Show RED STREAK OF BAKER COUNTY FOR THE MINING REVIEW 10 lo when a june baker city oregon mining section presents physical difficulties it seems to have an added charm the rush the heart of a into is all the more intense scorching desert or where perpetual ice bars the entrance A prospect is seldom entertained of finding mineral wealth unless it is attended with the hazard of life otherwise the cue idea is too tame in a country where flowers bloom and birds sing ten months in the year where the hills are covered with bunch grass and the valleys with orchards and grain where there are timbered mountains and powerful streams of pure cold water where schools and churches are unexcelled where there are daily papers and automobiles and paris gowns and telephone communications everywhere where the climate is the most perfect on earth who would expect to find gold and silver else what becomes of the geological dogma that god has secreted the precious metals in places accessible only to dare devils it is simply at par with the old astronomical fancy fahey that the moon is made of green cheese like santa claus they have both done service and no doubt they will always have a place in fiction take me to the cemetery said the skeptical patient to the doctor and show me what you have done very well to the cemetery then let us hasten for it is my purpose to show you that notwithstanding our superb naturel I 1 advantages we have a place on the mineral map of the country look at this landmark or tombstone if you please erected by the government in 1902 and see the record up to that time of Or egons output of gold and silver this monument firmly grounded is dedicated to the gold belt of the blue mountains Mounia mountains ins of oregon by waldemar lindgren professor lindgren is one of the most eminent scientists in america and when he inscribed this stone he was in charge of the geological survey under supervision of your uncle sam his estimate is compiled from the records of mills and shelters smelters sm elters sand and must for that reason fall far short of the actual amount it is notorious that I 1 in n the past some of our richest mines have had nearly as much gold stolen from them as went directly to the smelters shelters sm elters or the mints but let us content ourselves with the inscription there it stands on page of Lind grens report lo 10 00 00 silver as he says forms but a small fraction of this amount the product of the last five years will easily bring the total up to so that then is what we have done in passing on to what we are now doing let it be understood that when oregon is r n a e tinned as a mining state eastern oregon what is generally meant that lindgren 3 report to the government has to do witt the country immediately surrounding baker bake city as a center that most of the vast golden treasure standing to the credit ot of oregon has been taken outi out of baker cout coun ty the home of the big red apple where there are over three hundred days of sun SIM shine every year well we simply continue to put out gold in every section of the blue mountain district from both the placer and quartz mining camps the output from the quartz mills is steadily on the increase and each year witnesses an added increase in the output of silver alone so much for the j precious metals I 1 am intentionally refraining from froin par in this communication as my object is to jar the reader with a few broad statements in order to get his attention in a subsequent letter I 1 will go more into detail and public ally or privately I 1 will be pleased at any time to answer pertinent questions with reference to fifi finding ding mineral wealth in a scenic and climatic paradise about seven years ago a man named burke who by the way was remotely connected with my ancestors began the development of a copper property about twenty miles out from baker city he was regarded locally as insane but harmless consequently he had a hard experience although no attempt was ever made to confine him in the asylum his company was held together somehow notwithstanding an d the assaults on it and him and he stayed with it until he landed the proposition on firm ground with the north american property at burkemont Bur kemont as an idea lio however wever insane prospecting for copper commenced hereabouts and two years later the indiana mine was started then followed renewed activity at copper butte one of the old 10 id landmarks on the belt and soon the goose creek camps were under way and the hills on both sides of burkemont Bur kemont for a distance of seventy miles in length were alive with hunters for the red metal now a cop per bearing area has been outlined faolu W north powder on the west to snake river on the east which GO colonel lonel W C cw coggi 0 calls the red streak of baker baiter county it cuts a path from half a mile to be several v er al ln 1 I ss miles wide and from 70 to mile length through a gold producing cotry in extent it is said to be the largest copper cop belt known it crosses beautiful ranc mid and stretches of fine timber and is cut by mountain streams impelled downward by thousands of horge horsepower power the city of baker is now looking ea eastward 1 st to the copper belt with metropolitan dr dreams dreanie eaniS it is dreaming also of a railroad to tap the red streak as a condit condition ibn precedent to an oregon butte no we have no producing copper mines as yet and I 1 cannot take you to the aeme i tery and show you a monument in bronze but there is shipping ore already exposed in many places on thobert the tho belt with no means of shipping it there are ore bodies a hundred feet wide that will assay irregularly almost at grass roots from 3 to 6 per cent copper with interesting values s in gold and silver at the end ot of another decade EL a new metal in the mining history of oregon will make a new record in the output of mineral wealth from this state and the astonished skeptic will find it recorded in a section of country where honeybees honey bees drone in the alfalfa blossoms and cattle horses and sheep on a thousand hills shake their fat sides in contentment amid bunch grass and clover THOMAS CARRICK BURKE |