Claims Located Two Miles South of Cottonwood Wash.

In Eastern and Southern Utah

Emery County

  Walter M.Rutt of Woodside was a business visitor at Castle Dale this week.

__________

  Peter and Lars Frandsen have located a dozen mining claims, bearing gold, silver, and copper, about two miles south of Cottonwood Wash, some forty miles east of Castle Dale. 

Eastern Utah Advocate
October 31, 1907

Claims Located East of Cedar Mountain.

Snap Shots at Local Events

  There is a little doing right along in the mine locating business in this county.  During the past few days George T. Stenhouse, A. W. Warrington, Lorenzo Stenhouse and George W. Richmond, all of Salt Lake City, have had entered for record five claims in the vicinity of the Copper Boy mining property, two miles east of Cedar Mountains.  Henry Wade, Lars Frandsen, R. ace and George Frandsen of Price have located three claims two miles south of Cottonwood Wash and V. L. Acord of Castle Dale has located a claim in the most southeasterly portion of Buckhorn Flat. 

Emery County Progress
January 26, 1907

Salt Lake Herald
January 30, 1907 

Improved Methods of Extracting Values from Low Grade Copper Ore Leads to more Claims Located.

TRUTH AND GOSSIP

__________

  Emery County Progress has this reference to parties well know in Carbon County:  E. T. Wolverton, Fred T. Stearns, A. Tuttle, William Floyd and other are plastering the country about Cottonwood Wash, Keg Springs and Monument Hill, all lying between Castle Dale and Green River stations, with location notices.  Some of this territory has been indifferently prospected in years past, and some openings a hundred feet in length, or depth, made.  The property so worked has long since been abandoned.  The mineral showing is mostly copper, but the ore is of very low grade.  With the rising price of copper and improved methods for extracting values from low grade ore no doubt there are mineral deposits in that section of country that would pay to work. 

Eastern Utah Advocate
September 24, 1903

Flattering Reports in Copper, Gold and Silver from Summerville Mining District.

OIL AND ORES

__________

  The most flattering reports are received from the Summerville Mining District some 5 miles east of Castle Dale.  The Hecker Mining Company and Harvey Hardy have opened up a considerable body of ore assaying high in gold, silver and copper.  Other prospectors also claims to have claims that give indications of soon becoming profitable producers.  

Emery County Progress
January 25, 1902

Silver Lead Copper and Gold at Cedar Mountain.

MINING ON CEDAR MOUNTAIN

__________

  According to reports someone has started a little mining boom around Cedar Mountain.  Chris Larsen and Ervin Draper of Castle Dale were over in that direction a few days ago delivering a few tons of oats to Peter Olsen at Woodside.  They noticed about a dozen men prospecting and working in the district and ascertained that a few Denver men were in the party for the purpose of examining the territory with the view of prospecting and developing same.  Considerable work has been done there in the past by various parties and ore has been found that runs very high in silver and lead with some gold and copper.  Ex-Sheriff Hardy of Salt Lake City and the Hecker Mining Company have also done considerable exploitation work and obtained fairly good results but the distance from the railroad and the heavy freight charges from Desert Switch to a smelter point have discouraged the proposition of mining very extensively.  With some method of treating the ore locally thee is enough of it already exposed and of good value to warrant mining operations on an extensive scale. 

Emery County Progress
December 12, 1908

Mining Clams Showing Values.

NEWS OF TOWN AND COUNTRY

__________

  Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale was a Sunday visitor in Price.  Several mining claims which himself and associates are working down below Desert Switch are showing up fine values in the precious metals, including copper and lead.

Eastern  Utah Advocate
February 25, 1909

Peter Frandsen in Salt Lake City.

IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN UTAH

__________

  Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale spent the week in Salt Lake City on business connected with his mining property in the eastern portion of the county.  A sample of ore taken from it gave returns of 56 per cent lead, besides showing good values in silver.  

Eastern Utah Advocate
June 14, 1906

Good Mining Property.

LOOKS LIKE GOOD

MINING PROPERTY

__________

  In the old Summerville district some forty miles east of Castle Dale more prospecting has been done than elsewhere and there the ore carried some gold and considerable silver but no one ever found enough of it to make mining pay there.

  Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale has opened up some copper ore that runs quite high in the red metal some ten miles south of Desert Switch, a station on the Rio Grande Railroad.  Mr. Frandsen expects to ship a carload of the ore to a Sandy sampling works in a short while.  If that ore is found to pay and the Copper Globe continues to come to the front it is likely that some sort of a mill or pyritic smelter may be put up on the San Rafael River and the ore treated locally.  If ore is found in paying quantities in the Copper Globe the face will give a great stimulus to mining in Emery County for there is a vast territory of as yet unprospected ground that shows fully as good surface indications as

the Snyder and Frandsen territory.  

Eastern Utah Advocate
December 16 1905

Good Ore.

GOOD ORE IN SIGHT

__________

  Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale is back home from his mining property nine miles south of Desert Switch.  A shaft has been sunk to the depth of 79 feet and the vein is so wide that it was necessary to drift to catch the footwall.  The vein now shows 36 feet of mineral across the breast.  The company (Gold Reef and Platinum Mining Company) was incorporated last fall under the laws of Utah with a capital stock of $30,000 and Mr. Frandsen is the president of the company.  It is now proposed to put on a steam hoist in the near future and an effort will be made to get some sort of concentrating plant to handle the ore. 

Emery County Progress
February 13, 1909

Eastern Utah Advocate
February 18, 1909 

Salt Lake Mining Review
February 28, 1909

Pleased with Showings

PROSPECTORS PLEASED

WITH THEIR SHOWINGS

__________

  Lars Frandsen came back to Price the other day from the Cedar Mountain country, where he left Ed Stewart, R. Pace and Jack Whiting working several claims recently located by himself and others.  They have a fourteen inch vein in place on one claims, says Frandsen, and this will be sunk to considerable depth.  The crowd will take up about twenty claims, locating among others the old Hoyt mine, worked as far back as 1892. 

  The twenty-two tons of ore recently shipped from there to Salt Lake City by Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale gave an average value of twelve dollars to the ton, says Lars Frandsen.  Provo parties were down there last week, figuring to put in a mill or leaching process, for the treatment of the ore, which carries lead, silver, gold and copper.  

  Lars Frandsen's claims are located about six miles west of Desert Switch.  There is plenty of water for milling and mining purposes.  Good springs of water flow the year around, while wood and coal may be had in close proximity. 

Eastern Utah Advocate
March 8, 1906

Cedar Mountain Claims.

THE MINING FEVER HITS

PRICE EARLY THIS YEAR

__________

  Ras Frandsen and R. Pace of Price have gone down to the Cedar Mountains to do some prospecting on a twelve foot ledge of ore recently located and about fifteen miles from where Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale has been working for several months with good prospects of making a mine, he thinks.  The Price men have several persons associated with them in a bunch of claims and after arriving there will ship out some of the mineral bearing stuff to a sampler at Salt Lake City and to Denver assayers. 

  Peter Frandsen recently shipped a car of ore from Desert Switch.  It went to Bingham Junction, where it is being put through the sampling works.  Twenty-two tons constituted the car load.  Peter Frandsen is now at Castle Dale, awaiting returns from the shipment.  All of the ores so far uncovered in that section carry values of copper, silver, lead and gold.

  There is some talk of the oil well near Lost Springs resuming work in the spring.

Eastern Utah Advocate
February 8, 1906
 

Mining Claims near Desert Switch.

FRANDSEN PROSPECTS ARE

SHOWING UP SPLENDIDLY

__________

  Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale and Johnny Allred of Ferron are working their group of mining claims, eleven in all, about three miles north of Tidwell's cabin, and about ten miles southwest of Desert Switch.  They have opened up the vein in several places and found ore at every point.  A tunnel to develop the whole group is to be driven this summer.  The ore runs wuite high in silver and copper.  

  R. H. Smith, the abstracter, and L. V. Snow all of Salt Lake City, Paul and John Judd, James Peterson and George N. Kofford, all of Castle Dale, have located a number of claims apparently bearing gilsonite or ozokerite, some forty miles southeast of Castle Dale, and within a dozen miles of Desert Switch. 

  The claims show a large deposit of the glistening black was mineral, some of which was sent to Salt Lake City last week for an analysis.  

Eastern Utah Advocate 

April 8, 1905

Body of 55 Ounce Silver ore.

UNCOVERS A BODY OF

55 OUNCE SILVER ORE

  Peter Frandsen of Castle Dale is apparently opening up a mining property in Emery County some eight miles southwest of Desert Switch that will soon develop into a producing proposition.  Recent tests of ore from the property made from samples shipped to the U. S. Smelting Company at West Jordan show the ore to run as follows:  

  Sample No. 1 - Gold 0.02 oz, silver 55 ounces, copper 7.6 percent, iron 1.5 percent, silica 83.6 percent.  

  Sample No. 2 - Gold 0.01 oz, silver 23 ounces, copper 3.4 percent, lead 38 percent, iron 31 percent, silica 79.7 percent. 

  Sample No. 1 shows ore worth above $30 a ton and sample No. 2 goes better than $25 a ton.  Mr. Frandsen and his son-in-law Johnny Allred have located several claims and have opened up the property both by shaft and tunnel.  The deepest shaft is but 15 feet and a tunnel has been run on one vein about the same number of feet. 

  The ore body appears to be a wide one but not enough development work has been accomplished yet to ascertain its real extent.  No other development work has been done in the same vicinity so that future value of the property depends wholly upon what develops with further exploitation upon it.  Mr. Frandsen has two men at work there now.  Several visitors have looked at the property and all are well pleased with the present showing. 

  The smelting company has offered Mr. Frandsen $12 per ton for the ore laid down at Desert Switch basing their price from tests of samples sent. 

  Negotiations are now pending with other smelters.  Offers have been made but none as yet have been high enough to meet their ideas of the value of it. 

Eastern Utah Advocate 

December 23, 1904

First Locations at Recorder's Office.

PURELY PERSONAL

__________

  The first mining locations to appear at the county recorder's office at Castle Dale for this new year are an even dozen made by Harvey E. Hardy, Harvey Hardy, Jr. and M. H. Odell, all of Salt Lake City, in the old Summerville mining district, south of Woodside. 

Emery County Progress
January 14, 1904

Wild and Wooly Woodside.

Accused of Awful Crime at Woodside

____________

   Frank Randall of Woodside, aged about 30 years and a ranchman, was taken to the county jail at Castle Dale Monday in default of $2000 bonds demanded by a Green River justice for his appearance for trial at the next term of district court.  Randall is alleged to have attacked John Carswell's wife, the mother of six children, on the evening of March 3.  

   Randall was intoxicated at the time.  Mrs. Carswell was unconscious and incoherent for twenty-four hours after being found and would have died from her injuries had not a posse of citizens found her shortly after the attack.  

   Mrs. Carswell says that she was returning to her home a couple of miles from Woodside depot when she was attacked by Randall, who left her unconscious.  She was found by her husband and neighbors, who had become alarmed at her prolonged absence and instituted search.  A pair of gloves and a bottle of whiskey, said to belong to Randall, were picked up near the place where the victim lay.  

   Carswell was formerly engaged in mining at Sunnyside, but moved to Woodside six years ago.  Randall, it is alleged, is addicted to hard drinking.  He has lived at Woodside nearly all his life. 

________________

Carbon County News 

March 22, 1912

Mother of six is attacked by Brute
http://udn.lib.utah.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/odgen15/id/37958/show/37789/rec/38

Evening Standard
(Ogden Standard Examiner)
March 20, 1912

Grandfather Comparison.

I did a grandfather comparison once before in one of my very early posts but I would like to do another short comparison or brief description of them. 

My grandfather Nicholas Peter Pettersson was an immigrant having been born in England of Swedish origin.  He worked for the railroads and mines before becoming Carbon County Treasurer.  He was also a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  He was very valiant and ambitious in his membership in the LDS Church.  He was still leading the choir in priesthood meeting and doing treasurer work for the seminaries at 90 years of age.  He was well known, well liked and well respected and had a cheerful nature and disposition. 

My grandfather Joseph Augustus Curtis was born in Castle Dale and was a lifelong resident of Utah.  In fact I'm not sure he went far from the Price River Drainage area at all and spent most or all of his life there.  His nickname was "Dode".  His father had the same name and generally went by Joe as far as my research determines.  In fact it is Joe who this comparison may involve more than Dode.  Dode has reportedly said that Joe's Holes was named after him.  I'm inclined to disagree with that as I believe he was a newborn when Joe's Holes was named.  It could have his his father Joe however.  Joe reportedly ran sheep quite a bit.  I don't know if they were his sheep or someone else's but he supposedly had large herds of sheep.  He would also be more contemporary with when Joe's Holes was named.  He also went by Joe rather that Dode.  They aren't called Dode's Holes.  Joe was also one of the first settlers of Woodside.  As I have mentioned earlier I am certain that the Curtis Formation which is part of the San Rafael Group of geologic formations was named for him.  The Curtis Formation is just above the Entrada Formation and is very evident at Goblin Valley.  The Entrada Formation, Curtis Formation and Summerville Formation were all named at the same time in 1928 by Gilluly.  There was a guy named Summerville from Moab that is also credited as being one of the first settlers of Woodside and that is exactly why I feel that the Curtis Formation was named after Joe Curtis.  It only makes sense.  I also believe that Joe's Holes was also named for Joe Curtis.  Lew's Holes was names for Louie Pressett and as far as I can tell he was a contemporary of Joe Curtis.  Apparently they laid claim to these watering holes.  My dad used to call Lew's Hole "Louie Pressett waterhole". 

I am going to contradict myself here.  Joe's Holes starts near the Cedar Mountain summit area of the Castle Dale Road.  Or on old maps the Green River Cutoff.  But the Green River Cutoff took a different route in some places than the present Castle Dale Road.  Joe's Holes empties eventually into Lost Spring and further down into other washes before eventually emptying into the San Rafael River.  The Curtis Formation also in within the San Rafael River drainage area.  I don't know how much impact this has on my earlier statement that Dode spent most of his time in the Price River drainage area but they are so close as to almost be the same and one has to make some effort to distinguish the difference.

Three room mansion. I was a decade too late.

Per my blog post of May 12, Leon sent me an email with more information about the railroad tie house masquerading as a mansion.  Apparently it was built in the 1950s rather than the 1960s as I guessed.  Here is what Leon said:

Nick,

      In regards to the the three room Mansion at Woodside.  When I was 12 years old, 1954,  Dad and I think Earl and I were going toward Woodside on the Castle Dale road in a one and one half ton stock truck.  I looked out the side when we were in Oil Well Wash and saw someone down in the wash.  Dad stopped and it was James "Shorty" Lanier.  Shorty had taken his family in the family car to see Grandpa Curtis, who had already moved his camp to another location, in Humbug.  Shorty had gotten the car stuck 2 or 3 days previous and was walking out trying to find help.  He had gone down into the wash in hopes of finding a pool of water.

      Dad drove on to Woodside where he had homesteaded 160 acres and left me, and I think a couple or horses, while he, Earl and Shorty went back to Humbug to rescue Shorty's family.  Dad said he had a hard time keeping the children from drinking too much water at once and that when they saw him all they could say was "water, water, water,"  only it was pronounced as a child would say it like "wahtah" or something like that.

      He left me on the side of the hill by the ditch that crosses the road on the way to the house, only back towards Woodside itself.  There was no house.  I think he had made a square ditch to pour the cement into.  This location was anondoned for the present location of the house.  Starting when I was 13, 1955, I spent every summer and most week ends at Woodside and the house was built then.  So it was built between the summer of 1954 and summer of 1955.  The grainery and sheds including chicken coop and all of the corrals were there in the summer of 1955 also.  As you stepped into the house there was a hole in the cement floor and it was said that it was because the cement had frozen when it was laid.  So I assume that the floor was laid that winter sometime.  I don't know this for sure, but I think that Bill Martin helped Dad build the house.  I think sometime after that they had a falling out as Bill Martin never came around anymore after that.

      Verl said that one time after he got his drivers licence he asked Dad if he could go out for the night and Dad said he could go and stay out all night if he wanted, but first thing in the morning they were taking a load of railroad ties to Woodside to start the house.  I think this was when we were living in Carbonville.  Verl got is drivers licence in 1952.  Or at least he turned 16 in 1952.  So that would have been 1953 or 1954

              Leon

The Ditchdigger

When I was in high school in order to motivate you the teachers would say that you need to get an education so that you wouldn't end up being a ditch digger.  As if being a ditch digger is a bad thing.  Some of them that use machinery today can make some good money. 

Anyway I have been wanting to tell this story for some time.  Joe Curtis apparently was one of the best ditch diggers around.  I have found some documents to back this up so it is official.  He is a good ditch digger.  I know he did other things as well.  He was a farmer, rancher, pioneer, family man, business man and did his share of prospecting.  Joe was one of the first settlers of Woodside credited with that honor partly because he settled with his family present.  In one of my earlier posts I alluded to some of the place names that were named after him.  The Curtis Formation and Joe's Holes are probably the most prominent.  One of the first recorded instances of his ditch digging prowess follows:

     Sylvester and his brothers, George, Nick, Chris, Davis and Silas, built a one-room log house that serves as a schoolhouse, church and amusement hall.  Davis Wilson and William Higby called for the dances and George Biddlecome, with his fiddle, was the musician.  Harmon Curtis, son of Simmon(s) P. and Emeline Curtis of Springville, came to Castle Valley when he was but a boy of sixteen, with his brother Joseph and his wife, who settled a mile or so south of Castle Dale on land purchased from Andrew Rasmussen.  The Curtis brothers helped plow the first irrigation ditch south of Castle Dale.  Harmon Curtis was the first school teacher.  He taught for three years and had from twelve to fifteen students of all ages from Wilsonville and the nearby ranches.  The only desks were homemade benches and the books were brought in from Sanpete County by horseback.  School was only held for about four years. 

Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, Volume 13. p. 495. 

He probably helped plow this irrigation ditch before he moved to Woodside.  The Woodside documentation is next:

      Woodside, on the Price River, lies approximately halfway between the town of Price and Green River. 

     The first settler, Henry Hutchinson, was attracted by gold pay dirt in the Cedar Mountains.  In 1885 Pete Peterson and Sanderson also located here.  The next to come were Scott Miller and Joe Curtis.  Indians told them to turn back or they would starve; but they ignored the Indians and proceeded to take up homesteads, diverting the waters of the Price River for irrigation.  Joe Curtis and Scott Miller both had families. 

Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Castle Valley, p. 324. 

There are two irrigation ditches at Woodside.  I wonder if Joe helped with them.  From the above information it would seem that he did. 

The third documentation of his ditch digging prowess seals it.  The Castle Dale and Woodside ditches were probably made in the 1880s.  This article postdates them.  It affirms Joe as one of the best: 

                Joe Curtis, of Lower Crossing, was in our town this week.  Joe is not only a good miner but can throw as much mud out of an irrigating ditch as any man in the west. 

Eastern Utah Advocate

January 22, 1891

And a ditch at Desert Lake:

                John L. Thayne and Joseph Curtis are running a four or five-mile ditch from the extreme north end of the Cleveland Canal to carry water to a reservoir north of Desert Lake for culinary and stock watering purposes.  

Eastern Utah Advocate

November 23, 1905

Wow, as much as any man in the west.  He must have been pretty good.  This ditch from the Cleveland Canal to Desert Lake makes at least the third ditch that Joe helped on.  That is pretty good.  My dad used to say when talking about people that they hauled the dirt to make this country.  That would seem to fit Joe very well.