Show af f T f tonopah To nevadas new eldorado J kw J w N THE TAE various mining states stales of the west JN every year brings to the front some new camp or district a region sensationally rich in its deposits of the precious metals and which fires with enthusiasm and joy the hearts of the prospector the mining man and the investor a new camp from the very grassroots of which fortunes are taken within a wonderfully short time and which gives abound on every hand and yet dame nature has not been exhausted as only a tithing of the treasures of her rock ribbed vaults has been wrested from her by the hand of man tonopah To on the dividing line between nye and esmeralda counties in the battle battla born state is one of these new bonanzas which appeals so strongly to the mining fraternity at home and abroad its discovery the surface droppings crop pings the result of assays essays and tests eventually showing metallic values of such sensationally high grade that belief was staggered this led to another visit to this inviting section in august 1900 when seven claims were located the desert queen the burro the mizpah the buckboard the red plume the sand grass and the Vall valley effiew view mr butler taking in with him on these loca OF TONOPAH AND OF every promise for a golden future utah has had its discoveries of this nature and they are very iery often heard of in the fastnesses fast nesses of the majestic mountain ranges which ever beckon to those seeking imperishable wealth they are found in the canyons in inaccessible places andin and in the foothills which guard the approaches to lofty peaks peak 3 in fact they was not accidental as many have believed but was the result of a long cherished prospecting trip planned by J L butler an old time nevadan who after the discovery in june of last year of the prominent quartz ledges with which this region is so strongly marked neglected the same for several months because of the hungry appearance of 11 eions several of his friends and acquaintances nothing further was done in relation to these discoveries until the forepart of october when mr butler returned with two associates mr T L oddie now treasurer of the tonopah company and W brougher when the extraction of ore began from shallow surface workings the news of the new strike spread rapidly and it was not long before prospectors began to gather from all directions as repeated tests teats on ore from the droppings crop pings showed values ranging rangin g f from rom to ounces of silver and from to in gold to the ton being 7 desirous to develop the group as speedily as possible and at a minimum expense mr butler decided to resort to the leasing system and soon many men were at work on foot leases and it was not long thereafter before shipments were being beina made to the selby smelter at san francisco the terms of the lease beino being a royalty of 25 per cent on the net output and at this time some sixty leaseholds lease holds are now being worked on what is now the holdings of the tonopah company and recent advices advises from this now bonanza camp state that at the present time many thousands of tons of very rich ore are sacked up and bricked up on the various dumps awaiting transportation to the railroad and the market the greatest difficulty and inconvenience marking the history of this new camp being the inability to secure hardly a break noticeable the ore being a close grained quartz hard and compact the silver being largely carried in sulphur etts occasionally spotted with chlorides no zinc or lead being in evidence the gold is often in metallic form and by some it is believed that it exists in the shape of tell urides also the vein can be traced on the surface from to 1000 feet the ore bodies varying in width from one to five feet and in some portions the veins are even larger the general average being in the neighborhood of two feet tonopah To the indian name for water brush is about sixty miles south of east of So daville on the C C railroad the new camp is in the low foothills of the western slope of the southern end of the san antone range of mountains and has an elevation of about feet water is a scarcity a small spring supplying the needs of the camp in conjunction with a well of good water in the desert fifteen miles distant fuel is also limited as to quantity but with the columbus coal klondike 16 horie 7 ore on ore neami dump omeara lynch leare 71 A omeara ka lynch he f and ore 2 in teams the indications being that it will not be very long before the mines of this se section action will be connected with the outside world by a branch railroad the shipments made by lessees lessels have passed through the hands of mr butler and his agents and are now being looked after by mr oddie the treasurer of the tonopah company returns made between february and april from thi thirteen arteen shipments aggregating tons from the mizpah burro and valley view ledges showing a total value of or an average value of to the ton while smelter returns of sacks sent in may of the present year netted the consignor 21 for pounds of ore the formation of tonopah is fissures in rythe viens as a general thing paralleling all eling each other with a trend northeasterly and southwesterly and with a dip almost vertical the ledges of which a number have been discovered being strong and well defined with almost perfect walls and with mines but thirty five miles distant this want can be easily supplied the promising little town is most pleasantly located the bonanza ledges running back of this little city and between it and the high mountain range as will be seen by the illustration which accompanies this article the photograph from which the halftone half tone was made being taken about two months ago acro since which time improvement pro and build building ing has been the order ol of the day the camp having almost doubled in size and population during the past two months tonopah has several business houses and almost every trade and profession is now represented there it has a bright and newsy paper the tonopah bonanza a credit to the new diggings which weekly gives a digest of the news of the mines of that section among other fortunate salt lakers who have obtained a foothold in this new eldorado and who have secured valuable ground in the very heart of the camp are judge W H dickson A 0 ellis jr the omeara brothers J B thompson J E bamberger Bam herger W A wils wilson on T J lyn lynch and others who have a bond and lease on three clair claims 8 W which ich are located on an extension extension of the valley view ledge of the tonopah companas comp anys chief holdings final payment on the bond will he be made in february next and within withie the next few weeks a strong strona company will be ancor incorporated or for the extensive development and exploitation of the property the exploration of which is now under way contracts having already been let for the sinking of shafts on the wandering boy and the stone cabin two of the claims of the group on the wandering boy there are ara four parallel veins the droppings crop pings being bold prominent and carrying excellent values in silver and gold the stone cabin location is believed to he be equally as good but the veins are blind owing to slide rock and yet this claim is as good as proven as to its mer merit i t and value P as the workings of the valley view are now within a few feet of its endline with the ore body of the latter running into the former in the wandering boy as previously stated the outcroppings outcrop pings of the ledges are prominent and well defined the values being there so that no doubt exists as to the splendid possibilities bili ties of this portion of the group selected pieces from the outcrop going up into the hundreds in its silver and gold contents judge dickson who recently returned from a visit to to tonopah is not only pleased over the outlook for this new and promising camp but he is enthusiastic and predicts a glowing and most successful future for this new star in nevada s galaxy of bonanza mining id camps in an interview accorded the mining review up upon on this new field of mineral wealth judge dickson said within the limit of the holdings of the tonopah mining company there are fourteen veins or ledges coursing from fr 0 rn east to west or northeasterly the veins ave averaging from eighteen inches to six feet in width the two principal veins so far developed are the mizpah which is the most northerly of the com banys possessions and the valley view to the south prospecting work on these veins begun in october of last year and I 1 would say that 90 per cent of the work done in the camp so far has been done on these veins 75 per cent of which has been confined to the mizpah which consequently has been more extensively opened and explored than any of the other ledges of the camp this work almost exclusively has been done by lessees lessels who obtained the privilege from the ordinal 0 owners the allotment of each lease covering from fifty to 1 00 feet on the strike or course of the vein the mizpah ledge has been opened and worked for a distance of more than 1100 feet disclosing continuous and good ore the entire distance the openings are from 35 to feel in depth and so far the vein or ore body is quite as strong in the deepest workings as at the surface ald and better in quality I 1 do not knot want to be understood that the entire 1100 feet mentioned is all shipping ore under present conditions but it is all pay the aim of the lessees lessels les sees of course is to ship nothing go ing under to the ton since the freight and treatment charges amount to 50 0 per ton especially as the leases expire on the first of the year consequently there are now on the different dumps many thousands of tons of ore running from 50 to which can be treated and handled at a splendid profit as soon as the camp is equipped with milling facilities and other conveniences the gangue of the ore carries 95 per cent in silica and no base the values being silver and gold at a ratio of about three to one the veins are evidently true fissures fissure sin in porphyry and even at the surface 80 per cent or more of the values are found in the form of sulphur etts there being but very little chloride in the ore I 1 am told that at desert wells thirty five miles from tonopah To there is an abundance of wood and water the road roa d being an easy grade and gradual descent from the mines of the camp to the wells I 1 am also informed that the dump ore already alluded tol to can be treated there at an expense not to exceed 6 per ton the process which will doubtless be employed being a dry roast to drive off the sulphur followed by pan amalgamation at So daville I 1 met S A knapp an experienced mining and mill man who informed me that he had made tests on tonopah ore by this process with a saving of over 90 per cent of all values in speaking of the richness of the ore the judge said in what is known as the com banys shaft a single compartment shaft sunk on the vein and which is almost vertical the yield has been per foot from the surface to its present depth feet on the omeara lease embracing a strip of ground feet on the strike of the vein by fifty feet in width upon which systematic work was not begun until june of this year the boys have already taken out from a shaft feet deep from which levels both ways have been run on the vein at the fifty and foot levels in addition to this with the ore now sacked and piled up on the dump and with what is blocked out in the lease at least a quarter of a million more will be taken out before the first of the year and this in my opinion is a most conservative estimate the obtaining of the omeara lease from which more than one fortune will be made before the first of the year is ia due to the efforts of T J lynch of this city and stateline Stat eline mr lynch who is an assayer and chemist and with good mining experience hearing of tonopah early in the year visited this section of such marvelous report seeing an opportunity to get in on a good lease and not having the means to buy out the dri original ginal lessees lessels les sees he came back to salt lake and interested the omeara brothers W P and mike in the enterprise after securing the paltry strip of ground feet work was commenced in june the results of this enterprise and confidence being graphically described by judge dickson in his interview above given at the present time the omeara lease is equipped with a whim hoist ore bins etc and the review is informed that they have all of tons of ore sacked which will aver age to the ton in addition to which they have a large tonnage of second class ore on the dump which will pay handsomely as soon as milling facilities are obtained or when the iron horse invades the threshold of this wealth producing section much of the ore from this lease goes 1000 to the ton the success of the omeara brothers and lynch has been duplicated by a score or more leasers leaders on the milpa ah valley view and burro ledges and it is estimated that a trainload of ore a day could be sent out from the different workings there for several months to come it is now hardly more than a month ago that the claims owned by mr butler and his associates passed into the hands of a strong philadelphia syndicate the purchase price being a mere bagatelle when compared with the immense amount of rich ore in sight in the different workings the company is capitalized at shares of 1 each of which shares are preferred being set aside for the purchase of the property the officers of the new organization are john F anderson president clinton A higbee vice president john A anderson anders on secret secretary arv and T L oddie treasurer the company is now sinking two shafts on the mizpah ledge the deepest having attained a depth of feet both workings having been sunk to their present depths in good ore on the first of the year when all leases expire the company will put up hoisting works and go to the deep in the endeavor to prove the continuity and permanency of the ore deposits while other necessary improvements prove ments will be made vice president higbee who was in the city last week home from a visit to the mines allowed a representative of the mining review to glance at assay certificates resulting on tests made on forty five ore samples taken from the companas comp anys mines the average of which dis disclosed closed val values aes ues of to the ton included in the list were three samples which assayed 1338 and to the ton respectively taking these three from the forty five the general average 0 of the balance was to the ton mr higbee expressed himself as being delighted with the tonopah property and stated that it was the intention of his people to develop the mines systematically and extensively as soon as the present leases expired and the property reverted to the control of the company from all accounts and judging from developments to date tonopah is destined to prove a permanent and reliable camp and a great wealth producer and another year will witness great changes within its environments |