Show washington WASHING TON COUNTY MINES ADVOCATE ST GEORGE UTAH 1 almost every kind of mineral or metal that is used in the industrial world is found in washington county gold silver copper lead and iron are known to exist in almost inexhaustible quantities in the eastern part of our county mammoth beds of coal are patiently waiting for some enterprising person to open them up and put their contents to the use for which they were created near city there are vast deposits of petroleum shale in some places the oil oozes out of the rock and has been tested and proves to be a very good quality oil experts from california say that it h f ully fully as good if not better than the california product all that is licking jacking is the capital to develop the claims gypsum the mineral from which plaster of paris is manufactured is more than plenty in fact it is a nuisance in some parts of the county in the northwestern part of the county large ledges of a very fine quality of pure silica alyx have been discovered also large larga deposits of iron ore have been discovered in the same neighborhood the first mining excitement in washington county was about the year 1870 when some parties found what they thought was silver in the sandstone ledges near the town of leeds and several persons went from st george and located claims and thus became prospective millionaires but about that time a professor of geology who was passing through the country on his way to california gave a lecture in st george during which he ridiculed the idea of finding precious metals in iii sandstone and explained how it was scientifically imps sible for such a thing to be and that was the end of washington countes coun tys first boom in the year 1873 W T barbee of pioche nevada having heard of the peculiar sandstone of that vicinity came to see it and thinking that dame lature had a perfect right to place precious metals she chose whether she did it according to the rules of science or not located some claims and shipped a few loads of sandstone to pioche the result was a stampede and in an in creditably short time mines were opened mills built and the town of silver reef came into existence in the southwestern part of the county about twenty miles from st george is located the famous dixie group of claims a copper property owned by the utah and eastern copper company these mines were accidentally discovered by some wood haulers in the they were located and worked for some time by the discoverers and quite an amount of ore and bullion was shipped the ore was high grade right from tha surface one shipment of fifty tons went 52 per cent copper the owners not having havin the capital to properly develop the property sold it and it finally fell into the hands of the present owners who are putting it in shape for making money they have prospected it to the depth of over one thou thousand sanI feet and find it improves as they go down both in quantity and quality within a very avery short time they expect to begin shipping ore to their smelter which is about twelve miles distant on the santa clara creek between which points a good road has been built they have the finest and most completo complete gasoline plant in the c country with an aggregate of one hundred and fifty horse power which runs the hoist and electric dynamo for lighting the whole works and also the air compressor they have a new road from the smelter to acoma the nearest railroad station which is about forty five miles distant this road was built at an expense of nearly thirty thousand dollars if all goes well this mine will soon show what washington county has in the shape of mines as they will demonstrate thai there is no better mine in utah than the dixie about one and one half miles west from dixie we have joining the dixie mine on the south the paymaster mine which is now being worked by S L adams jr on a bond and lease it has a fine showing of good ore and will be heard from in the near future about one and a half miles to the west from the dixie is the surprise a copper property carrying high grade ores owned by the adams brothers of eureka utah and just south of the sunrise lies the old black warrior one of the first discoveries in the district it was worked in the early days by W B pace A R whitehead and others transportation and express were so heavy and the price of lead so low they had to close down with the present transportation facilities this property should be producing as it has an abundance of lead and some copper in sight and a little development would show it to be a good property it is owned at present by james andrus |