Show THE GOLD ROAD MINE interests Inte interesting resti ng account of the chance discovery of this great producer in another column mention is made of the fact that the united states smelting smelling Sm elting refining mining company has secured an option on the gold road mine in mohave county arizona this is one of the really big gold propositions of our sister state and the fact that its discovery was made accidentally by a drunken mexican adds interest to the history of this property a controlling interest in which is held by a F trench rench syndicate in an article descriptive of the gold road the mining scientific press of san francisco says the gold road quartz lode is a remarkable one it outcrops badly and nearly vertically in a straight line for feet being eighteen feet of more in width and in places standing above the surface seventy five feet on one side and forty feet on the other it is in plain view of the old overland road from santa fe N M to san cal which was opened by beale as early as 1850 hundreds of prospectors and others passed by this prominent reef in the fifty odd years subsequent ro the opening of the road without discovering the auriferous character of the outcrop perhaps one reason why it did not attract the attention of prospectors was its great size and white unstained onyx like appearance of the quartz in 1902 or thereabouts a local character was known as mexican joe whose family name is not recalled he had previously done a little prospecting in a vagrant sort of way when in town so long as he could beg or borrow a peso he devoted most of his time to drink and three card monte when away from town he spent most of his time rolling cigarettes and hunting his burros he had been on a spree in town ending in a fine case of delirium tremens cremens tr emens henry lovin the sheriff of mohave county put him in jail ostensibly on a charge of vagrancy but really to sober him he was a long time sobering up however and during most of the time he consumed the county provisions with regularity and alarming voracity mexican joe finally yearned for freedom and proposed to the sheriff that if lie he would furnish hini him with a grubstake he would leave town and find a mine for the and himself the sheriff mindful of the countes coun tys exchequer or of his own future political prospects considered it cheaper to go down in his pocket for a grub stake than to board his prisoner any longer at the county jail joe was accordingly provided with about 10 worth of supplies and started with his burros for willow spring situated about three miles from the present gold road mine joe however was born tired and was still sick or though he was so lie he did no prospecting but stayed at the spring un til his supplies were nearly exhausted when it occurred to him that it would be wise to return to town and work the sheriff for another groub stake 11 As usual in such cases the burros were missing he finally found them in a saddle like liki e depression on the apex of the huge quartz vein previously mentioned climbing up to the animals he dislodged a piece of quartz which he noticed was plentifully filled with native gold A brief search revealed more of the same exciting material he thereupon located three claims for himself and lovin two of them being named respective ly the gold road and billy bryan he then hastened to kingman where he quickly became the center of interest and an important personage the two partners shipped worth of ore from three 10 foot shafts on the property and not long after ward sold the claims to mr burkhardt of los angeles for the mexican devoted his share of the sale to mescal and monte and this ends his story lovins share made the basis of his fortune mr burkhardt sold to valley bailey posey for six months later mr air posey sold a one third interest to clarence mccornick for A company was then organized and 52 per cent of the stock was sold to a french syndicate for finally the mine come under the present control it is now being developed by modern methods and has a large medium grade ore body from which the company expects to derive substantial dividends for many years to come |