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


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4 minutes ago, Cascade Steven said:

Just curious: was the bar in that hotel the same bar where the fights occurred in the story?

No, I don't think so. The bar was in a bigger town where they got supplies. I can tell you that my wife & I stayed in Paxton in that cabin for about 3 wks. There were a lot of people in & out to the area but the locals sure like to party. 

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4 minutes ago, beatup said:

was through that area around 15 years ago

 

The Dixie wildfire got real close to taking out Paxton last Summer but the fire fighters saved it and surrounding area. Thay are the best of the best and heroes all.

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   SEPTEMBER 2   1936

   Last night we all had to take our shifts on watch once again. We had been spoiled by Sarge and Ben and were now back to the old days of night watch. At least the watch had been quiet with only a mule deer outside of camp. Whiskey Jack said he saw signs that Summer was starting to change over to Fall. He'd seen pretty good snow here as early as mid October but said it may be farther out. Even then he said it can warm back up for a spell. We’ll just work it day to day when the time comes.

   Heading back up to the mine I spotted a good sized black bear up by the last pump. We gave a couple good hollers and it walked off down the mountain. We’d been seeing lots of tracks up here. Down in the pit John and me went to work. John dug up an old pocket watch and showed me. He set it aside and John said he'd show it to Jack when we got back to camp. 

   By the end of the day the heat had cooled and we weighed up one ounce which was the lightest day so far. I really didn’t care at this point of the season seeing as our pokes were full by now. As long as we were still finding some gold every day I was happy. When we got back to camp John showed Jack the watch. He said he didn’t recognize it but remembered a couple of the crew had pocket watches. We gave it to him and he said he'd put it away with his gold.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

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Just finished reading the journal up to this point. It's fun to relive a lot of the events of that time. 

I can relate to a lot of it. Thanks for taking the time to share all of it with us!

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22 minutes ago, okara gold said:

Just finished reading the journal up to this point. It's fun to relive a lot of the events of that time. 

I can relate to a lot of it. Thanks for taking the time to share all of it with us!

Thanks for reading it. It's my pleasure to post it. 

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On 4/2/2022 at 12:31 PM, GhostMiner said:

I was wondering where you went LOL. Been a while.

Back to work now, and new metal detector, had to speed read to catch up!

Hehehe...

 

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1 hour ago, DOOGY-MD said:

Back to work now, and new metal detector, had to speed read to catch up!

Hehehe...

 

Thanks for reading.

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A couple observations...   Jed described in great detail many of the events of the day in his daily journal including the weighs every day. I can't recall much talk about dividing up the gold with each other, or anyone going to their hiding spots over the long course of the Summer with their loot, especially when there were hooligans and carnivores in the area.

Also...I can't recall how many claims Jed had? It seems they prospected and mined quite some distance, at times (2,000 feet) from their initial claim. If this area was so well known and talked about in the mining circles, you would think that many parcels were claimed by someone making it hard to prospect for new ground?

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3 minutes ago, okara gold said:

A couple observations...   Jed described in great detail many of the events of the day in his daily journal including the weighs every day. I can't recall much talk about dividing up the gold with each other, or anyone going to their hiding spots over the long course of the Summer with their loot, especially when there were hooligans and carnivores in the area.

Also...I can't recall how many claims Jed had? It seems they prospected and mined quite some distance, at times (2,000 feet) from their initial claim. If this area was so well known and talked about in the mining circles, you would think that many parcels were claimed by someone making it hard to prospect for new ground?

   Jed talked about he & John dividing gold 50/50 and they would pay Jacob out of their gold as well as Jed paying a wage to Jacob if needed. Will got paid a % when he joined up & it came from Jed & John. Whiskey Jack got gold as well & I assume from Jed. They mentioned being responsible for their gold so they all had their hiding places. It would be quite easy to hide gold out there. There are over a million acres of mountains and forest. A person could leave camp and disappear forever. 

   There was a renewed interest in gold mining in the 1930's. I am not sure how the claims were divided back then.I know what they looked like in the 1960's and they are not the same as today. The claims we have today cover Jed's ground and more and are made up of 6 claims. Claims can change over the years including named for them. When we filed Jed's ground had sat dormant since the 1960's. There will be much more on all that in the book when it comes out this year. Jed also worked with a very prominant geologist and in my opinion he may have has part of the deal or was being paid in gold. From experience I know they don't work for free. Jed never mentioned any of this but it's in the report I have from the 1960's. I also have maps marking some of his workings. I am keeping my own journal of what we are doing but it is not a daily one like Jed's nor is it nearly as adventurous LOL. I am also contemplating putting a team in place to work the ground by hand as they did back in the 1930's & video record it as a show. It's a bit out of my wheelhouse but perhaps I can find someone to join the team and help with that if or when the time comes. Part of the area Jed worked is under lease by me to a TV miner who has proven to be a failure. As soon as his lease runs out I plan to get in there and work the ground once again. The TV miner who I can't name has only been to the site a few times & made no effort to work the ground. He has been involved with TV shows elswhere. 

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