Salt Springs, Death Valley!

From the significance of those who arrived in Salt Lake so late in the season, in the frantic hurry to make their fame and fortune. Only the patient ones were so lucky to follow Jefferson Hunt, a former captain of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War. For the trail was not an inviting route, little more than a path where only one wagon had gone before. Thence the Spanish Trail, known to so few and will be remembered by so many.

After leaving Saleratus Creek (Amargosa River) and leaning into the afternoon, on Dec 1, Captain Hunt turned the wagons south over the sandy desert and headed for a low rocky point, for there was to lie Salt Springs. It was he, with the complement of four, Addison Pratt and James Brown, Mormon missionaries commanded by Brigham Young bound for a mission in Tahiti. The other two, a man by the last name of Rowan and the boy they called Forbes together riding forth to scout the night time camp. On the verge of the rocky point they viewed a shortcut through a notch and while they led their horses up a narrow pass, Pratt noticed bits of loose quartz lying on the ground. He made a suggestion to the others, of possible gold, and with posthaste they started to search. Soon several flakes of gold were found lying in the sand, but it was Rowan who followed the flakes to the source and called out " Here's Gold"! The others were quick to crowd around, the site they saw was a 4-inch vein, where Rowan had found a few pea-sized grains of gold. Upon chipping out a few samples to show, they hurried on over to the spring a mile ahead. By that time the teams had already gathered. The new discovery aroused the interest in most and caused several argonauts to scramble back to the spot for their first look at California Gold. It was Brown who with Hammer and chisel set to work removing gold from their newfound strike, while others prospected the surrounding slopes. Knowing the jornada de muerto that lied ahead, Hunt the following morning made the call to move on, and the would-be miners reluctantly fell in place with the wagon train. But the first gold had been found in Death Valley and soon all will hear, for this was only a portage in time.

Because the incompetence that a rich mineral does not make a paying mine, the other aspects for wealth include water, wood and cheap transportation. The processes of crushing, smelting or even a steam-powered stamp mill would have great need for these, furnaces whose boilers and blasts would consume wood or water at a voracious rate. The aspects are what caused so many to lose so much over the next 20 years. At Salt Springs wood, good water and the inconceivable way they would have to transport anything out of Death Valley would be the major downfall of mining.

Three days before Christmas they arrived at Isaac Williams ranch at Chino, where they spread the word of their new discovery. Based on the newly procured knowledge it was Williams who in January led the first expedition back to investigate, only to return with more of the picture rock reporting that there was a whole mountain of it.

Mean while Rowan had gone to Los Angeles where his nuggets contrived even more excitement. Benjamin D. "Don Benito" Wilson, Los Angeles's first mayor, readily organized the Salt Springs or Margose Mining Company to outfit the second expedition to leave in February for Salt Springs to commence mining, hence being the first mining company to work in Death Valley. Only too soon would they realize given the difficulty and expense of just travel, and the cost of mining, that this mine would not pay. Mean while the two missionaries, Brown and Pratt, in anticipation of picking nuggets from the top of the ground sailed off to Tahiti.

Even among the dumbest of men, one has to be the smartest. John B. Reill, of Wilson's Expedition, thought the operation was too primitive. Reill predicted that with up to date modern equipment the mine could profit. He acquired specimens of picture rock and headed to San Francisco, to influence wealthy capitalists to back his theory. Influence he did, after another expedition back to the mine in July of 1850, he profoundly convinced them of it's worth. They formed the Los Angeles Mining Company and dispatched Reill with crew back to take possession of the mine. Unbeknown to Reill, a man from Williams's original party named Davis, had acquired the thirst for wealth. In July he sold the idea to a Colonel Lamb in Grass Valley, where-as the Colonel agreed to finance an expedition with Davis in charge. Now Lamb upon finding out about Reill's party hastily outfitted Davis, hitting the trail several days ahead of Reill. Davis had little problem finding the lode and Lamb laid claim to the richest ground. On Reill's arrival he was furious about being beaten to the mine. But the facts are Lamb had not claimed the whole lode, so Reill claimed the rest and bloodshed was averted. It didn't take long before Lamb perceived the difficulty of developing the lode, after a few months he sold his interest. The new owners, a mountain man by the name of Andrew W. Sublette and some entrepreneurs who organized the Desert Mining Company, with Sublette as superintendent.

Late in the fall of 1850 both companies had began work, the Desert Company had constructed two Spanish type arrastras and the Los Angeles company had one. Decades later, these arrastras and many others through the desert often prompted the romantic speculations that they were built centuries before by the Spanish padres or even conquistadors working some lost ancient mine. Working with the coarse gold, the arrastra proved it's worth at Salt Springs but this wasn't enough for the Los Angeles Company. Reill holding on to his up to date modern equipment theory in January 1851 had ordered a steam powered quartz crusher from Los Angeles. The crusher, in all its weight, simple proved too much for the wagon, it ended up mired in the sand on the Mojave desert for months.

The facts are that the salt grass and tule would not support live stock, and the ground was too salty to cultivate and the cost for the teamster to haul in supplies was $260 a ton. The only essential they had was drinking water, but it to had a noxious smell and took some getting used to. Shipping costs cut heavily in the assets of both companies, and by May 1851 the Desert Mining Company called its first assessment of $2 a share.

As if not was not bad enough, soon after the value of the shares dropped again which spiraled the company into bankruptcy and was dissolved in August of 1851. The Los Angeles Company soon to follow the same path, unable to even get its quartz crusher to the mine.

The lure of gold is a strong faith, which over the years many men have followed to the bitter end. After only a month their Los Angeles creditors bought up both properties. Again led by Don Benito Wilson and his partner, Alfred Packard, they would have one more try at the Salt Springs mine. Wilson had once learned perhaps that the mine would not pay, but to have the monopoly on all the property and a steam-powered crusher half way there, could make a difference. Once again he organized the Salt Spring Mining Company and kept Sublette as the superintendent to have another go at it.

Sublette heading straight for the mine to stock pile ore, while another crew was sent to rescue the crusher. They would have it set up and started by the spring of 1852. That is when the real trouble started. It took all of the mesquite and creosote bush within hauling distance just to get the little boiler up to a roar. By the time this was accomplished, the Glauber and Epsom salts in the water started caking in the boiler and clogging the pipes and valves. In a short matter of time the miserable little machine came to a stop. All work at the mine was suspended, as if Wilson hadn't had enough. While he was pondering what to do next, a few troublesome Paiute descended down onto the camp. After smashing parts of the evil looking machine they ran off with shovels and any tool left loose. Whatever Wilson thought's were, quitting was now one of them. He made it officially in July of 1852. This was all about the time he was lining up foreign capital to finance a much larger quarts mill, but it never materialized. And Sublette, he was killed a year later in Malibu canyon by a grizzly bear.

The boiler and engine were sold to Charles Crisman, a San Bernardino lumberman. His son George went and salvaged the thing taking it to Mill Creek in San Bernardino Mountains where it was cleaned out and used as the first sawmill. The rest of the equipment was left in Death Valley, even the Paiutes lost interest in it and it lay undisturbed for years. The old stone and adobe house at Salt Springs, with its doors wide open to entice the occasional visitor. It was the first building in Death Valley and it still stands today.

In the spring of 1854 the Reese brothers, John and Enoch, opened a shortcut on the Spanish Trail through Kingston Springs, which bypassed Salt Springs entirely. Travelers to Salt Springs became few and far between knowing the obvious failure of the camp, at least for awhile.

When the big excitement hit the Pacific Coast of the discovery of silver called Comstock, the forgotten gold at Salt Springs caught the eyes of some once again. Late in 1861 an inexperienced but enthusiastic group of Angelenos set out to reopen the mine. It was more than a year before they make the conclusion, same as their predecessors. That working the tediously slow arrastra would not pay good wages. Again there was one in the party, a drugstore clerk, St. Charles Biederman. With energetic faith thought, by having a stamp mill the mine would produce.

Like Reill a dozen years before, he gathered up rich ore samples and hit the road for the West Coast. The mining frenzy now hitting San Francisco, Biederman found a ready-made market. He had little trouble first selling the idea to Ebenezer H. Shaw a grocer, who thereupon convinced several of his friends in the fruit and produce trade as well as a long time friend Thomas E. Trueworthy in the shipping business to help raise capital for the venture.

On February 16, 1863, they floated the Amargoza Gold and Silver Company, with paper capital of 1.2 million in shares of $500 each. Shaw was made acting president with Biederman named as superintendent. Three months after its inception the Amargoza Company shipped a five-stamp mill including a 12 horsepower steam engine to Salt Springs, only to arrive with some of the parts missing. It took another five months to get all of the needed parts on site before the mill could run. Finally in October all was ready with Shaw on hand to watch. For the next month Biederman and his crew cussed and coaxed the steam engine through its first run of ore, before it too choked up with salt and died. Shaw took his first load of amalgam to San Francisco, it was no surprise that the yields were less than the cost. So the following year they enlarged the mill, but all was in vain, because in June of 1864 their bubble had burst and they folded.

Well Shaw and his grocer friends, they returned to San Francisco to the business they knew best. As for the disheartened Biederman, he dropped the St. from his name, returning as well and became a drug store clerk once again. Now Thomas Trueworthy learned one thing, the money was in shipping, he put a steamboat on the Colorado River under contract to supply the mines at Eldorado Canyon.

Over the course of fifteen years, the Salt Springs mine had been open with a depth of 120 feet. Three miners were kept on at the mine to hold the property for its creditors. But once again tragedy hit the mine in October 1864, when a roving band of Chemehueci raided Salt Springs. They set fire to the Mill and killed Cook, one of the men. The other two, Joseph Gordon and a man named Plate, fled into the desert and committed suicide while famishing with fatigue for the lack of water. Their bodies were found by Salt Lake emigrants some twenty miles to the south on the jornada del muerto. That winter the mill was teamed over to Eldorado Canyon to work the ore from the Techatticup mine. To take the story a full circle, missionary James Brown who was one of the original discoverers, finally returns to Salt Springs in the summer of 1867 with a crew of Mormon miners. After returning from Tahiti, Brown had the chance to show Brigham Young the little gold nugget from Salt Springs. But after quick survey of the now decrepit mine, Brown learned that the little nugget promised much more than it would deliver.

Then over a decade later, a new type of play would take place. No longer would the emphasis be on the miner but on the promoter, the money now made would come from the stock market. This was the last and most frivolous, a light fantasy on comedy of the most absurd. Jonas Brown Osborne after giving up the superintendent position at the Gunsight, and selling off nearly all of his stock, now held the title to the Amargosa Mine at Salt Springs. Osborne who touted the mine, as the long-lost treasure trove of the argonauts, sold the mine on it's promising prospects to a Caesar A. Luckhardt. Luckhardt being a German-educated metallurgist and a San Francisco-educated mine puffer, had visited the mine while he was superintendent of the Gunsight following Osborne.

In 1881 Luckhardt teamed up with a James Madison Seymour, who was a slim operator in his mid-thirties. Seymour had been in Texas cotton and Chicago grain before coming to New York where he bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, where he staged several stock manipulations. After paying Osborne $22,500 for the old Salt Springs mine, they managed to window dress it to the new speculative favorite of Broadway. Staying completely behind the scenes, giving their new creation such an exotic name as the Pacific Mining Company. Then creating a conservative-looking paper capital of $500,000 in $1 shares along with a respectable-looking directorate, which included New York Lieutenant Governor Garret A. Hobart. They even added a few New York stockbrokers who by rights, were never identified with any kind of mining scheme.

Then along came Jones, or in this case Luckhardt, with a mine report saying that it was first discovered by the Spaniards producing the richest gold quartz ever found in California. He claimed it was only abandoned because of the Indian attacks on the mill, and then told of a 1200-foot waterfall that could power a fifty stamp mill. In October Seymour put the South Pacific stocks on the exchange and with in a month with help from friends was able to wash the price from a $1 par up to $14.63 a share. This would be another first because no other mining stock had ever been so far above par on the exchange before, and none had ever been more fictitious. After Seymour started to unload his stocks, the price still manage to stay around $4 by the mid-December. Now with light trading through the Christmas Holidays the stock gave the appearance of solidity. Seymour was able to make his final play in April of 1882, by dumping all of his stock, he made a little over a million dollars. The volume by this time had hit three million shares, real or imaginary, and South Pacific Mining was to be the most active and most popular stock of 1882.

As if this wasn't enough the best was yet to come. As his final act of the play, Seymour brought in a comic strip group of experts to entertain the reporters from the Graphic, the Tribune and even the times. The first "Professor" George A. Tredwell, telling of the forts to repel the Paiutes with imaginary profits to the amount of $145,000 a month. Then the second, George Glendon Jr. told of millions in gold with a vein of forty feet wide, stating the mine would pay. Finally came Dr. G. Wiss, stating he was there eleven year earlier and was assured by the Great Baron Von Richthoffen, that it would only be a matter of time and the little hills of Salt Springs " would surpass California and Nevada combined productions in precious minerals!"

Many a Wall Street investor must have howled with laughter, over the likes of this foolishness. But there were some who managed to keep a straight face, even when Seymour's buffoons misplaced the mine 180 miles west, not north, of San Bernardino. Who would buy stock in a desert mine out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, regardless of its name. But still there were many who never seen the humor, because they paid the price per share.

The little Death Valley mine was tried so many times, and never had a chance of paying a profit. It takes a lot more then gold to make a mine pay, and some will never learn but the hard way.