[K. R. Casper, The Gold of Fairview, Sunset, January 1907]

A SHIPMENT OF ORE FROM NEVADA HILLS ON THE MAIN STREET OF FAIRVIEW

THE GOLD OF FAIRVIEW

By K. R. CASPER

            Following is the sixth of a series of articles, especially written for Sunset, telling the truth—and the truth is marvelous enough—about the gold mining towns of Nevada. Tonopah, Goldfield, Bullfrog, Manhattan, Rhyolite and other bonanza fields have previously been described and pictured.

            SURPRISES in the way of new discoveries of mines and the opening up of new mining districts and the resurrection of old ones, long since supposed to have been "played out," are still the order of the day in Nevada. Tonopah, Goldfield, Bullfrog, have already received detailed attention in these pages and it need only be said of them here that the half was not told of them. They continue to surprise even those who were supposed to be enthusiasts a year or two ago. Since then have followed the discoveries of Manhattan, Round Mountain, White Horse (Olinghouse), Fairview, Wonder, Ramsey, Bullion and others, every one of which has been developed sufficiently to attract the attention of the shrewdest mining men.

            As for the camps of long ago, old Virginia City is again coming to the front and more work is being done there at present than for a long time past. Pioche is to have a railroad connecting it with the Clark road at Caliente; Ely, which promises to rival Butte and Bingham as a copper district within the next few years, is getting a railroad which is nearly completed, and so is the Olinghouse district, while the branch of the Southern Pacific from Hazen to Fallon will be ready for business soon, putting Fairview and its neighboring camps sixteen miles nearer to railroad transportation. Activity is the order of the day all over the state and more small fortunes have been made here during the past three years than has ever been known since the early gold discoveries in California—and a number of big ones too.

            Forty years ago it required nerve of the very highest order to venture out into this trackless desert where there were no roads or trails and where water was an unknown quantity. All honor to those old pioneers who blazed the trails in those days. How important a part the automobile is playing in the development of the new mining fields of Nevada is not well understood by the outside world.

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THE TUNNEL IN NEVADA HILLS AND THE OUTPUT SACKED READY FOR SHIPPING

manner within the limits of a few magazine pages, therefore we will confine this article exclusively to the new and truly remarkable district of Fairview.

            Along the overland trail traversed by the argonauts nearly fifty years ago lies the camp of Fairview—and it was properly named too, because in all the state

THE DROMEDARY HUMP TUNNEL AND BLACKSMITH'S SHOP

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A PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE TOWN OF WONDER, ONE OF THE MARVELOUS

no fairer view can be obtained than from Fairview Peak. Two miles west of this road lies the new town of Fairview and two miles beyond the town are the mines which are just now attracting so much attention. Among those who crossed this desert in the early sixties was Mark Twain, when he went to Carson City to join his brother, the then secretary of the territory. Sand Springs, twelve miles south of Fairview, was well known in those days as a station and it is yet. It derives its name from a mountain of white sand not far away.

            Little did those pioneers dream of the fabulous riches which lay under the outcropping of Eagle's Nest, which is plainly to be seen for many miles. A few years ago F. O. Norton, of Reno, an assayer and mining man, driving through the country southeast of Fallon, the county seat of Churchill County, noted Fairview Peak and the other lesser hills descending from it, and made a mental reservation that it would be a good place some day, in which to prospect. About this time too, came vague rumors of the finding of rich float by sheepherders whose flocks were feeding on these hills, just as herds of cattle used to graze where Cripple Creek district now stands.

            It was not, however, until about the first of July, 1905, that Mr. Norton carried his plan into execution. It was then that he met Charles S. Wilson, a practicing attorney, of Goldfield, of the law firm of Wilson & Hinckley, with whom he made arrangements to prospect the locality mentioned. Early in July Mr. Norton went in alone and after some period of prospecting he found rich float. Seeing some large quartz boulders, some of them weighing several tons he broke off pieces which upon being assayed returned values as high as $1500 to the ton. He located on behalf of himself and Mr. Wilson a number of claims, but was, however, unable to find the source from which the float came, and it was not until some time in December following that one was found in place.

            When the news was made known Mr. L. E. C. Hinckley, at that time Mr. Wilson's partner, and well-known throughout Colorado and Nevada as a mining and corporation lawyer, arranged with George Bertschy, an old-time clever prospector, to go in with Mr. Norton and make locations in conjunction with him, and it was in the latter part of December that Mr. Bertschy discovered ore in place. Their work was done under the most disadvantageous circumstances, right in the dead of winter, during most of the time with the ground thickly covered with snow and the wind blowing a gale. Extremes meet out here in the Nevada desert and it can get very cold in winter

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NEW MINING CAMPS OF NEVADA, EIGHTEEN MILES NORTHEASTERLY OF FAIRVIEW

and quite warm, to express it mildly, in summer, and prospecting under such conditions, seventy miles from the nearest railroad point is by no means child's play. Between them Norton and Bertschy made some forty locations.

            Late in December, 1905, Perly Langdell, an experienced mining man of Colorado, who had heard of an old silver lead property situated somewhere in the desert not far from Fairview Peak—property which had been located thirty-five or forty years ago in what is called Chalk Mountain—started from Reno with a team and drove one hundred and twenty miles across the desert, reaching there on the first day of January last. He purchased the property he went after and looking across the valley six or seven miles saw the outcropping now known as the Eagle's Nest and it looked good to him. Upon going over he found the locations made by Norton and Wilson and Hinckley and Bertschy, but they did not extend up to the outcropping referred to, so he went on and located the very apex of the ridge. He also found the quartz boulders above mentioned but did not know that assays had been obtained from them. He located some twenty claims, among them being the Boulders, Numbers One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six, all of which have since become famous and two of which are a part of the now well-known Nevada Hills group. He had no idea of their value because he had no time to prospect or do any work on them.

            On starting back for Reno he met John T. Hodson, of Salt Lake, and W. H. Webber, of Denver, coming in. They made him a proposition to purchase two of the claims now embraced in the Nevada Hills group and he sold them for $5000 without ever being on the ground a second time. Others came in to whom he sold some of the other claims realizing in all about $20,000.

            The visit of Hodson and Webber to the district was due to W. H. Clark, an old Salt Laker, who has been one of the successful ones in Goldfield and Bullfrog. Mr. Clark had been given a tip by George Bethune, at that time an assayer in Goldfield, of the wonderful values found in some assays taken from the quartz boulders mentioned, and he in turn arranged with Hodson and Webber to visit the new diggings. Associated in the purchase with Clark, Hodson and Webber were W. V. Rice and John A. Kirby, of Salt Lake, and also James R. Davis, of Denver, whose remarkable career during the past two years has been the wonder of all mining men. During this period Davis has opened the Sandstorm and Great Bend in Goldfield, the

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Gold Bar in Bullfrog, one of the best properties at Round Mountain, and obtained a sixth interest in the Nevada Hills for a song. He has proven a veritable "mascot" to his associates.

            Hodson and Webber did not have much difficulty in finding the vein or the pay chute because it stuck right out of the ground and paid from the "grass roots"—or would have if there had been any grass there. The writer has seen a great many hundred mines in this and other countries but truthfulness compels him to state that never in all his travels has he seen such a showing as appears on the Nevada Hills. On the first day of July when he last visited the property there were four openings on the vein which had been exposed for one thousand six hundred feet from each of which ore was being sacked. There were one thousand and fifty sacks ready to ship. One shipment of thirty-one tons had already been made to Salt Lake which netted $209 per ton. An examination of the property disclosed a well-defined vein from two to four feet wide with values from $133 to $750 per ton, while a ten-inch streak of talc ran as high as $10,000 to the ton. A crosscut tunnel which will intersect the ledge at a depth of two hundred and fifty feet below the apex will probably have been completed by the time this appears in print. Should the values now obtained near the surface be encountered in this tunnel it will make the Nevada Hills one of the richest mines ever seen in this state of mining phenomena.

            Almost simultaneously with the arrival in Goldfield of the news of the new strike it reached other districts and a stampede ensued, bringing with it such veterans as John Harnan, of the Portland, in Cripple Creek, Aleck Fawcett, of Virginia City, George Wingfield, of every camp in Nevada, Harry Taylor, of the Jumbo and Red Top, Ed Bernan, Frank Virtue, of Salt Lake, besides Messrs. Fortune, Blair, Gelsthorpe, Clegg, Dalrymple, Pinney, Wadleigh, and many others.

SACKING ORE FOR SHIPPING ON THE NEVADA HILLS CLAIM

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            All kinds of conveyances were called into requisition from the patient burro to the automobile and those who had neither —walked. Such of the new-comers as had money—which many of them did have—purchased claims, some of them at high figures, Mr. Harnan paying $120,000 for the Cyclone group; Harry Taylor $20,000 for the Boulder Number Three; Nixon & Wingfield, $20,000 for the Lena Number Three; Loftus, Davis and others, $40,000 for the Lenas Numbers One and Two. Hinckley, Bertschy and others platted a townsite and lots went like hot cakes at good prices. A town sprang up almost in a night. Streets were laid out and tents for temporary use were erected, soon to be replaced by substantial frame buildings as will be seen by accompanying photographs taken on the Fourth of July last year. In the short space of three months the place had a population of over one thousand and the records of the Miners' Union showed that one hundred and eighty-five men were actually employed by the various companies. The town has a justice of the peace and constable, but no municipal government and has been very free from crime.

            The remarkable showing made by the Nevada Hills property acted as a stimulus and other properties in the vicinity were purchased, in many instances spot cash at good round figures being paid for mere prospects. The Ida Mines Company, headed by Aldrich, Hinckley, Yeaman and others, of Colorado Springs, began operations with $40,000 in the treasury. The Dromedary Hump was taken over by Roy Ridge and P. H. McLaughlin and at this writing is in good ore. The same may be said of the Nixon-Wingfield property and also the Cyclone, or Harnan's property which are situated widely apart showing that the ore zone is widely distributed and uniform in kind. Harry Taylor's Boulder Number Six, is also sacking ore and other properties of lesser note are showing up well. Assays of from $2000 to $3000 have been found in many places.

            Well posted and conservative mining men give it as their opinion, that this is no one-mine camp, but that within six months there will be at least half a dozen shippers in the district.

            The following is a list of some of the leading properties in the district, in their order of preference, but by the time this appears in print any of the others, or even some that do not appear in this list may have taken a higher rank: The Nevada Hills, Fairview, Eagle (Nixon-Wingfield) ; Dromedary Hump (Ridge & McLaughlin) ; Golden Slipper, Fairview, Highland Chief and Pacific group (Hinckley and others) ; Cyclone (Harnan) ; Ida M-Pyramid Mining Company ; Fairview-Kimberley, Seymour, Nevada-Fairview, Silver King Con., Giant group ( McCormack & Bernan) ; Fairview Chief, Fairview-Commander and Oriole.

            The average reader understands little about formation, and it may be mentioned incidentally that many of those who profess to understand it, know but little more about it. Suffice it to say that the consensus of opinion of experienced mining engineers is that the formation here is very similar to that at Tonopah, and also to the great Comstock at Virginia City.

            Water has to be hauled by wagon from Eastgate, twelve miles away, and sells at $3 a barrel. At first this was a great obstacle, just as it was at Tonopah and Goldfield in the early days of those camps and elsewhere, but it will be overcome at Fairview just as it has been at every other place. A company has been organized to bring in a plentiful supply by a pipe line. The question of transportation too came in for criticism but the completion of the branch of the Southern Pacific to Fallon will put Fairview almost within fifty miles of the railroad. As it is, automobiles make the trip from Hazen in five hours, while the stages take from ten to twelve.

            A word should be said for the town of Fairview. Not only is it admirably situated, but it is by all odds the most substantially built of any mining town of its age that the writer has ever seen. It has countless hotels and restaurants and saloons; an automobile line and two stage lines; two up-to-date newspapers, the Miner and the News; telephone connection with the outside world; by all odds the best conducted post-office that I

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have seen in any mining camp in thirty years, and as good a law-abiding community as can be found anywhere in the world.

            While the excessive heat causes many to go out for the summer, yet they return later in large numbers accompanied by others who have been attracted by the remarkable showings that have been made, and it is not to be questioned that before this article appears in print there will be a large-sized boom in progress in Fairview and the surrounding country.

            Six miles northeast of Fairview lies the well-known Chalk Mountain property owned by Perly Langdell, of whom mention has heretofore been made. This is an exclusively silver-lead proposition and was worked more than thirty years ago, its ore being hauled by bull teams to Virginia City nearly one hundred miles away, and treated by amalgamation, but owing to the cost of transportation and mining, work on the same was discontinued until last fall. Development since then shows that right here in the heart of one of the most promising gold fields of Nevada lies a silver-lead district which may prove another Aspen.

            Twelve miles further northeasterly lies the new camp of Wonder which from present appearances promises to prove everything that its name implies. The district was found on May 25, by Mays, Smith, Savage, Seymour, Schultz and Scott, who with Walter Whitmore, a young and successful Goldfield operator, have opened up what promises to be an other Nevada Hills, in spite of the fact that many old wiseacres who might be supposed to know said there was nothing there. The accompanying pictures will show the town which has already sprung up and also the original Wonder strike. As these lines are written the writer has been shown ore roasted which is literally sprinkled with gold, and this too, by men who are in no way interested in the property. The writer has known them for many years and they say that at a depth of sixty feet reached by a tunnel of one hundred and ten feet there are four feet of ore in sight averaging $400 to the ton in gold and silver. There are other properties in the immediate vicinity which have ore in sight but which can not be noted for want of space. There are those, whose opinions are worth something too, who go so far as to say, that Wonder will rival Fairview and that is certainly saying a good deal.