GhostMiner

Don't forget the judge. This crew is bad to the bone.

June 27 1937 Part Four When we got to town we parked at the back of the general store and met up with the two deputies. Then we drove over and parked on a side street behind the hotel where our car wouldn’t be seen by the gang in the hotel. The deputies parked on the street in front of the hotel. Then Luther made a phone call to the sheriff. He told him there was some trouble with the gang members and they wanted him to come to the hotel. He said that he and deputy Dan would be parked out front in case of trouble. John and I then waited around the back corner of the hotel. We left out Thompson machine guns locked in the trunk of my sedan but had our 45’s holstered under our coats. It took about ten minutes for the sheriff to arrive and he parked in the back parking lot. We waited for him to get to the back door and John started to walk towards him and yelled “Hey you.” As the sheriff turned to see who it was John was close enough to nail him with one of his deadly right hands to the jaw. The sheriff went down like a sack of wet laundry. We dragged him back to my car, tied him up and gagged him, removed the Thompsons, and locked him in the trunk. Deputy Luther stayed at the front door in case any of the gang tried to get out that way. He was armed with a shotgun and side arm as was Dan. Then John, Dan, and I quietly opened the back door of the hotel and walked over to the door of the room where the gang was staying. We were ready to have John kick it in and charge in without warning. I gave John the signal to break the door. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

A closer look at the contents.

The bottom of the chest is starting to rot and can no longer be trusted to hold any weight.

Here is the chest showing a part of it's contents. The old papers & maps are not shown.

As promised earlier this week, I have opened the old chest and will soon show part of the contents. It's even better than I expected. Must be part of a hidden stash. I did not include the old papers & maps as they must be kept secret.

Check out that bridge footing in one of the pictures. It's sitting on one of the rocks. That's not the Paxton bridge but another larger one down the road.

Here's a few more pictures of the Feather River in the Paxton area.

BTW, the caretaker there was big on gold detecting. They would take a truck with a winch and park it on the bridge. Then they would move boulders and detect. Pretty cool & yes, they found small nuggets.

And big boulders. The drive on highway 70 to Oroville is beautiful. It follows the Feather River across the Sierra Nevada Mts and a couple of cool tunnels to drive through as well. There is a nice prospecting shop in Oroville as well.

Here is one of the old cabins up in Paxton. The cabins date back to 1930 and are located near the old hotel and bar. They are just about It is rumored that the original crew from the 1936 journal I'm writing stayed here on a few occasions and were quite rowdy. There were numerous fights in the bar. I think the 1936 crew came out here to blow off steam & spend some of the gold on various things. By the way, my wife & I stayed in that cabin for a month. That's my lantern on the table. You have to drive across an old bridge over the Feather River to get up there and it's all privately owned including a drift mine into the mountain.

June 27 1937 Part Three We quickly put a plan together and set it in motion. Dan went back to town and we planned to meet up with him and Luther outside of the general store. The Mexican gang was staying in a back room of the hotel. Dan said there was a back entrance and their room was the first one near the door. He said they had probably planned this as a strategy of escape in case of trouble. Now we would use it as our surprise attack point. Dan said the sheriff could be called at home to bring him to the hotel before our attack. The deputy would phone him and say there was trouble inside the room where the gang was staying. We would jump the sheriff and then take on the gang. It had to be successful as the two deputies would be exposed as enemies of the sheriff. After this was done the deputies would call the judge and tell him there was urgent business that needed to be attended to and to meet them at the sheriff’s office. The judge lived alone and the sheriff had lived alone for the past few years because his wife had left him. We left Will and Hudson at camp to guard our goods. John and I headed for town in my sedan. We were loaded heavy and ready for a fight. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

The old Paxton Hotel on the feather River and one of the residents who stayed too long. Yes, I have spent time at this location but didn't hang out with that guy. The old crew may have also frequented this place. There is a nice bar in there.

June 27 1937 Part Two I told the crew that I had been thinking about the so called sheriff and what to do about him. According to what I had heard about him he was nothing but a thug and murderer and a disgrace to his badge. I’d never heard anything good about him. He needed to go one way or another. No one said a word including Dan and I went on. I said that we needed to act and fast. Especially now that the sheriff was working with a Mexican crime ring and ready to rob and kill once again. Enough was enough. I proposed that we confront him and the gang. Take them by surprise. If the sheriff was killed in the fight so be it. Otherwise we would take him prisoner and dispose of him. I looked directly at Dan and asked if he and Luther had the sand to take on the group of thugs including the sheriff. He told us yes and knew Luther was up for a cleaning up as well. I told Dan that once the sheriff was gone there would be a new sheriff. Maybe that new sheriff could be him. The judge would have to be dealt with as well. I was willing to take him captive and make him disappear somewhere in the desert. I had the money to do it. I told Dan that our crew was now more powerful than the sheriff and judge and it was time to take control of the county. I pulled a bottle of whisky out of my tent and passed a few cups around. We will make our plan tonight. TO BE CONTINUED .............

Not my lyrics. They are from the video I posted that might contain some clues. Yes, that was a nice pan for sure.

rvpopeye - good to see you here.

Northern area of the fault line. Remote and lots of places to dig.

This was found at one of the old dig sites. Was this a warning to others in the area to stay out?

June 27 1937 Part One It was a late gold weigh but well worth the wait once again with twenty ounces in the pan. We are working a glory hole for sure. Hudson and I drove my truck up to the dig site around 10:30 AM and started our day. The heat was beginning to make a comeback and the temperature was already close to 80 degrees and climbing quickly. We dug until mid afternoon and took our break in the shade. It was too hot to eat much and after twenty minutes we were back at our labor. I call it prison gang work but we know we are getting gold for the hard labor. We are hard men that can out-dig and outfight any crew and we know it. There are very few willing to mess with us and we have built a reputation for ourselves. By dusk we had dug 110 buckets and we called it a day. We drove the last of the rich gravels down to the tom and unloaded them for John to finish up in the morning. I was bushed and so was Hudson. The temperature had climbed past 100 degrees but now was cooling quickly. I washed up at the creek and John had stoked up a nice fire as the temperature dipped with the setting sun. It was beans and bacon and it tasted mighty good to the crew. We cracked open cool Lucky’s that were sitting in the creek and I rolled a few smokes. To our surprise Deputy Dan walked into camp. I offered him a Lucky which he quickly accepted and told him to have a seat. I knew he was here for a reason. He told us that there was some activity in town. Some of the Mexican gang we had shot it out with were in the hotel. He said there were nine of them from what he could tell. Then he told us something that surprised me. The sheriff had gone to the hotel to meet with them. Deputy Dan said he figured the sheriff was working with them to set up a gang of thugs to rob and plunder the area including our mine and camp unless we did a deal with him. I asked Dan about the sheriff’s law force. Dan laughed and said it was just him and Luther as full time deputies and two other part time men who weren’t even qualified as deputies. Dan said that if we turned down the sheriff’s proposal there was going to be trouble. I just looked at him and told him we don’t scare and we don’t back down. Period. I said we would fight it out with them if we were pushed into it. Then I told Dan to have another Lucky and listen to what I was thinking of doing. TO BE CONTINUED ..............

One of the hot spots we found. This was on the side of the southern end of the fault line about 40 ft up the side. This area is remote so we only ran bucket samples by carrying them out to a 12 volt recirculating 14 ft long sluice I built. It was hard work but the gravels produced a whopping $640/cubic yard. Our geologist stated that this area can produce ounces to the yard or yards to an ounce. Hot & cold. The second picture is looking north from previous picture with the shovel along the western side of the fault line. This is south of Jed's diggings.

A picture of part of the exploration crew. GhostMiner is on the right. We used a Deere 690 where we had approved plans and hand worked the others. Barely a drop in the bucket of all the exploration that could be done.

A partially worked kettle in the southern area of the faultline. This is what the old crew in 1936 was digging and pumping water to. Watch out for hooligans and keep your rifle close.

Standing at top of fault line and looking west. There is about a 100 ft drop to the bottom and many, many places to dig gravels.

Western side of the fault line looking north. This area is south of the crews old workings.

A picture of the top of the faultline above the area where the crew worked.