March 26, 1975 (8 pages)

FIRE AT THE BELLEVIEW MINE It was about 4:00 in the afternoon when the fire broke out. No one noticed it at first and the blaze spread through the buildings and worked its way toward the entrance of the mine. By the time the fire alarm rang through the streets of La Porte, the mouth of the tunnel was a roaring chimney. Women and children came running, and their first word, their first fear, was, ‘‘Did all the men get out?”’ It wasn’t long before _ the answer rippled back through the crowd. Four men, Bean, Cumley, McDonald and Byrnes, were all trapped inside. Women moved quickly to eae the wives and childrén--of the trapped miners while men rushed to get water and find fire fighting gear. Great flames of fire and clouds of blinding, choking smoke rolled out of the tunnel. Calls went out for help to neighboring towns of Downieville and Quincy but the blic : March 3, 1975 Nugget Editor and Governor Brown: With a young, energetic man at the helm of State, we should get going and the gold mines should be put in motion. In the old days, the southern and northern mines furnished employement for many thousands of people in all walks of life, salesmen, mining engineers, grocers, and you name it, and they all had a hand. What wonderful, busy -days those were. Well, they can all come back again, and our balance of payments can be paid in gold. NEVADA COUNTY NUGGET _301 Broad Street Nevada City, Ca. . 95959 _Telephone 265-2559 PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY BY NEVADA COUNTY PUBLISHING CO. Second class postage paid at Nevada City, California: Adjudicated a legal newspaper of general circulation by the Nevada County Superior Court, June 3, 1960. Decree No. 12,406. Subscription Rates: One Year . $3.00 Two Years. $5.00 Member of CALIFORNIA NEWSPAPER SPVeo@eeSeeeeeSeeeececeeseeceeeeSeecees PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION . fire raged out of control far into the night. The mining shafts were heavily timbered and the men could do nothing to prevent the fire from eating into the heavy beams and working its way throughout the tunnel. It was 11:00 on that evening of July 16, 1904, when the fire and smoke died down enough to let a solemn-faced rescue crew enter the mine. Silently, family and friends waited for them to return with their grim burden. Several minutes later a railroad car rolled out of the charred and entrance. And sitting in the wagon, tired and smoke-stained but smiling happily, were the four men. The timber bracings that had caused so much worry and consternation above ground had acrtually saved their lives. The timbers were so water-soaked from underground seepage that they had stopped the spread of the fire only a few feet from the mine’s entrance. S Pulse Paper depreciates and soon will not be accepted. Russia is v2ry busy mining gold, and so should we. First, the paved two lane highway over the Sierra at Washington City should be completed. The new bridge over the South Yuba at Washington is now completed, and is a beautiful job. This road leads to Bowman Dam and Jackson Meadows, the new camp grounds in the Sierras. The road would open up the country in what is known as ‘‘God’s Country’’, and thousands of well known mines, such as The Spanish Mine, The Gaston Ridge Mine, The Baltic, and The Star, and many, many others. What a lot of work that would necessitate and California, the Golden State, would come to life again. -Please let us get busy, I am. Very truly yours, THE STAR GOLD MINING COMPANY By F.G. KUTZ, Manager aaa eee ele ent GREATEST DEPTH Ozerka Baykal in Soviet Russia, 5,300 feet at its greatest depth, is the world’s deepest lake. JAPAN Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu are the four major islands making up Japan. _ LOWEST ELEVATION The lowest elevation in Africa is Munkhafad Al Qattarah, 436 feet below sea level. cette Buy. at.Homesmoldering . 2 The Nevada County Nugget ‘Wed. March 26,1975 California Country}? Rough and Ready News Kristi Ottoman 1 fee Perey Visited Jack Fontz the other day. He has a world of fascinating tales of early days in this area. He seems to know all of the mines and most of the miners of this area from some personal contact with them. I first met Jack at the Malakoff where he has a quartz mine which is presently being reactivated. Formerly the mine buildings sat weather beaten and quiet beside the road into the park. Jack always used to carry with him a few samples of what he had worked out in interesting places along his way. He was always willing to show them and tell their story. To newcomers to mining, like me, this was fascinating. His collection, when I saw it, consisted of gold dust, gravel size dust (or nuggets) and some interesting larger nuggets. He used both Placer and hardrock mining methods. In the early days he spent quite a lot of time in the Rough and Ready area. He knows my neighbor Esther Crowley Bixler from here and from Washington, Nevada county, when she was a little girl. Seems a miner tries an area and then keeps moving on until he makes his ‘‘big strike.”” Jack made his at the Malakoff. Fontz had a rataher serious attack a couple of weeks ago and is recuperating at the Golden Empire Convalescent Hospital. He and his roommate devote a lot of time to cribbage. They play this on a cribbage board carved, in England, from an elephant tusk. The board is shaped as the original tusk was but the natural curve has been flattened and legs are carved on the underside. It is ornately carved with ‘very lifelike fish. Some type of dye has been used to enhance the detailed designs, It’s such a beautiful piece I wonder how they can * concentrate on cribbage. Fontz’ daughter, Beverly Locke, and I attend a class in creative writing at Golden Empire. Until I saw Jack I had not realized the father, she was taking us to visit, was Mr. Fontz. One of our assignments for. class was to describe an inanimate object. I would take a bit more detail than I have given you here to creatively describe either Fontz, his mine, or his exquisite cribbage board, but I tried. R&R. The death of another Rough and Ready old timer, Walter Ear] Huggins, was called to my . attention by Martina Paull. Jim Huggins is his son. Mr. Huggins has been running a ranch, down Highway 20 a mile or so from Rough and Ready, for the past 40 years. When Placer mining began to be less profitable many of the old timers turned to ranching as did Mr. Huggins. R&R. Some of the well known working ranches of that day were run by Herbert J. Nile, the Segerstrandbrothers Swan and Gus and J. Peac6ck. Edmund G. Kinyon wrote glowingly of these ranchers. Herb Nile sold his original ranch near Pet Hill to J. Peacock who “brought in a herd of whiteface cattle to graze upon the green slopes.’’ He then took over the S.H. Dykeman ranch which had beén a place of beauty since its first owners John and Ferdinand Montgomery first settled there in 1850. Some of this original ranch has been subdivided in recent years. Nile also purchased the Lewis Horton ranch which extended south into the Indian Springs area. The Segerstrand brothers made their“ranch a showplace and the semi-tropical fruit they produced, including oranges, were the wonder of the country.’’ This ranch is on the west side of Pet Hill in a warm and protected area. The Segerstrands sold to ‘““~Holing and Meister from down Santa Barbara way.” R&R. Most interesting item concerning these ranches.was the vast network of ditches involved. Originally this network was called the Union Ditch Company. It later became part of the Excelsior System. The Nile ranch was a crossing for waterways. ‘‘At one time no less than four lines occupied a narrow defile . along Squirrel’ Creek”. says Mr. Kinyon. The development of our present day system is due in great part to hydraulic mining. The Excelsior Water Company of Smartville was incorporated in 1875 with 150 miles of ‘ditches. It fed the Smartville mines. The Excelsior mining operation was a huge business headed by Thomas Price one ot the ‘‘big five’’ in the Hydraulic Mining Association. They owned about three milies of tertiary gravel deposits and several bedrock tunnels. The Smartville Hydraulic Mining Co. was also of good size. In recent years this system of ditches was included in the NID system of ditches. Only lately they let their rights lapse. The unused portion of the system should now revert to its owners of record. R&R Due to the incapacitation of my typewriter, its been in two shops six timessince Christmas, I am having a truly difficult time preparing this column. The letter “‘e’’, which must surely be the most often used letter, broke. I let the shop clean the machine, too, and haven’t been able to use it efficiently since. The letter ‘‘e’’ does print now but Iam a nervous wreck. = R&R One more little story of mining and Rough and Ready. This story came to my attention while I was reading bits about the Torpie family. It’s about one of the miners, Benjamin Dooley, who tried to confide in Mrs. Bridget Torpie about where his cache was hidden. Alex Gravender reported this story as did Andy Rogers and The Knavé. Each version varies slightly in minor details. Benjamin Dooley was a hermit who never let the ebb and flow of mining fortunes bother him much. He never drank or gambled and he lived and dressed as simply as possible. He was not a talkative man. When asked why he built his cabin on the top of a rise and carried his water from his spring 300 yards below he said he liked the exercise. He worked hard, long-tommed dirt all day each day, his own meager ‘‘grub’’ and never left his cabin after dark. After his death Gravendar says ‘‘All the spine-chilling elements of a treasure hunt rewarded the hundreds that for’ three years hunted for Doolan’s hoard down in Rough and -Ready in the 1860’s, only to have a fickle fate reward a youngster that went out one day hunting squirrels.’’ The Knave says since he his cabin. When he died, unexpectedly and alone, the Rough and Ready people buried him decently and then started their treasure hunt. ‘The cabin was carefully torn down, every log split open, every inch of ground turned over. Before the more impatient gave up, three acres around the cabiri had been sifted through as painstakingly as any archaeological digging.”” Andy Rogers says ‘‘a 10-year-old boy was out squirrel hunting” three years later and stopped at old Ben’s spring for a rest and a drink-As boys will, it seems, he was idly playing in the water and cut his hand on a piece of tin. His ensuing investigation unearthed ‘‘a three gallon kerosene canDooley’s hoard. The can held the misers gold.”’ There were 40 half-pourid rawhide sacks. KAt the prices of those days it was $16,000 worth of pure gold dust says The Knave. No wonder those times were exciting. R&R. Local boy can make good today, too. I often wonder why our county goes out to the outer world so often to recruit county employees. It’s probably the old adage ‘‘the grass on the other side of the fence looks greener.’”” We have however some fine examples here in our own community of local boys outweighing imported talent. John Trauner, who has spent 47 of his 51 years in Nevada county proves this. His talent has peered recognition outside our county many es. Remrsoew £82808 mas om] AReaAaS Besse 3ORF F'A3 5S

FIRE AT THE BELLEVIEW MINE It was about 4:00 in the afternoon when the fire broke out. No one noticed it at first and the blaze spread through the buildings and worked its way toward the entrance of the mine. By the time the fire alarm rang through the streets of La Porte, the mouth of the tunnel was a roaring chimney. Women and children came running, and their first word, their first fear, was, ‘‘Did all the men get out?”’ It wasn’t long before _ the answer rippled back through the crowd. Four men, Bean, Cumley, McDonald and Byrnes, were all trapped inside. Women moved quickly to eae the wives and childrén--of the trapped miners while men rushed to get water and find fire fighting gear. Great flames of fire and clouds of blinding, choking smoke rolled out of the tunnel. Calls went out for help to neighboring towns of Downieville and Quincy but the blic : March 3, 1975 Nugget Editor and Governor Brown: With a young, energetic man at the helm of State, we should get going and the gold mines should be put in motion. In the old days, the southern and northern mines furnished employement for many thousands of people in all walks of life, salesmen, mining engineers, grocers, and you name it, and they all had a hand. What wonderful, busy -days those were. Well, they can all come back again, and our balance of payments can be paid in gold. NEVADA COUNTY NUGGET _301 Broad Street Nevada City, Ca. . 95959 _Telephone 265-2559 PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY BY NEVADA COUNTY PUBLISHING CO. Second class postage paid at Nevada City, California: Adjudicated a legal newspaper of general circulation by the Nevada County Superior Court, June 3, 1960. Decree No. 12,406. Subscription Rates: One Year .. $3.00 Two Years.. $5.00 Member of CALIFORNIA NEWSPAPER SPVeo@eeSeeeeeSeeeececeeseeceeeeSeecees PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION . fire raged out of control far into the night. The mining shafts were heavily timbered and the men could do nothing to prevent the fire from eating into the heavy beams and working its way throughout the tunnel. It was 11:00 on that evening of July 16, 1904, when the fire and smoke died down enough to let a solemn-faced rescue crew enter the mine. Silently, family and friends waited for them to return with their grim burden. Several minutes later a railroad car rolled out of the charred and entrance. And sitting in the wagon, tired and smoke-stained but smiling happily, were the four men. The timber bracings that had caused so much worry and consternation above ground had acrtually saved their lives. The timbers were so water-soaked from underground seepage that they had stopped the spread of the fire only a few feet from the mine’s entrance. S Pulse Paper depreciates and soon will not be accepted. Russia is v2ry busy mining gold, and so should we. First, the paved two lane highway over the Sierra at Washington City should be completed. The new bridge over the South Yuba at Washington is now completed, and is a beautiful job. This road leads to Bowman Dam and Jackson Meadows, the new camp grounds in the Sierras. The road would open up the country in what is known as ‘‘God’s Country’’, and thousands of well known mines, such as The Spanish Mine, The Gaston Ridge Mine, The Baltic, and The Star, and many, many others. What a lot of work that would necessitate and California, the Golden State, would come to life again. -Please let us get busy, I am. Very truly yours, THE STAR GOLD MINING COMPANY By F.G. KUTZ, Manager aaa eee ele ent GREATEST DEPTH Ozerka Baykal in Soviet Russia, 5,300 feet at its greatest depth, is the world’s deepest lake. JAPAN Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu are the four major islands making up Japan. _ LOWEST ELEVATION The lowest elevation in Africa is Munkhafad Al Qattarah, 436 feet below sea level. cette Buy. at.Homesmoldering . 2 The Nevada County Nugget ‘Wed. March 26,1975 California Country}? Rough and Ready News Kristi Ottoman 1 fee Perey Visited Jack Fontz the other day. He has a world of fascinating tales of early days in this area. He seems to know all of the mines and most of the miners of this area from some personal contact with them. I first met Jack at the Malakoff where he has a quartz mine which is presently being reactivated. Formerly the mine buildings sat weather beaten and quiet beside the road into the park. Jack always used to carry with him a few samples of what he had worked out in interesting places along his way. He was

always willing to show them and tell their story. To newcomers to mining, like me, this was fascinating. His collection, when I saw it, consisted of gold dust, gravel size dust (or nuggets) and some interesting larger nuggets. He used both Placer and hardrock mining methods. In the early days he spent quite a lot of time in the Rough and Ready area. He knows my neighbor Esther Crowley Bixler from here and from Washington, Nevada county, when she was a little girl. Seems a miner tries an area and then keeps moving on until he makes his ‘‘big strike.”” Jack made his at the Malakoff. Fontz had a rataher serious attack a couple of weeks ago and is recuperating at the Golden Empire Convalescent Hospital. He and his roommate devote a lot of time to cribbage. They play this on a cribbage board carved, in England, from an elephant tusk. The board is shaped as the original tusk was but the natural curve has been flattened and legs are carved on the underside. It is ornately carved with ‘very lifelike fish. Some type of dye has been used to enhance the detailed designs, It’s such a beautiful piece I wonder how they can * concentrate on cribbage. Fontz’ daughter, Beverly Locke, and I attend a class in creative writing at Golden Empire. Until I saw Jack I had not realized the father, she was taking us to visit, was Mr. Fontz. One of our assignments for. class was to describe an inanimate object. I would take a bit more detail than I have given you here to creatively describe either Fontz, his mine, or his exquisite cribbage board, but I tried. R&R. The death of another Rough and Ready old timer, Walter Ear] Huggins, was called to my . attention by Martina Paull. Jim Huggins is his son. Mr. Huggins has been running a ranch, down Highway 20 a mile or so from Rough and Ready, for the past 40 years. When Placer mining began to be less profitable many of the old timers turned to ranching as did Mr. Huggins. R&R. Some of the well known working ranches of that day were run by Herbert J. Nile, the Segerstrandbrothers Swan and Gus and J. Peac6ck. Edmund G. Kinyon wrote glowingly of these ranchers. Herb Nile sold his original ranch near Pet Hill to J. Peacock who “brought in a herd of whiteface cattle to graze upon the green slopes.’’ He then took over the S.H. Dykeman ranch which had beén a place of beauty since its first owners John and Ferdinand Montgomery first settled there in 1850. Some of this original ranch has been subdivided in recent years. Nile also purchased the Lewis Horton ranch which extended south into the Indian Springs area. The Segerstrand brothers made their“ranch a showplace and the semi-tropical fruit they produced, including oranges, were the wonder of the country.’’ This ranch is on the west side of Pet Hill in a warm and protected area. The Segerstrands sold to ‘““~Holing and Meister from down Santa Barbara way.” R&R. Most interesting item concerning these ranches.was the vast network of ditches involved. Originally this network was called the Union Ditch Company. It later became part of the Excelsior System. The Nile ranch was a crossing for waterways. ‘‘At one time no less than four lines occupied a narrow defile . along Squirrel’ Creek”. says Mr. Kinyon. The development of our present day system is due in great part to hydraulic mining. The Excelsior Water Company of Smartville was incorporated in 1875 with 150 miles of ‘ditches. It fed the Smartville mines. The Excelsior mining operation was a huge business headed by Thomas Price one ot the ‘‘big five’’ in the Hydraulic Mining Association. They owned about three milies of tertiary gravel deposits and several bedrock tunnels. The Smartville Hydraulic Mining Co. was also of good size. In recent years this system of ditches was included in the NID system of ditches. Only lately they let their rights lapse. The unused portion of the system should now revert to its owners of record. R&R Due to the incapacitation of my typewriter, its been in two shops six timessince Christmas, I am having a truly difficult time preparing this column. The letter “‘e’’, which must surely be the most often used letter, broke. I let the shop clean the machine, too, and haven’t been able to use it efficiently since. The letter ‘‘e’’ does print now but Iam a nervous wreck. = R&R One more little story of mining and Rough and Ready. This story came to my attention while I was reading bits about the Torpie family. It’s about one of the miners, Benjamin Dooley, who tried to confide in Mrs. Bridget Torpie about where his cache was hidden. Alex Gravender reported this story as did Andy Rogers and The Knavé. Each version varies slightly in minor details. Benjamin Dooley was a hermit who never let the ebb and flow of mining fortunes bother him much. He never drank or gambled and he lived and dressed as simply as possible. He was not a talkative man. When asked why he built his cabin on the top of a rise and carried his water from his spring 300 yards below he said he liked the exercise. He worked hard, long-tommed dirt all day each day, his own meager ‘‘grub’’ and never left his cabin after dark. After his death Gravendar says ‘‘All the spine-chilling elements of a treasure hunt rewarded the hundreds that for’ three years hunted for Doolan’s hoard down in Rough and -Ready in the 1860’s, only to have a fickle fate reward a youngster that went out one day hunting squirrels.’’ The Knave says since he his cabin. When he died, unexpectedly and alone, the Rough and Ready people buried him decently and then started their treasure hunt. ‘The cabin was carefully torn down, every log split open, every inch of ground turned over. Before the more impatient gave up, three acres around the cabiri had been sifted through as painstakingly as any archaeological digging.”” Andy Rogers says ‘‘a 10-year-old boy was out squirrel hunting” three years later and stopped at old Ben’s spring for a rest and a drink-As boys will, it seems, he was idly playing in the water and cut his hand on a piece of tin. His ensuing investigation unearthed ‘‘a three gallon kerosene canDooley’s hoard. The can held the misers gold.”’ There were 40 half-pourid rawhide sacks. KAt the prices of those days it was $16,000 worth of pure gold dust says The Knave. No wonder those times were exciting. R&R. Local boy can make good today, too. I often wonder why our county goes out to the outer world so often to recruit county employees. It’s probably the old adage ‘‘the grass on the other side of the fence looks greener.’”” We have however some fine examples here in our own community of local boys outweighing imported talent. John Trauner, who has spent 47 of his 51 years in Nevada county proves this. His talent has peered recognition outside our county many es. Remrsoew £82808 mas om] AReaAaS Besse 3ORF F'A3 5S