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Show LGOI CHEEK ABOUhlDS IH L0ST1I LORE Central Idaho District Is Noted as Home of Mystery Mys-tery Lodes. SEARCH IS CONTINUING Poet-Prospector's Stories of Fabulous Wealth to Be Rediscovered. By CLARENCE E. EDDY. Almost every mineral region has its alleged lost mines stories augmented by a love of mystery, but sometimes founded found-ed upon facts stranger than fiction. The locality on Loon creek, a tributary of the middle fork of the Salmon river, in central Idaho, is replete with such stories, more than any other portion of the west. In fact, it seems to be an enchanted land whose vast labyrinth of mountains and streams bewilder a return re-turn to its once discovered riches. The Lost Packer went insane and died in a fruitless search for ore that had dazzled daz-zled his sight, and other men have roamed these same mountains for years, thereby substantiating their faith in bonanzas once seen by them but lost in bewilderment. Interest in that region is chiefly centered in the fact that some rich leads lately have been found beyond be-yond likelihood of losing. But let us tell a few lost mine stories that seem authentic, for thereby may be gained some guidance for their discovery. Years ago a party of easterners coming com-ing west in quest of wealth, made their way from Bannock. Mont., into the then strange and wild country of Loon creek. In the party was one, T. J. Cleveland, who was thought to be too much of a tenderfoot to do any prospecting, and so be was appointed cock for the party. The story goes that he played pranks upon his companions, once by placing rushes under the bedding so that the boys thought they were lying on a nest i of rattlesnakes. He so sained their disfavor dis-favor that when he afterward showed them a collection of yellow paunings from a roek ho had found in the near-by mountains, they cursed and said they would not be fooled by his pranks. Party Disbanded. The party broke up and returned east, where afterwards it occurred to Cleveland Cleve-land to get assays on the rock containing contain-ing the yellow substance. To his surprise sur-prise it "went $41,000 in gold per ton. He closed up his affairs aDd came west again, expecting to be the possessor of a fortune, but search as he would th vast mountains concealed it from him. After many years of digging and search-1 search-1 ing the mountain?, especially in the locality lo-cality of Woodtiek Summit, he died, nM and crnv hut- f.ill drpftmina nf the gold. ' It is now thirty years ago that a man j named Haggerty. while perambulating! the central Idaho mountains with a! small pack outfit, struck ''the real stuff" and sacked sufficient of it to go back and buy out "Ould Ireland"' and and make himself "imperor" of the' ; same. But by adverse fate he hied him j down to Utah and fell to celebrating j in Salt Lake City with the large sums ' received from the sacks of ore. Bad cess to his blunders he died of snakes ; in his boots. Not even a son of Erin i knows where Haggerty got his ore, but ' some people who know the circum- . stances, now- think they have a good i chance to find the mine this coming ; season. i In the boom days of Bonanza or about j the latter '70s, a man named Swim re- corded a claim described as being fifteen I miles south of Bonanza. Assays showed .70u per tou, but it being rather late, Swim went to Silver City, where he wintered. win-tered. He came back the. following spring by way of Ketehum. with a partner part-ner and a waaouload of provisions. Swim, in order to search out the road, kept somewhat ahead of the team, and arriving on the upper Salmon river at Sawtooth, he rode far ahead to make a reconnoissance and, sad to relate, he i never returned. His saddle mule and equipment was cast up by the Salmon river, but Sw-im was seen no more, and the exact whereabouts of his mine is rill a mystery. . Discoverer Perished. Somewhere on the hillside above the rich Loon creek placer beds, is a ledee assaying $2000 per ton, but its discoverer. discov-erer. John Lowden, who alone knew- of its whereabouts, was killed bv a snow-!!ifl snow-!!ifl while coining in from his find. However, the Lo.-t Lowden tallies pretty will with the present Monte Cristo, and may, in f'-t, be the very same ledge. 1'n Custer, Idaho, during its latter palmy days, lived a Chinaman called John Taylor, who boasted he was "all sap.e Me!lican. ' ' While on his way to Loon 'Te"k during the placer dav.7 he and another Chiuaman went oif the main trail somewhere "Maybeso six miles" from Loon creek. 7'hey sunk a hole into the gravel of a gulch" and got many nuggets, one going i'.'S'K At that time the Indians wcr bad and white men also drn'h on " hinamen, so John Taylor and his pig-tailed companion got "lint I'iairl " ' and proceeded to lose the whole locality. John Taylor searched often for this placer and' talked much of it to the writer. It is still lost, but the gold still lures, anil some of thexe days it will fall into the hands of more uii'-to Onto d.sr'Overcrs who cannot be iarre-1 loose from it even by the crack of doom. It. is due much to the pathetje uncertainty uncer-tainty r.t hum:in lift as .well as to pre-varica'ion pre-varica'ion that there are so many lost mine". Lar'hlv affairs are ever chnng-ir:g chnng-ir:g and shifting like the colors in a l:a Icidoscope. fine day we mav di-.. di-.. (; a proposition of almost purn jold, -eer:il feet wide and ready to nick. I'eriiaps we enuld realize several hurl-,,f hurl-,,f dollars thereon fro:ii some ex-,-,r tit c-.-ipttaii-t. but we get drunk and ijic of delirium tremens or remain sober, arc ki'd'.ed to death by a mule. Alack and alas! Wo are all a prey to mules and mutability. Hut while one is look ing for lo-t, mines th'it never existed, tl.Ty mav in realitv find a. mine, nml herein lies the moral and purpose of our : t r, r - . |