** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **

[GhostMiner]

   April 28   1950

 

   Some of the crew's families visited the project this morning. We have now fenced off the entire area for safety. Mucking and light bracing has begun in the drift. This will be a lengthy process. While mucking operations are advancing I am panning the material being removed and seeing some signs of gold deposits. This is good news and has buoyed the spirits of all involved. We are employing a mechanical winch to remove material from the drift. Funds are tight and we are hopeful of our first gold in the next 10 days. Everyone is hard at work with their designated jobs and expecting good results. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

[GhostMiner]

3 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

 

   April 28   1950

 

   Some of the crew's families visited the project this morning. We have now fenced off the entire area for safety. Mucking and light bracing has begun in the drift. This will be a lengthy process. While mucking operations are advancing I am panning the material being removed and seeing some signs of gold deposits. This is good news and has buoyed the spirits of all involved. We are employing a mechanical winch to remove material from the drift. Funds are tight and we are hopeful of our first gold in the next 10 days. Everyone is hard at work with their designated jobs and expecting good results. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

   This is where the old report I have helps me with this new information dealing with the 1950 project & crew. There is no mention in any of the reports about crew size but the 1965 government report gives the same name of crew leader as the 1950 log does. Jack Murphy was from a nearby town and I am thinking the rest of the crew was from this area as well. The 1965 report states that this project was underfunded. As to how much experience in mining any of these people had, there is no information. So what I have to go by is pretty much what Murphy is writing about in his activities log. I have read through all of this before I started posting and know the result of the project but even that is a bit vague.  

   It was interesting to me that Murphy was able to get back into the old workings there because when the 1964 - 1965 crew was there they lowered the president of the company into the first part of the shaft & he deemed it too unsafe to reopen. He stated that the work previously done there was not in accordance with safe mining practice. The 1964 - 1965 company president was a mining engineer. This tells me the crew in 1950 may not have known what they were doing. There is good evidence of unsafe work a few years later but I'll wait until I get that far in the posting for that info. 

[GhostMiner]

   The raised bedrock area they are referring to in the 1950 report was supposed to be a gold strike of over 1000 ounces.

 

[GhostMiner]

   May 9   2002

 

   This morning Jacob told us at breakfast that we should now start dividing up our gold according to our partnership percentage. Then he said each man would need to hold himself accountable for its safety. He also suggested that we locate a good hiding place for it. One thing I learned this morning was that when it came to gold, Jacob was all business. Period. Of course he is 100% correct. So after breakfast we divided the gold and just kept it on our person for now as the amounts are still small when divided. However, I intend to take his advice and find myself a good hiding place.

   Once the gold was divided we got back to work. The crew is a bit tired and sore from the faster pace of digging yesterday but we have no intention of slowing. We are bound and determined to show Jacob we are capable of working as hard as his crew did back in their day.

   We worked a good pace until 2:00 PM and took our lunch break. Jacob said we should shorten it from one hour down to 30 minutes so that’s what we are doing. Make no mistake, he is the crew leader and we listen to what he has to say. At day's end we had processed a little over eleven yards in my estimation. We got back to camp after dark and we are tired and hungry so we will get an early start on the final panning and weigh in the morning.

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

 

[GhostMiner]

   April 29   1950

   Late yesterday we experienced a near tragedy when a small portion of the drift collapsed near the opening at the bottom of the mainshaft. This is the 36 ft level and is unstable. There were two crew members further down the drift to the north. The ground is heavy and there was a fracture of the tunnel ceiling just past the entrance. All hands were busy shoveling out the caved material from the shaft side and the two crew members dug away from the north side. We were able to get it open fairly quickly and there were no injuries. This just serves to register the potential danger here with all the crew. We are presently working at taking a second look at the walls and ceiling of the drift and may need to use more timber in any suspect areas. The progress is slow. We are also pushing fresh air into the drift.The last thing I want to do is make a trip to a crew member’s home to deliver tragic news.   

     TO BE CONTINUED .............

[GhostMiner]

   May 2   1950

 

   Slow progress continues on the drift. We’ve had to use the pump several times but incoming water has begun to slow some. We are pumping the water into a holding pond formed by a low lying area. We will use this water to wash gravel once we begin to mine. The mucking and tunnel bracing is nearly half completed. Traces of gold are showing in the extracted material so we are confident of finding a deposit somewhere further past the end of the old workings. 

     TO BE CONTINUED ...............

[GhostMiner]

   May 10   2002

 

   I got up at 5:30 AM this morning and Jacob had already nearly completed the final gold cleanup. I watched him finish pan the last of it with the aid of two lanterns. He weighed it up and there was three quarters of an ounce. When the crew was all gathered for breakfast about half an hour later Jacon showed it to them. It was a nice way to start the day and made us all anxious to dig gravel. 

   We got an early start. It was a great day for working. The sun was out and the morning temperature was in the 40’s. Despite the cool air I was sweating within an hour. We had over six yards processed by lunch and we gave it hell right up to dusk. When we shut down the pump I told the crew we had processed over fifteen yards of pay gravel. Jacob shook each of our hands and gave us one of his high compliments. He told us we were some of the best workers he’d had the pleasure to crew up with. We were all mighty proud miners. Jacob told us to get some grub in us and relax and he’d get the cleanup going early tomorrow morning. I told him I’d be up early to help him. It was a good day. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

[Old Miner Don]

5 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   May 10   2002

 

   I got up at 5:30 AM this morning and Jacob had already nearly completed the final gold cleanup. I watched him finish pan the last of it with the aid of two lanterns. He weighed it up and there was three quarters of an ounce. When the crew was all gathered for breakfast about half an hour later Jacon showed it to them. It was a nice way to start the day and made us all anxious to dig gravel. 

   We got an early start. It was a great day for working. The sun was out and the morning temperature was in the 40’s. Despite the cool air I was sweating within an hour. We had over six yards processed by lunch and we gave it hell right up to dusk. When we shut down the pump I told the crew we had processed over fifteen yards of pay gravel. Jacob shook each of our hands and gave us one of his high compliments. He told us we were some of the best workers he’d had the pleasure to crew up with. We were all mighty proud miners. Jacob told us to get some grub in us and relax and he’d get the cleanup going early tomorrow morning. I told him I’d be up early to help him. It was a good day. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

Hmm... something about Jacob doing cleanups while the crew is still sleeping.

[GhostMiner]

10 minutes ago, Bedrocker said:

Hmm... something about Jacob doing cleanups while the crew is still sleeping.

No, we trusted him LOL.

[GhostMiner]

   May 8   1950

 

   We have completed the rehab of the mainshaft and drift. We are opening a new tunnel extending northward along bedrock near the fault. A drifting drill is employed where the rock is heavy and solid. We are calling this Drift #2. I expect to make some good advances into the gravels in this area. I also expect the bedrock to drop away at some point according to the geology reports. If this happens we will need to excavate a shaft down to find true bedrock and an expected jackpot.   

   TO BE CONTINUED ...........