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About two thousand claims on quartz lodes have been recorded in Baker County
since 1862. More or less development work has been done on most of them, perhaps
one half of them having been worked to the extent which the law requires in
order to make the claim secure.
Nineteen quartz mills have been built, ranging in
capacity from two to sixty tons per day. The first one built was the Ruckles
mill at Baker City, which was put in operation in 1864. The mill was run by
waterpower, and was built to work the ore from what was then called the
Rockafellow lode, situated about eight miles northeast of Baker City. Mr.
Rockafellow and Mr. Wills discovered the lode in the spring of the year 1864,
being led to prospect for it by reason of some specimens of gold bearing quartz
having been found in that vicinity the previous fall by Philip Waggy and another
man, who were out hunting horses. Mr. Ruckles worked the mine about four years,
when J. W. Virtue and A. H. Brown became the owners for about three years. They
sold to a San Francisco company, and the name was changed to the Virtue mine.
A Mr. Jackson took charge of the mine as superintendent and built a steam power
mill of twenty stamps at the mine. About a year afterwards work was suspended,
and after lying idle for some months, work was resumed, Mr. Hyde succeeding Mr.
Jackson as superintendent. Mr. Hyde worked the mine two or three years, when it
was again shut down, and for two years little work was done near the surface at
intervals, and then ceased entirely for twelve years.
In 1891 an effort was made to resume operations with A.
W. Oliver, superintendent, but nothing effectual was done before another
suspension of work took place.
Recently work was again begun with George W. Boreman,
foreman.
The total yield of the Virtue mine is estimated at
nearly $1,500,000.
A twenty stamp mill was built on Connor Creek in 1873,
to work ore from a lode which has been discovered by James Eidelman. The mine
has been worked continuously ever since.
The men who were working in the mine at one time found
blocks of ore which were very difficult to break with a sledge hammer, and they
kept rolling them to one side until quite a quantity of them had been
accumulated. The foreman came in one day and told them to try to break those
blocks of ore. One of the men took a sledge hammer and after several blows
succeeded in breaking a piece when it was found to be what miners call, lousy
with gold.' The hard blocks were then worked up and about $30,000 obtained from
four tons of them.
A five stamp mill was built on the Mammoth mine, six
miles west of Sumpter in 1879, by S. B., J. L. and J. C. Baisley. About twenty
thousand dollars was taken from the mine, but no work has been done for several
years.
A great deal of work has been done on Gold Hill on
Burnt river, and a considerable quantity of ore has been worked yielding
altogether about $100,000.
The Tom Paine lode on McCord Gulch was found in 1878.
This was a "pocket" lode, and Mrs. Hayes took out about sixteen thousand dollars
from the several "chimneys" or pockets" which he discovered. Subsequently he
built a two stamp mill on Marble creek and worked some of the lower grade ore.
The Bonanza mine in the Greenhorn district is a good paying property, having a
ten stamp mill in operation.
The Baisley-Elkhorn lode on Pine creek was discovered by James L. Baisley in
1884. For five years he worked the ore with an arastra, realizing about twenty
thousand dollars in that time.
In 1889 a company was incorporated, a road built to the
mine and a mill erected. Since that time additions have been made to the works,
the plant now having a working capacity of fifty tons per day.
The mine has yielded about $250,000. The largest tunnel extends about six
hundred and fifty feet into the mountain.
The Robbins-Elkhorn, another claim on the same lode,
has been worked successfully since 1890, a Bryant mill of thirty tons capacity
having been erected to reduce the ore.
The Robinson mine on Rock creek side of the same
mountain has been developed to a considerable extent, and the machinery for a
mill has been purchased.
Much development work has been done on the Chloride
mine in the same vicinity, and across the ridge in the Cable Cover district
several lodes have been developed.
Numbers of small pockets lodes have been found from
which one to ten thousand dollars have been taken.
Indications of copper may be seen in the vicinity of
North Powder River and Rock Creek.
The Bonanza mine on the Burnt river slope of the mountain, distant from Baker
thirty miles in a direction a little north of east, was discovered in the year
1890, by H. R. Shelton.
He has driven a tunnel one hundred and eighty
feet on the lode, and worked the ore, which is free milling, in a five stamp
mill. The ore averaged fifty dollars per ton, aggregating fourteen thousand
dollars for the whole amount that was worked.
Mr. Shelton has, besides the quartz lode, forty acres
of placer mining ground on Boulder creek, supplied with water by ditches four
miles in length.
Two men with a hydraulic take from three to four
thousand dollars per year from the placer claim.
Mr. Shelton sold his entire mining property
recently to Salt Lake parties, and Mr. Durkee was engaged as superintendent and
took charge of the works April 17, 1893.
The company incorporated in Utah under the name of the
Bonanza Gold Mining and Milling Company. Capital stock $300,000.
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Return to Baker County
Thirty-one Years
in Baker County, Isaac Hiatt |
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