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


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4 hours ago, Jim_Alaska said:

I had thought of that, but he never mentions anything larger than buckets. If he was remote there may not have been any way to get a truck there, or he may not have had a truck; no Ute's in those days. I suppose it will remain a mystery, but the story is good without knowing.

Jed meantioned early on making a crude road for his Ford truck. He also said he could only haul 20 buckets at a time due to poor springs on his truck. He has stated several times about loading buckets in the truck to take down to the tom. I would assume as they take buckets down to the creek they take empties back up to the dig site with the truck. So they have over 40 buckets at least.

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59 minutes ago, Gold Seeker said:

I wonder how big these buckets actually are, 5 gallons or smaller, I don't recall him saying how big they are?

I would assume a standard 5 gallon bucket. If they were filling them full you're talking a weight of around 60 - 70 lbs each. Try doing that all day long. Also, our geologist gave us some info yrs ago when we were researching this property. He told us there were a number of gun battles there over the yrs but didn't have any names or groups. I may see if I can research some of the old newspapers from town records. 

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   MAY 28  1936

   This morning we did a gold weigh of 2 ounces. We are all heartened to be back into the gold.We left John to work the tom while the three of us went at the digging. We all are working the top of the trench going deeper into the pay. The round rock is becoming more plentiful. In the early afternoon I saw John walking up the mine road. What now I thought. He said the law was down at camp and wanting to talk with us. We all four jumped in the truck with some loaded buckets and drove down to the creek. There were two deputies waiting. 

   The deputies told us they had several strong arm robberies in town this week. One man had been jumped late at night when he came out of a tavern. He was beaten and his money stolen. He said it was a gang of thugs that matched the description of the four rag tags we had dealt with and had robbed Will. They wanted to know if we had seen them on the mountain. The deputies thought they might have a camp set up somewhere remote and also be driving a stolen truck from town. I looked at John and back at the deputies. I told them we hadn't seen anyone. Of course this was a lie but John and me feel bringing in the law dogs would only complicate and slow the mining work, especially if we got involved in court proceedings or something like that. We have a period of time we must use wisely and getting dragged into legal  proceedings would not serve our purpose. The deputies said to keep an eye out for the band of hooligans and report anything to them. I said sure, we will do that and gave John a wink. If we ever catch them they will be far worse off than anything the law will do to them.

   After our conference with the law dogs was done we went back to work. The gravels were getting better looking again. By days end we had taken 240 buckets to the tom. I didn't say anything to the others but I had panned a few samples during the day and saw some good color and the gravel looked to hold promise. I will be curious to get the results of the weigh tomorrow. We will take our turns on watch tonight as usual. 

    TO BE CONTINUED ....................

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3 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

Jed mentioned early on making a crude road for his Ford truck. He also said he could only haul 20 buckets at a time due to poor springs on his truck. He has stated several times about loading buckets in the truck to take down to the tom. I would assume as they take buckets down to the creek they take empties back up to the dig site with the truck. So they have over 40 buckets at least.

Thanks GM, now that you said this, I do remember about the truck. I guess this is what I get for getting caught up in the story and letting things like this slip.,

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26 minutes ago, Jim_Alaska said:

Thanks GM, now that you said this, I do remember about the truck. I guess this is what I get for getting caught up in the story and letting things like this slip.,

My company got a great deal on galvanized buckets a few yrs ago buyong a large quantity directly from a small manufacturer. I got them for $5 per bucket. Would never happen today with the inflation.

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   MAY 29  1936

   We are back in the money. The weigh produced 4 ounces. This is extremely rich gravel once again. I think it will only get better. The gold has become concentrated in this area as I believe it lies directly under an ancient waterfall where it somehow packed up. I have heard of areas like this but they are rare. The crew is motivated. Will and Jacob are almost out of control with the fever. I want to keep everyone on an even keel. 

   John once again worked the tom alone while the three of us dug gravel. We encountered some loose areas below the river rock and then encountered country rock. This was in a five foot area. I panned a few samples in the tub and the pans were heavy with color. Large pices along with chunk and fine. Some of it was the size of a nickel or half an Eagle. I called Will and Jacob over to have a look see. We stood there in amazement. I told them I would take the load of buckets down to John and show him the pan. I jumped in the truck cradling the pan like a new born baby. When I showed John he gave out a holler that they must have heard in town. I left the pan at the tom and told John to pick out the big pieces and put them in a jar and we'd weigh them by themselves.

   We seemed to have hit an area of raised or lifted country rock on the fault. The deposit on top is not overly deep so I don't know how much we can get. That will depend on the diameter of the lift. There's several feet of rich pay on top of it. 

   For the day we removed 70 buckets of this rich gravel along with another 180 buckets of top gravels from the other end of the trench. John is washing the gravels seperately so we can see how rich the ground is near country. Tomorrow I will see if the lifted area continues further or if we have it all dug in that spot. John will have it all finished up early tomorrow morning. I am going to leave Will with him for help and also safety now. I don't want to have John alone at the creek. Tomorrow Jacob and me will resume the shovel work by ourselves again. Tonight I am opening a new bottle of whiskey for the crew. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .........................

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7 hours ago, Gold Seeker said:

I wonder how big these buckets actually are, 5 gallons or smaller, I don't recall him saying how big they are?

I’d guess whatever size they were using for fire brigade buckets? Lots of times those buckets were used for anything the reason they have round bottoms on some of them. 
 

im going to say 3 gallons, seems like a manageable load two at a time? 

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23 minutes ago, 1515Art said:

I’d guess whatever size they were using for fire brigade buckets? Lots of times those buckets were used for anything the reason they have round bottoms on some of them. 
 

im going to say 3 gallons, seems like a manageable load two at a time? 

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Yes, they would be manageble. I'd rather think they used 5 gallon buckets but maybe not completeeeely full. Hard to say. I have conducted bucket sample tests on that mine carrying two 5 gallon buckets close to fully loaded and walking them thousands of feet. You usually need to set them down at least once. At some point you load them about 2/3 full and that is manageable. However, Jed's crew was only carrying them to their truck which I think was parked close to the dig site so they may have been fully loaded. There is no mention of this so we will never know the answer.

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