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Show Thursday, June 14, 1973 Sun Advocate, Price, Utah 7 Gold Rush of '28 rocks south Carbon County by JOAN HUNT and talking about it. Everybody was looking for a gold mine then, states Mayme Jameson, who was serving as Carbon Countys recorder at the time. The excitement started for the general populace of Carbon County on April 12 when Floyd Johnson, Riley Young and Jess Cox recorded claims for Sundown Numbers 1 and 2 located on April 2, two miles east of Black Hawk. Word of mouth rapidly spread the news until April 18 when the featured it as the news story of the News-Advoca- to Helper .5? Gold! Gold at Hiawatha! Gold! Theyve found gold in Carbon County! Gold! Theres gold there just for the taking! Gold! Gold! Gold! The word rapidly spread that spring of 1928 until everyone was whispering ' t V tt V i ij I ! 1 - V ' 'll ' If jj o f 11 N h i'! te week. The ore had been tested by the United States Assay office as having $18 to $25 worth of gold per ton. The intrusive dike of iron ! pyrites and crystalized quartz, apparently formed by intense volcanic heat, was estimated by engineers to extend from the y Bench area across the county to the face of the Book Cliffs and to consist of at least a million tons of material. At the first claim sites the dike had broken through a silicate ledge surrounded by a mountain of blue shale. Intrusive igneous dikes of quartz had been struck in the mines of United States Fuel at Hiawatha many times, but they had never been traced. The coal miners regarded the quartz only as a nuisance that dulled their drills. Metallugists stated that quartz was rare in a coal producing country. They also stated that quartz formations can be found without gold but that gold could not be found without quartz. People rushed to place claims. The names of the claims ran from fanciful to descriptive, to humorous. They included Gold Bug Mine, Carbon Gold Mine, Blue Bird, Placer Head, y "s st Por-phor- Golden Doll Mining Claim, Hill Top Mining Claim, Cedar Hill Mining Claim, Orange Blossom, Desert Mine, Lucky Fisher, Pinnacle Gaim, Red Mining Claim, Horney Toad, Red Robin Mining Gaim, Green Rock, Blue Bell, Nuggett, White Hope, Queen Ann and Mountain Sheep Goldmine. When Sundown Number 3 was recorded on April 23, the partners asked Mayme Jameson, Dont you want to be in with us? She answered, Yes, and was duly listed as one of the MAYME Findington townsite. Prospectors in Carbon County's lone gold strike used the site for housing while they dug nearby tracer shafts. former out the of shack built of corrugated tin and boards at old Jameson, claimholder, deterioration points T persons had also been there. Findington, a mushroom town near the strike site, had grown states ore, Mayme Jameson. There was quite a lot of excitement at the time, but no big company would buy it. I dont know if anyone ever got anything out of it or not. I had a brass kettle full of the ore for from zero population to one hundred in three weeks. Many inhabitants were hard rock miners from other counties of Utah. The town consisted of shacks, tents and rough lumber houses. Most were one large general purpose room and a kitchen. One family moved the furniture out of their slant kitchen, stocked it with staple groceries and other simple every day items and opened the towns only store. Access to the town had been improved when a rough road through the cedars to the edge of the rim of Findington Valley had been smoothed so an auto could drive within a few hundred feet of the mining operations. A shaft had been driven in at the foot of Discovery Hill, and 12 employees of (he claimholders were working on it by May 5. They believed that the shaft was close to reaching the main vein. On nearby claims tracer shafts were being dug in an attempt to hit the hidden dike and to find where it lay. In addition to the claims being filed in Carbon from They say that the gold from the Rhodes Mine was rusty colored quartz, and that the quartz in this area is the same rusty color. No one achieved the prevailing dream of instant riches in Carbon Countys lone gold strike, which was hailed as the greatest gold rush since 48 or 97, but everyone received a lot of excitement talking about it, looking for prospective claim sites and just generally enjoying the boom time atmosphere of anything might happen. years. Today the tracer shafts are still as the miners left them. Bits and pieces of boards, a crib, bedsprings, an old icebox, one decrepit shack of corrugated tin and boards and modern day garbage lie around the claims and the site of Findington. The road to the valley is still in reasonably good shape. Some t hJL &,? Carbon County residents presently hold gold claims in the area 4 REMNANTS of pottery and a rock from a prospect supposedly covered by the dike and complete hole are Inspected by Mayme Jameson at a former quartz assessment their yearly Photo by Joan Hunt work. Some even homesite in Findington. whisper County, claims were being claims were located on a that the Lost Rhodes Gold located in the area between good pocket, but the general Mine is located here instead Mohrland and Mounds and ore was basically low of in the Uintah Mountains with Vern grade. It was apparently where legend places it. recorded Petersen, Emery County Recorder. The activity around the gold strike lasted ap- proximately twdf months before the boom ended. Apparently the original claimants. Mrs. Jameson was also involved in the Pinnacle Claim filed by herself, Stephen Bunnell, H.C. Smith, John Rose, Barbara Rowe, Drucilla Powell, Lillie Smith and Belle Hickman on April 25 and recorded April 27. She I was now wryly says, going to get rich. By April 21 inquiries had been received from around the state about the strike and people from all over the west were rushing to the site. A further assay of the ore showed, in addition to the gold, trace metals copper, silver, lead and zinc worth $46 per ton. Mining experts economically unfeasible to mine it. ' The minerals are still there, but it was low grade w OFF on everything in the store There's Always One in Every Crowd! for No Provo, Matter How Much You Advertise, Bingham and Salt Lake had visited the claims. The claimed News-Advoca- There Are Always te several thousand curious Veterans-He- r e's creates buyer Interest, builds store traffic and a veterans compensation from VA be reduced if Social Security benefits are increased? No. VA does not A count any income against service-connecte- d compensation for Will produces buyers. Advertisers continue to invest more money each year in newspaper advertising. No matter what size your business, you too can profit from regular advertising. Our experienced ad men can help you plan an effective advertising program at reasonable cost. So you don't reach everyone . . . think of the ones you will. disabilities, including Social Security payments. Income is a factor for pensions for dis- abilities, however. Do VA pensioners Q over 72 years of age have to income annual file anymore?' questionnaires A No, they do not have to file. A recent law excludes pensioners 72 years old and older who draw benefits during two consecutive years from filing annual income questionnaires. However, they still must report changes in Few You Won't Reach But did you ever stop to realize what would happen if you didn't advertise at all? Newspaper advertising Your Answer Q A C30D.P0Q F0DHD7QJIQG CALL San-'Odvocd- Company of Price The vogue DEPARTMENT GTORE Across the Street From The City Hall Phone West Main, Price, Utah 637-238- 21 8 income. I Helper Sun-Advoca- te U 637-073- 2 FOR INFORMATION Subscribers are the ON AN ADVERTISING PROGRAM TAILORED best informed people in the area. TO YOUR NEEDS. |