines of Alaska and the torrid heat of the desert, and the all-kind Providence that provides for the prospector has evidently designed this relief with some good object in view.

            THE story of the discovery of Tonopah reads like an Arabian Night's tale. In May, 1900, James L. Butler, at that time District Attorney of Nye county, left Belmont, the county seat, to prospect in the mountains to the southward. Before his departure he confided his intention to his friend, T. L. Oddie, a young attorney-at-law and mining man of Belmont, stating that "there is a place down in the desert where there is a great deposit of minerals." He had seen these mountains at a distance, he said, and they looked good to him. With his outfit packed on the backs of six burros, he started from Belmont, passed over the Manhattan mountains by way of Rye Patch, traveled all day and camped at nightfall at a spring known to the Indians as "Tonopah," meaning water near the surface. While encamped at this spring Butler made the discovery which in a little more than a year converted him into a millionaire, enriched his associates and turned the attention of the entire mining world once more to Nevada. He found numerous croppings of black, fine-grained quartz showing a large quantity of gold—so much, in fact, that he considered it of little or no value. He took several samples, however, passed over a great number of ledges, went on about four miles, and camped on May 19th near what are now known as the Gold Mountain mines. He was attracted by those ledges also, but as they were small compared with the ones he had discovered earlier in the

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PROSPECTORS ON THE ROAD

day, he did not think much of them, although he took samples which were afterward assayed. He spent some time waiting for an assay to be made at South Klondike, and on May 26th returned to Tonopah, made a dry camp, and next day took about seventy-five pounds of ore from the several ledges and proceeded to Belmont.

            On his arrival at Belmont Butler showed the rock to several persons, but they took no interest in it. He then showed it to Oddie, who liked the looks of it and offered to have it assayed. Butler told Oddie that if he would have the rock assayed he could have an interest in the claims. Oddie sent the rock to W. C. Gayhart at Austin, requesting him to assay it and promising him part of his interest if he found values. Gayhart and Oddie had been partners in some mining deals, and as Gayhart was a mining engineer, Oddie felt that he would be of service if the prospect turned out to be a mine.

            Gayhart made eight assays, which ran from eighty to six hundred dollars to the ton. When the certificates were received by Oddie he forwarded copies to Butler, who was harvesting his hay crop at his ranch in Monitor valley. Butler did not receive Oddie's communication for more than a month, but when he did receive it he and his wife went to Belmont with a team. They wanted Oddie to go with them to locate the claims, but he had some important business which called him to Austin and could not accept their invitation. Butler and his wife proceeded to Tonopah, arriving there August 25th. The first location made by Butler was the Desert Queen, and the second was the Burro, which he located for Oddie. He then asked his wife to name one, which she did, calling it the Mizpah. This claim, which did not look any better than the others, has proved to be one of the richest mines ever discovered. Butler then located the Valley View, the Silver Top, the

TONOPAH AND ITS GOLD                       9

Buckboard, the Sand Grass and the Red Plume.

            After an absence of a week or two Butler and his wife returned to Belmont and reported the result of their trip to Oddie, who later succeeded Butler as District Attorney of Nye county. Early in October Butler and Oddie, accompanied by Wilse Brougher, County Recorder, left Belmont for Tonopah with two wagons loaded with a complete outfit for development work. The party began work on the upper end of the Mizpah claim, on one of the smaller ledges, which showed some sulphurets. The other ledges were so large that it was thought they must necessarily be low-grade. A shaft was sunk to the depth of fifteen feet, Brougher and Oddie doing this work while Butler put up monuments and otherwise perfected the locations. They all worked hard, but the heaviest part of the labor fell on Oddie, who was the youngest and most enthusiastic of the party. This energetic young man did the cooking, hauled water from the wells four miles distant, sharpened tools and helped to sink the shaft. At night the horses were hobbled and turned out to pick up a precarious subsistence from the scanty bunch grass. Every morning before beginning the labors of the day it was Oddie's duty to look after the horses, and some mornings he had to walk many miles over the hills to bring the animals hack to camp.

            In sinking the shaft the first ten feet about a ton of ore was taken out. Brougher and Oddie sorted and sacked this ore and hauled it to Belmont, a distance of fifty miles, over a very rough road. From Belmont it was hauled a hundred miles farther to the railroad at Austin, whence it was shipped to the smelter. The party then returned to Tonopah, taking with them a young man to assist them. Another ton of ore was taken out and shipped to the smelter in the same manner as the first. The returns from the two loads of ore netted the owners about $600, which enabled them to employ a number of men and

H. C. CUTTING AND HIS ORIGINAL PROSPECTING OUTFIT

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start in to mining on a larger scale. The eight claims were consolidated into one group which is now owned by the Tonopah Mining Company of Nevada. The entire capital that Butler, Oddie and Brougher began work with was less than twenty-five dollars, and it is a noteworthy fact that that small amount is the only capital that has ever been brought in from the outside to develop the Tonopah Mining Company's group of mines; they have paid their way ever since.

            During the fall of 1900 the news reached the outside world that a rich strike had been made at Tonopah, and during the winter a number of men came into the camp from Carson, Reno and other points. Butler and his associates decided to let leases on their property, and during the winter and spring one hundred and twelve leases were given to the new corners. Henry C. Cutting of Reno took the first lease on the Mizpah ledge, in January, 1901, and began operations in March, just below the present working shaft. All leases were oral, and the owners received twenty-five per cent of the gross output. Leases were let on the Burro, the Valley View and the Mizpah. Of the one hundred and twelve leases twenty-five paid well and five or six made their holders rich. Nearly all made wages, not more than half a dozen failing to pay expenses. The majority of the leasers started work about the 1st of June, and the leases expired December 31, 1901; so that the period of active operations was about seven months. There were about eight hundred men at work at the time the leases expired.

            The most productive lease was that of Lynch & O'Meara. This lease was secured by them in June, by purchase, the price paid being $9000. The first body of ore struck on this lease, which was No. 44, was five feet in width, eighty feet in depth and sixty feet in length, and ran from $150 to $500 a ton. A winze on the 150-foot level opened up an ore shoot from sixteen to eighteen feet wide that averaged $250 a ton. On the 200-foot level a body of ore six feet wide and ninety feet long averaged $300 a ton. This lease produced 3500 tons of ore of an average value of more than $100. After the expiration of the leases Lynch & O'Meara took a contract to sink the Mizpah shaft, and in seven months they took out under this contract about 4000 tons averaging about the same as that taken out under the lease; so that in a little over a year these young men made considerably more than half a million dollars.

            The lease of Brown & Cutting produced about $300,000; that of Golden & Sinclair about $280,000, and that of Brougher Brothers about $250,000, while there were a number that produced from $25,000 to $100,000. The total production up to the expiration of the leases on December 31, 1901, is conservatively estimated at $4,500,000.

            In the meantime a number of experts representing capitalists had been attracted to the camp, and as early as December, 1901, several tempting offers had been made for the Mizpah group. Several bonds were taken on the property during the winter and spring, but in every instance the parties failed to make the first payment at the time agreed upon. An expert representing the De Lamar interests at the last moment concluded that the ledges "wouldn't go down," and retired from the field to pass his remaining days in seclusion, the prey of vain regrets. Finally, in June, 1901, the property, consisting of the eight original claims, was purchased by O. A. Turner for Philadelphia parties for $336,000. Butler's interest in the property was five-eighths, the remaining three-eighths being divided among Oddie, Brougher and Gayhart. Butler, Brougher

TWENTY-TWO MULE DESERT FREIGHTER.  THESE TEAMS CARRY ALL OF THE FREIGHT BETWEEN SODAVILLE AND TONOPAH, A DISTANCE OF SIXTY-FIVE MILES

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and Oddie took part of their share of the purchase price in stock of the new Tonopah Mining Company at one dollar per share for preferred and one share of common stock as bonus for each share of preferred stock taken. The increase in the price of Tonopah stock, which has since sold as high as twenty dollars a share, brought the purchase price of the claims up to more than $1,000,000.

            About the 1st of March, 1901, people began to come into the camp in considerable numbers, and by the 1st of May the population was about two hundred and fifty. The growth of the town has been rapid and steady ever since, with the exception of a period of three months just succeeding the expiration of the leases, during which an epidemic of pneumonia prevailed, carrying off about forty persons.

THE COLEHAN SHAFT, GOLD MOUNTAIN

            Many misstatements have been made on the outside respecting both the healthfulness and the climate of Tonopah. The truth is that at the present time there is not a more healthful place in the world than Tonopah. The population is now more than 4000; yet during the past four months there have been only three deaths from natural causes. The climate is one of the finest imaginable. The months of August and September are usually quite hot during a part of the day, but the evenings are always delightfully cool, and at night one has to sleep under blankets. Heretofore the dust has been a great drawback, but the abundant supply of water furnished by the new water works has removed that bugbear. During the winter, on account of the winds, there are a few disagreeable days. The snow most always falls at night, and there is hardly any drifting. There are few places in the world in this

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MAIN STREET IN TONOPAH, LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE POSTOFFICE

latitude where there are so many days of unbroken sunshine as in Tonopah.

            As already stated, Tonopah now contains a population of more than 4000. It is a well-built town, up-to-date in every respect. At this writing (March 22, 1903), there are more than fifty buildings in course of construction, some of which would do credit to a much larger town. The place is lighted by electricity and the new water company has just laid a main which furnishes an abundant supply of pure water for domestic purposes. Fire plugs are now being put in, which throw an inch stream over the highest buildings on Main street. There are two churches, good hotels, a first-class graded school with over one hundred pupils in attendance, two newspapers that are an innovation in Nevada journalism, and a sufficient number of saloons to supply the demand, somewhat. The incoming stages are crowded to their full capacity, and all indications point to an enormous influx of population during the coming sum-

LOOKING NORTH FROM THE POSTOFFICE

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mer. Already two railroads are assured in the near future, the surveyors now being on the ground and running the preliminary lines for a narrow-gauge branch from the Carson and Colorado Railroad and for a broad-gauge road from Daggett, California, on the Santa Fe. The first named of these roads will in all probability be completed by September, and the other by midsummer of 1904.

            In addition to all this, or rather as the basis of all this, Tonopah has four or five of the greatest mines in the world. So much that is exaggerated and unreliable has been said about the celebrated Mizpah that a brief description of this wonderful mine seems necessary at this time. The present workings of the Mizpah exceed 8000 feet in aggregate length, and more than 6000 feet of these workings are in ore. The 300-foot level is 1650 feet in length and is in ore the entire distance. The ledge is in no place less than five feet in width, and in many places the ore body is from ten to eighteen feet in width, with no walls. This ore will average more than $100 a ton, and much of it shows assays running from $300 to $1000. At the eastern end of this level, 800 feet from the shaft, a ledge has recently been opened up that is ninety feet in width, and this entire

INTERIOR OF MIZPAH MINE, THREE HUNDRED-FOOT LEVEL

ore body will mill $75 a ton. A winze on the 400-foot level shows a vein five feet wide, that will average $1000. The 850-foot cross-cut to the Valley View shaft cut a score of ledges from five to twelve feet in width that carry ore of a very high grade—even for the Mizpah.

            An eminent mining expert who inspected the mine last December, said to the writer :

            "I am amazed. If the Mizpah shows

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SCHOOL HOUSE AT TONOPAH

as much ore between the 500 and 700-foot levels as is now in sight between the 300 and 500-foot levels, it will double the population of Nevada."

Since this significant remark was made the shaft has been sunk nearly to the 700-foot level, and it is now positively known that the ore body gets larger and richer as depth is attained. The gold values are constantly increasing with depth, while the silver values are maintained. At the 200-foot level the gold values are about one-third, while at the 500-foot level they are more than one-half.

            Besides the Mizpah there are three or

PROSPECTORS AT WORK WITHIN ONE MILE OF TONOPAH

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DESERT FREIGHTING

four wonderfully rich mines in the immediate vicinity—notably the Valley View, which Mr. Oddie, the general manager of the Tonopah Company's properties, maintains is even richer than the Mizpah; the Montana-Tonopah, which adjoins the Mizpah on the east and has recently developed into a wonderful mine; and the Desert Queen, which shows a large body of ore. S. A. Knapp, one of the best authorities in this district, places the amount in sight in the Mizpah and Valley View claims at $104,000,000.

            There are now between thirty and forty hoisting works in operation in the district, the larger number of them being operated on properties contiguous to the Mizpah group or on the trend of the great ledges in Mount Oddie. Wherever these outlying companies have sunk their shafts through the volcanic capping and penetrated the lode porphyry they have struck quartz, and in several instances good values have been found. So extensive have been these new discoveries that it is positively proved that the mineral zone is continuous for a distance of 7000 feet along the trend of the Mount Oddie series of veins and for 5000 feet across it, constituting one of the richest and most extensive networks of ledges ever discovered.

            With the erection of the largest reduction works ever constructed by a single mine management, an enterprise which is assured in the near future, Tonopah will astonish the world by an output of gold and silver that will reach, if not exceed, $5,000,000 a month.