Claims in the old Summerville District.

OLD SUMMERVILLE DISTRICT

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The Emery County Camp Shows

Signs of a Revival 

  J. B. Taylor, the well known mining engineer and chemist, has returned from an extended trip into the old Summerville Mining District in Emery County, where he has been engaged in making some exhaustive examinations of the geological conditions as found in that section.  

  The above named district, according to what Mr. Taylor has to say, was established in 1881.  About that time some large deposits of silver, lead, copper and gold ores were discovered in the sandstone formations, but the ores proved not to be sufficient high grade to pay the expenses necessary to conduct it to the valley smelters.  The distance from the mines to the smelters was about 150 miles, and the only means of transportation at the time was by wagons.  The building of the Rio Grande Western later removed all these difficulties, but when the old conditions prevailed the country was almost entirely abandoned. 

  During the last few months, however, signs of prosperity have put in an appearance, and Mr. Taylor says the country is becoming active with every indication that the camp will become the most productive in the state after it has been sufficiently developed. 

  The main ore veins in the district run from the east to the west and generally dip towards the north at an angle of sixty-five degrees.  The character of the ores at the surface is a bromide, sulphide and chloride of silver, while the copper deposits lie in the form of halco pyrite, malachite and oxides, frequently associated with copper in the native form.  

  At the property owned by the Copper Boy Mining Company, numerous openings have been made on the surface where the ore crops out.  The development work done consists of shafts and open cuts and in no place, Mr. Taylor states, has the vein been found to be barren.  Assays taken from the surface ores have shown values ranging from 2 5/8 percent copper, 26 ounces silver, and 5 percent lead to 28 percent copper, 198 ounces silver, $7 gold , with traces of lead.  The vein ranges from six to twenty feed wide, and the paystreak measuring from four to thirty-two inches in width, lies between a quartzite footwall, a line hanging and a siliciouos gangue. 

  No depth of any consequence has been attained as yet, the deepest workings being not to exceed thirty feet, but all the developments done have been made in ore from the surface.  

  On the Sheep Ranch, owned by ex- Sheriff Harvey Hardy and others, which lies a half mile from the Copper King, the same vein appears, while the formation is some different, there being a dolomite lime foot and a blue lime hanging wall, strongly impregnated with iron.  The group consists of three claims. 

  Louis Presset owns a promising group adjoining the Sheep Ranch on the south.  There are five claims in all, and shows up values in copper ranging from 5 to 29 percent, silver ranging from five and a half to 300 ounces, and gold from 40 cents up to $4.  

  Further on to the south Dr. Dart of Salt Lake owns a group of patented claims lying in a sandstone formation.. Assays taken have shown the ore to contain values, Mr. Taylor asserts, from $40 to $100 to the ton, this of course is not an average.  

  The Midland group, located at the head of Stowe's Canyon, has a true fissure vein exposed of a good width, with a favorable showing of pay ore on the footwall, carrying copper values as high as 25 1/2 percent, gold up to $7 and silver up to 196 ounces to the ton.  The property is situated about six miles from Cedar Station and ten miles from Lower Crossing on the Rio Grande Western Railway.  

  The country is conveniently located close to fuel and water while ample water power for all purposes can be made available from the Price River.  The country is contiguous to a good farming community, and supplies from that source can be gotten cheaply.  

Salt Lake Herald 

September 27, 1899 

 

The Copper Boy Mine.

THE COPPER BOY MINE

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   Under the magical influence of the rapid advance in copper quotations, the active demand for the red metal which has been so apparent of late, many of the old camps of Utah and the west are being born again, as it were, and in their resurrection, give every evidence that it will not be long before they will drop into line as heavy producers of the precious metals and that their old and abandoned mine will respond so readily to  the quickening touch of capital and labor that in the near future they can be classed among the bonanza propositions and dividend payers of this inter mountain region. 

   Twelve or fifteen years ago Summerville Mining District in Emery County, ten miles west of the Lower Crossing of the R. G. W. road was looked upon as one of the most promising camps in this western country.  In fact, Summerville enjoyed the distinction of being a lively and red-hot district and quite a little mining town sprang up as if by magic within its environments--a burn boasting a population of 400 or 500 souls, who found shelter in tents, stone cabins, while even tasty homes embellished the camp, which boasting of its stores, supply houses; as well as of four saloons, generally the true index of the prosperity of any mining region. 

   It was as Summerville that Sam Gilson made a stake when the camp was in the full flush of prosperity, and it was here that many property owners found the wherewith with which to increase their bank accounts, as heavy ore shipments ere the order of the day there and many a consignment of the precious metals found their way to the market from Summerville which were sold on controls showing values of from 50 to 1,500 ounces in the white metal, 40 percent lead and well up in gold to the ton, to say nothing of the copper contents of the mineral, which would amount to a considerable sum now but which then brought the miner nothing, or worse than nothing, as in those days the producer was often times required to pay for what copper occurred in his ores.

   With the decline in silver quotations a few years ago, the heavy drop in the price paid for lead, and the little value placed on copper, the promising district of Summerville began to lose its grip and like a frost-bitten rose it soon began to be known as "one of the have beens,"  only here and there a dismantled cabin, an abandoned mine, a neglected prospect being the only tangible evidence that in the past a lively mining camp had once found existence there, only a few claim-holders keeping up their annual assessment work, confident that in time the wave of prosperity would again surge over that section.  

   With the unprecedented demand for copper which has characterized the financial circles of the world for the past year or two, cane the turn of the tide, as far as Summerville was concerned, for old mining men, familiar with the mineralization of this section, returned to look u old mines and to locate new ones, and it as for copper, not gold or silver, that they were looking for and it was here that they found it in encouraging quantities, the ores of the district carrying paying values in the red metal.  

   With the resurrection of Summerville came its transformation from a gold and silver camp to a copper producing district.  From the ashes of the past a new camp sprang into existence, the merits of which have already been as a lodestone to the capitalist and investor, among the first attracted by its promising copper properties being S. L. Boggs, of this city, who, with a few friends carefully investigated its mineral zones, the result being that associated with acquaintances and with men who are always on the outlook for meritorious mines and prospects, a group of claims was secured, being the identical property on which Sam Gilson had made a raise years before, and a few months ago the property formed the basis for an incorporated organization designated in the articles of incorporation as the Copper Boy Mining Company. 

   The mineral belt on which the Copper Boy is located, THE REVIEW is informed, is prolific in its ledges, its dips ans spurs, the formation being in immense quartzite dyke, the principal ledge being true fissures with an east and west strike. 

   The most work and development, however, and this is limited, has been done on a six foot vein of blanket formation, from which, in the early history of the camp, the former owners of the property made shipments of four cars of ore which netted them something like $6,000, the mineral being sold on control assays showing values of 42 percent lead, 12 percent copper, 119 ounces in silver and $4.50 in gold to the ton. 

   The illustration of the mine given herewith shows the shallow open cut from which this small fortune was taken and also sows where the company is now sinking a shaft on a vertical vein.  This shaft is now only down below grass roots; it is only 20 or 25 feet in depth, and yet the bottom is in a nice body of mineral which carries encouraging values in silver and gold and which is heavily impregnated with copper, the belief being, and the indications showing good cause for the assumption that with depth the fissure vein will lead to a large body of pay ore in which copper will predominate. 

   Overlapping the blanket vein above described there is a large deposit of oxide gold bearing ore, which, it has been found, leaches well and can be successfully treated by the cyanide process of reduction.  

   Almost on the dividing line between the Lee and the Uncle Sam claims, embraced in the Copper Boy group, is the Hutch shaft which was sunk several years ago to a depth of 135 feet and it is stated that in these old working a six foot body of ore is exposed between well defined walls, one half of which, by careful sorting, will carry values of 29 percent copper, 66 ounces in silver and $1.50 in gold to the ton, while the balance of the ledge is a good concentrating product which can, with a mill, be handled on the ground at a good profit. 

   On the Lee claim, about 1,500 feet east of the Hutch shaft, the ledge outcrops boldly and at the surface there is a foot of mineral which assays 23.8 ounces in silver, 80 cents in gold and a strong trace in copper to the ton, it being evident, when the vein was first thrown p, that it carried excellent copper values, but which, with the action of the elements and years of exposure, have leached out, but so promising is the showing at this point that during the present season Manager Boggs will do some systematic development there, his time being fully occupied at the present time in sinking the new working shaft on the Uncle Sam claim as rapidly as possible, and also in sacking ore for shipment at the old Hutch shaft.  

   Quietly and with no whoop and hurrah, Mr. Boggs and is associates have been hard at work this spring in the development of the Copper Boy.  They do not claim that it is a mine, but they are convinced that it is a most promising prospect and good enough to warrant a little money in its exploitation, feeling confident that with development it will open out into a producer and a paying mine. 

   In his report on the Copper Boy, C. L. Gilson, refiner at De LaMars Golden Gate mill at Mercur, says: 

     "The property of the company consists of the following claims, viz: Lee, Uncle Sam, Silver and Rattler, or about eighty acres of land; these claims are located end to end along the outcrop of the vein for a distance of 6,000 feet or about 1 2/2 miles on the vein, which shows values in either gold, silver, copper or lead the entire distance." 

   General Formaton of the country--The Cretaceous in this region consists of a series of peculiarly resisting quartzitic sandstone (Dakota) at the base, succeeded by several thousand feet of clay shales, with a few sandstone and limestone, all of marine formation, (Exact from Geological Guide Book to the Rocky Mountains, by S. F. Emmons.) 

   Ore Deposits--The footwall of the veins is in an immense quartizite dyke running almost east and west, rising through stratified limestone and sandstone.  The mineral matter has come from below along the contact of this quartzite dyke to the stratified rock which forms the hanging wall, and all indications are favorable to the existence at a lower depth of an immense body of high grade ore, proven almost positively by the thorough mineralization of the outcrop of the vein, in gold, copper, silver and lead, all of which are found giving very high assays the entire distance of the outcrop. 

   Shipments--The discoverer of this mine shipped four carloads of ore, taking it from the outcrop along the vein on the Silver claim and in no place going down ever three feet from the surface.  Average smelter returns on this shipment, viz:  

Gold........................................................................$4.50 per ton
Lead........................................................................     42 percent per ton
Copper....................................................................     12 percent per ton
Silver......................................................................     119 ounces per ton

which netted him a little over $6,0-00, after paying mining, freight and smelting charges.  There are now very bright stringers of high grade copper and galena ore in the crevices from which this shipment was made.  From information received from the original locator of the mine and men who worked in the 135 foot shaft on the Uncle Sam claim, shipments of very high grade gold, copper and silver were made from the 75 foot level carrying higher values than the shipment made from the outcrop of the vein on the Silver claim' this should go to prove up the ground and show that at present there i a vein of very high grade ore for a distance of at least 1,500 feet, and also to prove that with depth the ore increases in value.  There cannot be a particle of doubt that an ore body exists, for all along the outcrop of the vein for a distance of 6,000 feet small pieces of ore can be picked up assaying $100 per ton. 

   About fifty pounds of chloride of silver was taken from one place that assayed 1,500 ounces in silver to the ton.  

   One of the great advantages of the Copper Boy mine is that it is not dependent upon the demand or market value of any one particular mineral, as its ore bodies carry gold, copper, silver and lead, and if one mineral is not in active demand the other is sure to be.  

   Active work is now going on at the mine.

   The company is capitalized for 300,000 shares of the par value of $1, with 100,000 shares in the treasury. 

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Salt Lake Mining Review 

June 15, 1899

Poker Pete in True West Magazine

I'm going to make this the 2nd of a 3 part installment on Poker Pete.  The next one will be a time line or chronology of Poker Pete.  This one is an excerpt from a True West article called A Cabin on Price River. 

                At that time Lower Crossing consisted of a railroad station, section house and a water tank.  Nearby was a farm owned by three Swiss brothers, Louie, Felix and Bert Pressit.  Over on the riverbank was the only commercial establishment in the settlement, operated by a character known as Poker Pete.  In one room of a two-room cabin, Pete lived; in the other room he kept a small stock of overalls, flour, coffee, tobacco and salt, and a large stock of very poor whiskey and beer.  Prominent in this room was a card table, and Pete's aim in life was to get some wandering sheepherder drunk so that he could skin him out of his winter's wages in a poker game.  After some success in this line, Pete would get the idea that he was a real gambler and needed a wider field for his skill.  But he always came back.  Broke. 

                The section hands were all Chinese--the old-fashioned variety who wore their hair in long queues down their backs, long shirts outside their baggy pants and heelless slippers.  They spoke no English. 

                A few small cattle outfits came in to Lower Crossing for mail and freight, both of which were handled at the station.  Among these were the Range Valley Cattle Company from over on Range Creek, of which Johnnie Downard was foreman, and a small spread over on Green River owned by big good-natured Tom Dilly.  Tom's place could be reached by a pack trail that went down Price River Canyon where it cut through the Book Cliffs and then went off to the northeast, then down to Green River. 

                In later years I have read some uncomplimentary things about Tom Dilly, but when I knew him I always found him to be a pleasant, likeable fellow.  Several times when we happened to be in the settlement at the same time, we got up dances and had a lot of fun.  The dances were held in an abandoned log cabin schoolhouse on the other side of the river.  Candles furnished the illumination and also the "slickum" for the dance floor.  Music came from Felix Pressit's concertina and Tom Dilly's mouth organ.  Most of the dancers came from farms farther up the river, some from twenty miles away, but we had a good time in our simple way.  One dance was held in cold weather, when the mothers thought it was too cold to leave the babies in the wagons--so they took them over to Poker Pete's and parked them in Pete's bed with Pete installed as babysitter! 

A CABIN ON PRICE RIVER

True West, November-December 1964

By HARVEY HARDY

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.