Prospecting — Then and Now

On the Trail of Gold Prospecting Then and Now

"'All men will dare death for gold,'" the old Jesuit Fathers in the Southwest used to say. Is this why the desert floor and the mountain canyon are literally covered with the bones of men who went in search of treasure treasure that often did not exist?* Eighty-nine-year-old Harry Crowder sat in his tiny cluttered Arivaca home and held a solid gold stickpin in his left hand. He adjusted his hearing aid and ran his weathered right hand through his silver hair.

"In all my years of prospecting for gold, this was about the biggest thing I got. But I got enough gold over the years to buy my coffee."

He's quick to show you pictures of himself and an old burro he once used prospecting for gold in southern Arizona.

Crowder moved to Arizona 20 years ago from Springfield, Illinois, "because it got so crowded back there that there wasn't enough room to cuss a cat without getting a mouthful of fur. Now I can cuss two cats."

the Mother Lode

When he arrived in Arizona, he camped southwest of Ruby, in California Gulch. It was there he was first bitten by the gold bug. During the cooler hours of the day, Crowder washed loose gravel with water under pressure, ran it through the rocker or "doodlebug" with the tailings flowing downstream through his 40pound sluice box. "I didn't get rich but I found peace and happiness," said Crowder, who has been everything from an undertaker to a cowpuncher.

"The old prospector, there are still a few around," said Wayne Winters, publisher of Western Prospector and Miner. "But now they are the men rid-ing in a jeep instead of on a burro, and they are using much more modern equipment." Crowder, like many others, used a burro to carry his sparse equipment. He also would strap a gun on his hip and trek into the mountains of southern Arizona to seek his fortune. Some found it. Today, some think they can find it.

Jim Sweeney and his wife, Maxine, are mining the side of a mountain near Congress in central Arizona. He has hand built his operation and recently bought a pickup with two gold nuggets he found. "Believe me, this one works," said the retired Chicago hotel executive. He ran a load of mud and rock through his sluice box and his eyes lit up. "There's about $3 worth of gold," he said. Sweeney, his wife, and an old retired prospector are the only residents of

Weaver, south of Prescott. They like the seclusion but came to Arizona “for the beautiful weather and the gorgeous sunsets” rather than to get rich from prospecting.

But with the new mining going on around there they don't expect it will continue to be as peaceful and quiet as it had been.

Frenchie LaRue, a retired 69-year-old Army sergeant, moved to Congress in 1962 and bought a claim for $118. He said he recently sold it for $40,000.

“I made more money than any other prospector in this state. But back then, gold was worth only $35 an ounce. People came out here from the East Coast. I would put a nickel's worth of gold in a little bottle of water and sell it for a quarter. That made them happy, and it made me happy.” The area around Congress is full of history. And there are stories told by old-timers that probably have grown with the years.

LaRue said there was a “hot water boil out” on nearby Rich Hill, site of a big strike in the 19th century, and gold nuggets, “some as big as potatoes,” were blown out of the ground. “I'm sure that some of those are still out there. But, mostly there is just surface gold around here.

“To get into the business big today, you have to spend a lot of money,” he said. “Now the money you have to put into it, well, back then you could have retired on that amount.” Several claim jumpers, who don't have to spend the big money, frequent the Arrowhead Bar in Congress.

But no one pays much attention to them.

“It's just the idea of it,” said Bill Summers, a 27-year-old newcomer to the prospecting business. “They go up there when nobody's looking and prob ably aren't going to find anything any way.” But they could find a bullet if they aren't careful.

“You just don't go out and dig,” said Brian Tognoni, a Phoenix minerals land expert, “You can get shot and believe me, it has happened. Miners are very possessive.” The Arrowhead Bar is called “the sluice box of Arizona” by its regular customers, who gather around a horse shoe-shaped bar daily. And, of course, the talk centers around gold. “I think you will see a great many families coming to Arizona on their vacation to hunt for gold,” said Win ters. “The weekend prospector has always been with us but now its going wild. The weekender is working mainly on placer gold because he can take that right out of the ground in the form of gold dust or nuggets.” Winters said Crowder is one of the last of his breed. Crowder and his father were packers in Wyoming and Colo rado. In those days, they went out with a pick and shovel and did it the hard way.

There are two ways to mine, said Winters. One is free gold in nuggets and that is done with washing or dry washing it. Lode gold mining is hard rock mining and you must drill and use dynamite.

“But there is a great deal of weekend mining and there is no age barrier,” Winters said. “Families go out for two days, and, even if they don't find any thing, they can enjoy the country.” Winters is making money off the gold craze. He wrote a book 20 years ago on gold prospecting, but he didn't sell many until gold skyrocketed to $400 an ounce last fall. Last Decem ber he had 10,000 printed, and they were sold out by February. He then had another 10,000 printed, and they probably will be sold out in the near future. “It's just like the uranium boom 25 years ago,” Winters said.

As the price of gold rapidly changes, so do the techniques of mining it.

Leonard Arendall has used a sluice box in the Bill Williams Mountains for the past 12 years. He has peered through the black sand for the glitter that signals gold and has been success ful at it.

But he plans to abandon his pan for a more sophisticated mining technique that uses cyanide solution and a mechanized precipitator.

The Sweeney's are using the same process, but the new weekend pros pector probably will use the same tech niques used by the Peralta family, more than 140 years ago, in the rugged and famous Superstition Mountains, a pic turesque range that rises out of the desert east of Phoenix.

It is estimated only five percent of the gold in the state has been recovered and that fuels the temperature of gold fever.

Vic Renzoni, owner of the Arizona Hiking Store in Phoenix and a gold prospecting instructor, said interest in prospecting is unbelievable and isn't slowing down.

“A lot more gold will be found now because of the heavy rains and flooding in February. A lot of earth was moved and that means a lot more gold will be discovered. All the old prospectors are chomping at the bit to get out there when the weather gets better.” Even the novice will have a better chance to find a nugget.

“There's plenty of room for everyone,” said John Jett, director of the Arizona Mineral Museum.

Jett said there are three categories of prospectors today.

"There, of course, is the full-time prospector. There is the weekend prospector who is devoted to true prospecting. And there is the recreational prospector who does it for the fun of it. Recreational prospectors number in the thousands now in Arizona.

"In addition, we are seeing many, many people trying to reactivate formerly operating mines. You never say abandoned mines now because we don't know if a mine is abandoned or not."

Jett said it is impossible to determine how much gold has been discovered in the last year.

"There are a lot of people recovering gold, but they are hanging onto it," Jett said. "Some deal directly with a jeweler. It's obvious that a lot do that because it is a cash transaction and the person doesn't report the profit on his income tax. So there is no way to say how much is recovered."

Renzoni charges $30 to teach someone how to pan for gold and that includes a trip out into the field.

Some students can pay for the course after panning in just one day, said Renzoni, who also owns a specialty mining store named The Groom Creek Store in Prescott. "But I tell people today, not to quit their jobs and make prospecting a full-time job.

"It's like fishing. You go out to do it to relax and enjoy the country. There are no guarantees of a return. But it's fun and exciting. Especially when a person finds his first gold."

But Charles Kenworth is not a week-end gold hunter. Far from it.

Kenworth says he has found gold in three glory holes in the Superstition Mountains, by transcribing stone maps and then using the information in an aerial search, employing sophisticated modern equipment.

Kenworth said the stones have designs on them ranging from X's, circles, jagged mountain-like lines, and a heart. He doesn't discuss their meaning.

Has he found the Lost Dutchman mine?

"Who can tell," he said. "Nobody ever put a sign on it."

Glory holes are also known as "coyote holes" and today still can be seen in the mining districts of Arizona.

After prospectors worked a stream bed and recovered what they could, they would tunnel into the banks of the stream and follow the gravels that were lying on top of the bedrock. When these gravels proved to be rich enough, the prospector would burrow in like a coyote making a den.

The holes - usually just large enough to crawl in and out of sometimes ended the prospecting career and the miner's life when they caved in. The miner usually worked alone, and when tons of dirt fell on him, his chance of survival was nil.

Today, the weekend miner doesn't have to work that hard to reach the gold. Weekend prospecting usually means a picnic for the family.

But the old prospector had to have his supplies hauled in from great distances and that made them expensive. Their "poke" usually consisted of beans with flour for biscuits or fried bread. They drank canned milk or coffee. And if they were lucky, they had syrup for their biscuits. They lived in stone cabins or shacks that usually had a tin roof. And they used mules a far cry from today's recreational vehicles and four-wheel-drive jeeps. But the price of gold has changed. The desire to find it hasn't.