| Show I TABs GOhO CWI i y Glance at the Men and Mines of I Mercur THE PROGRESS THAT HAS BEEN MADE BEST OF REASONS TO BELIEVE IT WILL BE A GREAT CAMP I Population Mule Ul Chiefly of Men i with a Feiv Women and Children The 3Iercur and the Marion How Erttins arid Pluck Were Re vrarled Capital Is Anxiously Awaited With Its Magic Wund Untold Wealth Can Be Extracted from the Bosom of Mother Earth Mercur Where is it What does it amount to now What are its prospects for the future These are the questions which it is the purpose of this article to answer If a resident of Salt Lake will cast his eyes towards the serrated horizon at the southwest angle of the valley he will see the mountain summits which lie immediately northeast of Mercur j4 The ride from the capital to Mercur consumes four hours The Union Pacific Pa-cific conveys the pilgrim first thirty miles southerly to L < ehi Junction and then after a change of cars westward to Fairfield siding a distance of twenty miles Prom this station the village of Fairfield is not more than two miles distant It is an oasis of trees and green fields in the midst of the otherwise other-wise unrelieved desert of Cedar valley and occupies the identical site of the historic Camp Floyd At the siding are generally found two or three four horse conveyances cne of which carries car-ries the mail and either of which for one dollar will convey the pilgrim northward over the seven miles of I L mountainous country which must be 1 traversed before the new camp is reached The road rises to an elevation eleva-tion above the railroad grade of 700 feet at the Mercur mill in a distance of four miles and thence rising very abruptly crosses a summit 1800 feet above the initial point from which it drops with equul suddenness 400 or 500 feet into the town The latter lies at the confluence of two gulches which join to form a canyon walled by a towering mountain ridge on the north and by high hills on the south and which pursuing a devious course to the westward debouches into the sagebrush sage-brush plains of Rush alley The camp is probably not more than thirty five miles from Salt Lake city in an airline It lies a few miles south of Ophir canyon and about thirty miles I north of Tintic An inventory of the camp would be with approximate accuracy as follows One hundred frame buildings of various vari-ous sizes from the Marion mill and Billy Ryans three1 hotel down to Vy humble shanty i the China J manto these may be added a few tents the abodes of the newer arrival and of the struggling prospector Of these buildings two are hotels Ryans and Pressers both comfortable two dollar houses four are saloons three are general stores one is a meat market mar-ket two are livery stables one a newspaper news-paper office one is a cigar store three are occupied by sporting ladies and a number of others by miscellaneous enterprises comprising lunch stands hop houses boarding houses and ba l j keries The remainder are the homes r of the population which at night time i when the itinerant prospector reluctantly reluc-tantly abandons his tiny shaft or tunnel tun-nel and seeks food and repose numbers num-bers not to exceed 300 souls This population pop-ulation is made up chiefly of miners and prospectors with a few dozen women and a proper complement of children It is a town without ja theatre or a dance hall there are however four or five women of the town who be is said to the credit of the prevailing morals are housed either in unpretentious shanties or as in one case in a small I tent with an adjoining covered wagon and one of whom at least finds it necessary to take in washing to eke out an otherwise precarious existence 5ere is not a church in the place Snd apparently the absence is not felt The Sunday liquor law has not been Extended up to this distant corner of I Tooele county and faro and the seductive seduc-tive studhorse poker are played openly in the principal buildings of the place It is said that a wandering dentist recently reached town and for the benefit bene-fit of the health of his wife who ace ac-e him decided to sperd a week or ten days but the night of their arrival was the occasion of a grand ball and notwithstanding the fact that Billy Ryan stowed the new arrivals way back from the madding crowd on the mountain side of his inn their est was so much disturbed by the terrorizing manner in which the jovial sons of the stope celebrated the event that they took the first stage for other and more pastoral scenes never to return Our former townsman Mr Shoebridge who sells confectionery dry goods boots and shoes groceries and drugs and who also officiates as best his age and sex will permit as the hello girl for the new telephone line is I the chief representative of law and order in the place being the justice of Jt the peace of the precinct i I Twenty years ago there were from I 1200 to 1590 people on what is now I the Mercur site The place was then called Lewiston but nothing now remains re-mains to tell the story of its former population except a log cabin and a frame building at the junction of the two ravines In the town and the caved in workings of the once famous and productive Sparrow Hawk and Carrie i Steel mines What a strange transformation 01 trans-formation a camp which was then celebrated for its production of silver is now not producing an ounce of the white metal but more than a half million mil-lion dollars per year of the yellow What of the present stage of development devel-opment of the mining industry at Mer curThere are only two working mines in the vicinity the Mercur lying south of the camp seen at the top of the hill on the left of our cut and the Marion lying at about an equal elevation in the hitls at the right The Mereur is within a stones throw of the camp and 4the Marion pnly a few hundred yards Jkavay There are only two mills in the vicinity and these are owned by the i t Z two mines mentioned They are not custom mills but confine their operations opera-tions to theirown outp t For this Ii A j I reason > there is no other producing I mine in the camp Colonel Wall of Ophir is thinking seriously of putting in a custom mill and it is confidently expected that should he do so a great 1 many claims would soon be developed which are now either idle or only being prospected The colonels decision will depend upon the showing made by his own promising properties lying south and west of the Mercur Should a new mill be placed in the canyon it will ben i be-n to secure more water this will be done by pumping form the vicinity of Lion hill At present jj e only available water in camp flows i through the Marion pipes from the northern ridge there is not more than I 10000 gallons per day a large part of I which is consumed in the Marion mill I I shown in the foreground of our cut and the remainder is sold to a peddler who retails it to the inhabitants at one cent per gallon It was the lack or scarcity of water which induced the Mercur people to build their mill over the summit a distance of three miles from the mine at a place where a small spring yields a sufficient supply The Mercur mine was worked a number num-ber of years ago as a quicksilver prospect pros-pect but while its ore contains that metal it is not in paying quantities Later it was found that the ore an from S10 to S40 per ton in gold with an average of about S15 Four years ago Messrs Peyton Brown and John Dern and other Nebraska parties bought it out hoping to be able to I I extract the gold by the amalgamation process But the process was a failure so far as this ore was concerned and after the erection of a mill and the 1 expenditure of considerable money it appeared that the harvest would be experience only Messrs Pe too and I Brown were thf persons ithrough whom Mr Dern and the other Nebraska parties I par-ties became interested in the properties and it is to these men chiefly through their patient labor and unflagging faith in the dark days of the company that Mr Dern chiefly ascribes the success suc-cess ultimately attained But with a tenderfoots lucK someone some-one connected with the company saw a notice in a mining journal of the fact that exSenator Tabor was about to test the McArthurForrest cyanide process in Denver on low grade gold ores A car was shipped to Denver and treated with the result that 85 percent per-cent of the metal was saved as against 15 per cent which was the maximum > fficiency of the1 amalgamation process As a next step the Mercur mill was rebuilt to suit the new process that is new to this country although known in Europe and used many years in Africa and else where New difficulties were encountered the vats clogged up the process refused to work but after sixty days of patient experiment in the office it was found that the ore had been crushed too fine and that pieces up to tithe size of a small marble were best adapted Since the success has been uniform I The Mercur company is capitalized for 5000000 the shares bring 25 each The owners express themselves as being well satisfied that the Colorado syndicate syndi-cate did not exercise their privilege of buying at 750000 The mineral lies I between an overlying stratum of slate and a foot wall of limestone and is of an average thickness of approximately I six or eight feet It is placed in nearly a horizontal position with an incline to I the east and south The mine has several miles of tunnels and stopes and discharges its wealth through six mouths The teams haul to the mill at a cost of 90 cents per ton The entire cost of paining hauling and milling does not exceed 4 per ton Other expenses reduce the profits yet from an average daily yield of 85 tons a monthly dividend divi-dend of 12500 is paid and a neat sum is put aside to build the projected mill and tramway John Dern is the president and the new manager of the company Mr Peyton having desired a rest from years of labor John Treweek is the superintendent and Mr Charles M Howard is in charge at the mill About thirtyfive men find employment at the mine and half as many more at the millA A miner receives 3 per Jay The company will either enlarge its present mill or move over to Mercur and build a new one It is also surveying now for a tramway from mine to mill and the levels and difficulties found will assist largely in determining thepolicy to be pursued A new company may be formed to operate not only the tramway but an extension to Fairfield siding John Dern made his money at Fremont Fre-mont Neb as a lumber and stock man He is a German of middle age powerful m physique with good health and good nature beaming from every lineament linea-ment of his broad face He is an earnest Democrat and today is a member mem-ber and treasurer of the Nebraska state committee He has avoided office of-fice as a rule but on one occasion reluctantly re-luctantly > accepted a nomination as state senator and was triumphantly elected in a district ithougttit to be safely safe-ly Republican He will now make Salt Lake his home and expects his family to join him here within few day Mr Airis one of ihe directors has bought the h use ftt i i across east from the southeast corner of the Catholic hospital grounds ttnd will also make this his home The Marion ore does not average as high as the Mercur but it it handled more cheaply on account of the proximity proxi-mity of the mine to the mill and yields with a production of fifty tons pec day a nice profit of about 8000 per month Messrs Joseph Smith and R L Scan nell are its chief owners It employs about thiry men at the mine and mill Mr Smith is manager Mr Blake is in charge at the mill I A brief description of the cyanide process may not be uninteresting The ore after mining hauled to the mill where it is crushed and then conveyed by cars to leaching vats where it is soaked for seventytwo hours in a solution of cyanide of potassium the cyanide combines with the gold and mercury the resulting solution 15 run over zinc shavings upon which the gold and mercury are deposited in the form of black deposit which is treated with sulphuric acid in order to remove the zinc the residue is retorted in an oven ami the mercury thus volatilized leaves the gold which after a bath of nitric acid to remove any zinc or other impurities is of neary coin value The mercury is caught in ithe retorting process pro-cess The Marion mine only is treating the zinc shavings the Mercur ships them to Omaha where they are refined These shavings with their gold deposit de-posit are worth from 40000 to 50000 per ton S 1 l S A I I I MERCURMLE 1ERCtF MAItION MILL While the two mines mentioned are the only ones whose product is being treated yet there are many fine and promising prospects with more or less development from the Little Pittsburg two miles north of camp to the Sunshine Sun-shine three or four miles south and from the Golden Gate east of town to the Colonel Wall properties on the west a distance of a mile The Golden Gate owned by Messrs Butts and Hallister has ore on the dump and in sight I which averages well but is rendered somewhat refractory by arsenic The B B and Surprise east of town are owned toy the Vicking company in i which Mr Hagerman of Colorado Springs Mr Hayes a soninlaw of Jeff Davis and others are interested there are ten men at work her with excellent prospects The adjoining claims are the Ingot and Cannon owned by the Cannon company there is good ore in sight and what is of itself it-self valuable there is a shaft full of water in the Ingot The Mattie No4 owned by Messrs Kiefer Scheu and Thompson and Captain McFarland of the Sixteenth infantry adjoins the Mercur south and west the vein has been entered and the indications are flattering The Sacramento and PanHandle Pan-Handle group owned by Colonel Wall and Mr Lakin has developed good ore six men are at work here The Herschel Her-schel group owned by Messrs Keifer Ike Jennings Nebeker and Sid Hooper have done considerable development work there is ore in the mine and the showing is good The Mattie group whioh joins the Herschel is owned by Messrs Kiefer Scheu A E SmiCh and others the Eagle is owned by Messrs Derge and Raditz and others These groups are showing well In the Glen coe country two miles south Messrs Raditz and Derge are prospecting and Andrews Co are working a group owned by W A Sherman Next in the march southward is the Sunshine property which Messrs W A Sherman Sher-man Charley Jacobs and the Officer Brothers have under a 40000 bond good for another year These claims are making a most excellent showing the gentlemen interested in the bond feel that they have a mine and it may beset be-set down as certain that the property prop-erty will be bought at the expiration of the time It seems certain that there is a great blanket deposit of ore possibly two strata as appears from the latest developments de-velopments at the Mercur stretchjng north and south for a distance of six miles and east and west for one mile It is certain that anything above 5 to to the ton is a paying assay The indications in-dications point to the conclusion that this average will prevail over a large stretch of the six miles and possibly away and beyond in places not yet prospected The camp is dull now It is dull because at its present status there are only two mines at work The claim owners are sighing for capital they feel that a few thousand dollars spent in the development of the many claims around the camp will inevitably inevit-ably show that the Mercur ground Is no better than the general run of the district and with that fact developed that Mercur will be the central point of not merely two but of dozens of paying properties Even mining camps suffer from dull times The only draw back to the prospective happiness of the Mercur citizen is thefear that they may develop gold so plenteously that I Congress may be led to demonetize it and leave it to rustle along as best it may as a shirt stud and cuff button I metal Will Higgins the editor of the Mercury Mer-cury having become too prosperous I to longer publish a red hot paper In a freezing cold tent is building an office after the prevailing style of architec ture and will soon present to the Mer cur view that spectacle of luxurious environment without which every newspaper man feels lonesome |
