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Story Of A Little Known Mine In The Superstition Mountains In Arizona


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There has been a very neat story floating around about a little mine found in The Superstition Wilderness Area. This is a story that got no publicity until a writer and Lost Dutchman Mine Hunter named Jack San Felice wrote about it in a book a few years ago. Jack has always said he believes this mine was The Lost Dutchman. Very few details have ever been made public about the dig. 

The story goes, that the area was located in the 1950s but for whatever reason was not exploited for many years (as so many other incredible lost mine stories go). It was a pit mine that ran about 90 feet deep. It was smack dab in the middle of an area that had a bunch of working silver mines in the late 1800s. Because it was in the SWA (Superstition Wilderness Area), and closed to claim location since 1984, any exploitation had to be VERY secret. This mine was supposedly secretly worked during the Summer months of 1997-1999. They dug the mine from its original 90 foot depth to 300 feet deep. Most people thought it was just a silver mine like all the others in the area (Roger's Spring). Over the years, little tidbits have leaked out. Things like some of the people THOUGHT to be involved claiming they had found the Lost Dutchman. If true, that COMPLETELY discounts the silver mine idea (except we all know gold is often found in pockets in silver veins/mines). 

All a very interesting story, UNTIL a few days ago, when a picture started making the rounds:

hT8t0f.jpg

This cabbage ball sized chunk of rock that dreams are made of is claimed to be from this Pit Mine. 

Jacob Waltz claimed that his mine contained two veins of material:

1. 18 inch thick vein of white and rose quartz shot through with about 30% gold content.

2. 8 inch thick vein of gray volcanic tuff with visible gold that was very soft and could be scraped out with bare hands. 

You miners imagine how much money is involved if they dug 210 feet of ore like this in an 18 inch thick vein!

Just a little something to get everybody's mouth watering!

Enjoy - Mike

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this story is completely worthless with out directions to said mine. :wub:

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this story is completely worthless with out directions to said mine. :wub:

Maybe you missed the name in quotes? (Rogers Spring)?  :)

 

Mike

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I get lost driving home sometimes :lol:

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nice rock though

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Hmm, sounds interesting. I map dowsed a large silver deposit in that area years ago but ground too difficult to hike in to check it out and metal detecting/digging  is a no no in a wilderness area. Not to mention the number of people who get killed/murdered/ lost/ otherwise deceased while looking for the supposed mine over the years. The Goldfields ghost town just north of the Superstitions actually had several working gold lode mines at one time. And the Apaches have their Thundergod legend of that area if you believe in such things...I was in contact with Bob Corbin some years ago, former Arizona state officer ,can't remember exactly what title he held now. He told me he had searched them mountains for years with no luck and even been hassled by forest rangers for just having a detector strapped to his horses saddle. I inquired about a helicopter ride over the Superstitiions? Cost? A measly $800 an hour and was told  they cannot descend any closer than 2000 feet from the ground due to the Wilderness restrictions, so ferget about landing in there.

 

 

-Tom

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Tom,

I will tell you that there is NOPLACE too difficult to hike into or detect. There are difficult places, but everywhere is accessible. Dowsing silver in the East end of the Supers is not hard to do, since EVERY Silver Mine near the Supers is on the East end of the Mountains (Silver King, Silver Chief, etc etc etc), I could take my finger and point to any spot East of Miner's Needle and probably find silver.

Yes, since the 1800s, a couple of hundred (known) people have died there (even recently), but guess what? THOUSANDS of people hike all through the Supers every year with no problems except maybe snakes, bark scorpions, heat, lack of water, 

I know Bob Corbin. He was the longest serving Attorney General ever for the State of Arizona. He was a long time Dutch Hunter. His best stories are about Celeste Marie Jones that had a feud with a guy named Ed Piper both of whose camps were at the base of Weaver's Needle. That eventually led up to the only known REAL western style gunfight in modern times. One of Jones' men named Robert Ste. Marie ambushed Ed Piper on a trail. They both drew, but Piper (who was waaaay older than Ste Marie) got the drop on him and killed Ste Marie. After that, when Corbin and his aide were visiting Jones at her camp, she asked him to find a hit man to kill Piper. Being a State Prosecuting Atty, Bob never had anything more to do with her after that.

Mike

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More than just the specimen. Like I said in the story; Imagine a vein of that same ore, 18 inches wide that went for 210 feet before pinching out!

 

Mike

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I never knew about any silver mines there Mike, don't see any on my topo maps, only copper mines down by Superior/Globe, gold mines at Goldfields ghost town, and some old silver mines by Richmond basin ,wayy east of the Supers.And all the books I read say the Superstitions have the wrong geology for gold or metals mines.

But when I was a kid and lived in Arizona in the late 1960's, we took a hike up in the west side of the Superstitions I think it was, with a church group of boys and I still remember all the men on horseback riding along that trail and they had bandoleers of rifle bullets around them, heavily armed to say the least. When you are a 12 year old kid, you don't quite know what to think about such things. I didn't know anything about mining back then.

Are Bob Corbin and Tom Kollenborn still living?

That sure is a pretty rock..I got an acorn size piece like that at Ganes creek gold mine in Alaska with my Tesoro Lobo metal detector back in 2005.

  I got re-interested and redowsed the Supers for gold and actually got 3 hits this time for 6, 7, 25 K ounce deposits but miles away from Weavers Needle. Kinda doubt a metal detector would do any good at 2-50 feet depth. Just not sure if they are inside or outside the Wilderness boundary? I did find Rogers Spring and Old Mill site. Will need  to get to Apache Junction  again sometime soon before I get too decrepit and get me some samples to have assayed.

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