GhostMiner

Our camp just east of the crew's old camp. This was Sept 2012 and we were unaware of what had happened on some of the claims. At this time it was just my son in law and me and we were exploring one of our claims. We broke camp in early October after sampling as many areas as we had time for. Right after we left the temps went from 70's & 80's to below freezing and there was a foot of snow.

Gold from the crew's old diggings at the journal's eastern drift area.

June 24 1937 Part Four I headed back down to camp to tell John and Hudson to be on high alert and explained what had just happened but they were already armed and nearly up to the dig site. They had heard the gunfire. So Hudson went back to his post and John went back to the creek to work the tom. Will and I worked down into the gravels taking out bucket after bucket of rich material. After an hour I took a pan over to the tub and it was loaded with gold like I had never seen. There were small nuggets and plenty of pickers and the entire bottom of the pan was covered in coarse gold. We dug like we hadn’t dug in a long time and worked until dark. We had gotten down to country rock in several areas and were working west across the kettle. The digging was slowed a bit by rounded river rock but we were able to get 90 buckets out. John was still washing gravels in the tom past dark and we finally knocked off work for the night and cooked up a supper of bacon and beans. We would help John finish up in the morning and get the results of our day's work. We sat around the fire past midnight drinking whisky and beers and talking about the gold and also our new found problems with the sheriff. We all decided that if we had to make a stand against him we would do it as a team. I wasn’t sure what the sheriff had planned in his evil mind but I was ready for anything. We all were. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

Cheers from GhostMiner. Circa June, 2022. More to come.

The glory hole. Circa 1936. This is where the real Jed was murdered for his gold. Camping here alone at night is a creepy experience and that's putting it mildly.

The crews old workings along the base of the faultline. Circa 1936. Jed must be back in his tent drinking Irish whisky.

A look at some of the old channel material.

The crew's road up to the Eastern Drift Mine & dig site. Direction is heading northeast of their camp.

Taking some samples of the old workings along the fault line.

One of the crews partially collapsed workings at the Eastern Drift Mine circa 1937.

Sarge's abandoned White military truck. There's some truth behind the fiction.

Remains of one of the shootouts back in the day.

Some of the crew's treasure stash? Pouch of gold coins, jewelry, & more in an old chest. Some old maps & papers. Silver. Treasure? Just the thought of that word drives men to extremes. Enjoy the episodes. They will take you into a world of adventure & mystery.

June 24 1937 Part Three When Will and I drove back up to the dig site we had a surprise. There were two men just a few feet from our hill we were working and one of them had a wooden post and sign. We parked the truck and got out with our Thompson’s in hand. I was in no mood for any more of the trouble the rif raf out here were providing. One of the men was placing the wooden post in the ground and it had a sign attached to it. I asked them what they thought they were doing. There was no answer. I saw that the two of them were armed with shotguns and also had a stack of signs with them. I asked them again what they were up to. They looked over at me and one of them said they were filing a claim and discovery monument. Will and I just looked at each other. Then I told him the ground was under claim and he was mistaken if he thought the ground was open to filing. The man looked at me with a dead pan face and said the ground was open. He said the claim filing here was not legitimate because criminals had filed false mineral claims and the ground was considered open. I told him that was bull shit and lowered the Thompson right at him. Will did the same. I told them that if they didn’t remove their post it would serve as their burial marker. Then I rattled off a burst that passed directly over their heads. They were now lying face down in the dirt. I told them to leave their guns on the ground and crawl on their bellies over to where we were standing. They complied. Then Will and I opened up with the Thompsons and chopped the post in half. Will walked over and took the claim marker signs and put them in the truck. I asked them who had sent them but they were reluctant to talk. I rammed the stock of my Thompson into the guys back and he let out a holler. Then I fired a burst into the ground no more than a foot from his head. I told him to talk and he did. He said the sheriff had sent him out to file the claim. He had hired the two of them to place claim signs around the border of the entire property. He said he was just doing what he was hired to do and didn’t want any trouble. We kept their shotguns and signs and told them to git and never come back. I said they were lucky to be walking out of here in one piece. With that, they got to their feet and started to run down the mountain. We fired a couple of bursts from the Thompsons over their heads to make sure they kept moving. I told Will that it looked like we were going to have a problem with the sheriff. He nodded in agreement. TO BE CONTINUED .............

What a shame you have to go through all this. Thanks Steve.

June 24 1937 Part Two Will and I resumed our digging after lunch. I decided to attempt to get an idea of where the back wall of the kettle ran so we dug across the top gravels and followed the solid rock wall in a westerly direction until we ran out of room to dig. We had gotten a good thirty feet west of our initial discovery and were in undug gravels again so were temporarily stopped out in that direction. We would have to open up more ground by going back outside the hill and working in with a drift heading from south to north to determine if the back wall continued further. There was nothing to show us it didn’t at this point. So we went back over to the east where we discovered the wall and started digging down. Country rock was hit at about eight feet in depth. It seemed to have a gradual slope towards the south which told me the country rock would most likely deepen some. Will and I took pans full of gravels over to the wash tub. We slowly panned them out and could see the heavy gold that started to show itself amongst the black sands. There were small nuggets and pickers and loads of coarse. It was a bonanza. We set the pans down in a shady spot and took seats on a log. I pulled a metal flask of whisky out of my back pocket and we had a swig. Then a few more. I laughed until I couldn’t laugh anymore. Will looked at me in wonderment. I told him this is where the ghosts of Jed and Whiskey Jack had been pointing. They had been showing us the way and were sure as hell watching us right now. I told him I had a feeling we were opening up a massive gold vault. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

June 24 1937 Part One This morning started out good. The number of buckets washed was 100 and it must have been our lucky number because we saw twelve ounces of coarse gold in the pan. That is a lot of gold considering the amount of gold washed. Will and I went up to start our day around 8:00 in the morning. My plan was to try and work into the hill a bit further into the northerly direction until we are so far under the overburden that there is a danger of collapse. I told the crew this morning that if this particular spot proves extremely rich we may go into the mountain further with a drift and timber operation. I’ve got a feeling this spot may hold some big gold. Once again the weather was a bit cooler and Will and I were under the overburden of the mountain now. As we worked our way in we were also digging down. I noticed that the country rock was falling away beneath our feet as we got in further. Pretty soon we had dropped down another five feet or so with country rock disappearing. There was a solid rock wall to the north and we had been stopped out by it except for going straight downward. By now it was around high noon and we broke for lunch. I grabbed a sample pan and we took it down to camp. Everyone was gathered for lunch as I came back with the results of the sample I had washed at the creek. It was heavy and loaded with coarse gold. I showed it to the crew. Everyone’s eyes were wide open and Hudson let out a holler. There had to be a quarter ounce there from one full pan of raw gravel. As I held the pan in front of them I told them that we may very well be entering another kettle in the old channel. It seemed to me that it could be a glory hole. TO BE CONTINUED .................

LOL. Good one.

The Journal has now hit 200,000 views!!! Many thanks to all the readers who are still here & also to the new readers as well. Also, a big thank you to Steve who allows me to post the entries on his site. My dream would be for this to go to a weekly TV adventure series someday & run for years. That would really be a great show. I have no idea where the story is heading as each entry is written as it comes to me. So let's continue the ride with the crew. Much more to come! GM.

Interesting going back in time on this journal to the beginning & seeing who was posting likes.

He's working as a prisoner in an underground mine somewhere in the middle of Nevada. Not good.

June 23 1937 The entire crew helped John process the buckets this morning and we weighed up three more ounces. By then it was nearly noon and we broke for lunch. The weather had cooled a bit and Hudson and I went up to start digging gravels. By now we had a nice lateral cut going across the face of the mountain. We were working it from east to west and inward ten to fifteen feet until the cut became unsafe without support. When the time comes we just move west and continue. We will do this until we run out of the channel at which time we will be forced to drift into the mountain heading in a northerly direction. At that point the digging will require timbers for support and the going will be slower. Even with our late start Hudson and I dug 100 buckets even. Not too bad of a day for us and all my sample pans were still showing coarse gold. Things were quiet and we had no visitors to our camp. That’s the way we like it. Plenty of gold and good friends to share it with. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

Read on.

June 22 1937 Part Five The sheriff put his gun back in his holster. He said grimly that what he had heard about us was probably true, that we were a rough bunch. I told him we only protect ourselves and his county is overrun by thugs. I put my 45 away and nodded at John to do the same. I told the sheriff that we aren’t going to be intimidated by his tactics and we don’t have any illegal money from anyone. The sheriff gave out a big sigh and said we seem to be at an impasse. He told us to give serious thought to what he had said and we would talk again soon. Then he told us to get out of his office. John and I got up and walked out without saying another word to him. When we got back outside Deputy Dan was standing near our truck. He asked us how our meeting went. I told him it didn’t go too good. He said he was sorry to hear that. I asked him how well he knew Deputy Luther. Dan said he had known him for about three yrs and that was when he was hired on to Sheriff Allen’s force. I told him that the sheriff seemed to know quite a bit about us and maybe Luther was a stool pigeon for him. Dan said no, he could be trusted. I wasn’t so sure. We left town and went back to camp. I told John that we needed to keep quiet around these deputies as to what we were doing. They didn’t need to know anything about our gold or money. If we needed information from them we would get it. That’s really what we were paying them for as well as getting rid of our problem criminals. John said he didn’t like the law dogs and he would like to give the sheriff a good beating. When we got back to camp it was nearly time for supper so we decided to wash the gravels in the morning. The crew sat around the fire and I brought Will and Hudson up to speed on the meeting. They were real upset about how the sheriff had acted and wanted no part of him. I had a bad feeling that we were going to have to deal with him one way or another. TO BE CONTINUED .................