More questions about the Silver Chief Mine

[Steamboat]

Thanks to all who responded to my questions in the last post. I have some more questions and hope those of you who know more about this than I do will take the time to answer.
1. Who first filed on the Silver Chief Mine and what year was that.
2. Is there any record of what came out of the Silver Chief Mine?
3. Why is it called "SILVER Chief"? Was it mostly silver ore?
4. Who filled the mine in? Why did they do it? When was it done?
5. I would assume that when the mine was filled in they used what had come out of the mine to fill it in. How much of the tailings are left outside the mine?
6. Is there an armed guard around the mine? Is it fenced with a locked gate? Can anyone go there and pick up samples?
That's probably enough questions for one time.

 

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[PotBelly Jim]

This may help a bit, hopefully other folks will chime in with other info.

James Rogers was the first that I know of to officially file on the location. Here's some articles on the mine etc:

View attachment Silver Chief Articles.pdf

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Thanks to all who responded to my questions in the last post. I have some more questions and hope those of you who know more about this than I do will take the time to answer.
1. Who first filed on the Silver Chief Mine and what year was that.
2. Is there any record of what came out of the Silver Chief Mine?
3. Why is it called "SILVER Chief"? Was it mostly silver ore?
4. Who filled the mine in? Why did they do it? When was it done?
5. I would assume that when the mine was filled in they used what had come out of the mine to fill it in. How much of the tailings are left outside the mine?
6. Is there an armed guard around the mine? Is it fenced with a locked gate? Can anyone go there and pick up samples?
That's probably enough questions for one time.

Steamboat,

George Flemming and Charles Enslinger filed claim on the Silver Chief mine in 1875. James Rogers was the man who actually discovered the ledge and he became a partner with Enslinger.

Do some math. Jacob Waltz took possession of his mine in 1869, six years before the Silver Chief was filed as an original location.

Jacob Waltz last trip to his mine was in the 1879 to 1884 time period. Four years after the Silver Chief. Waltz never mentioned anyone had found his mine and was working it.

The Silver Chief was a predominant silver ledge. There was some gold taken in small amounts. One would be hard pressed to find a silver mine with native silver that didn't have some gold with it.

The Silver Chief was sealed sometime around 2007. It was not filled in it was capped and there is still ore from the mine on the surface. The Forest Service capped the shafts for safety.

Anyone can go and look over the site. No guards or fences. It is not far off an established trail but is very difficult to get to.

 

[azdave35]

Steamboat,

George Flemming and Charles Enslinger filed claim on the Silver Chief mine in 1875. James Rogers was the man who actually discovered the ledge and he became a partner with Enslinger.

Do some math. Jacob Waltz took possession of his mine in 1869, six years before the Silver Chief was filed as an original location.

Jacob Waltz last trip to his mine was in the 1879 to 1884 time period. Four years after the Silver Chief. Waltz never mentioned anyone had found his mine and was working it.

The Silver Chief was a predominant silver ledge. There was some gold taken in small amounts. One would be hard pressed to find a silver mine with native silver that didn't have some gold with it.

The Silver Chief was sealed sometime around 2007. It was not filled in it was capped and there is still ore from the mine on the surface. The Forest Service capped the shafts for safety.

Anyone can go and look over the site. No guards or fences. It is not far off an established trail but is very difficult to get to.

nobody really knows for sure when waltz first worked the mine or the last time he visited it,,,its all pretty much hearsay

 

[Steamboat]

Thanks, PotBelly Jim and Matthew Roberts. That was the information I was looking for.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Steamboat,

In early 2000, Ron Feldman, Greg Davis, Ron Lorenz and I were heading out to Aylors old camp in the Superstitions. Ron was driving his truck, Greg was in the front and Lorenz and I were in the back. Feldman was telling me about the HEAT dig at Rogers spring and the conversation jumped over to the Silver Chief. Ron Lorenz started telling me about the Silver Chief being the Dutchman mine and about rich gold having recently been mined from it. I was curious as I had been to the Silver Chief in 1980 when the price of gold and silver spiked to record levels and all those old mines were reworked and the dumps ran for low grade ore.
I asked Ron Lorenz to show me the location on the map and sure enough he pointed to the Silver Chief.

I was at the Silver Chief in 80 with Charles Watters and a group of miners from Globe who were winzing some of the good producing mines in the area hoping to clean up anything that had been missed and run the dumps for low grade tailings.

They winzed off in different directions but found nothing at the Silver Chief of any value, neither gold nor silver. Nothing to justify further efforts.
Ron Lorenz was sure rich gold had been taken from the Silver Chief sometime in the mid 90s so I asked Ron if he would go with me and have a look and we planned to at another day. Lorenz was never able to make the trip with me. I went there several months later with some friends and was able to check out the mine and area. The stories of rich gold being extensively mined from the Silver Chief started coming out in later years. Books were written and fabulous gold samples were flashed around and stories of years of mining that went on at the Silver Chief were everywhere. Photos appeared of the inside of the Silver Chief but no photos of the actual lode that had been mined.

I later made another trip back to Rogers spring and that long ridge where the Silver Chief and about a dozen other mines are located. Something didn't add up. I have come to the opinion there was gold in the old Silver Chief, but not in metal, rather in paper. Paper for books , business promotions and in TV endorsements. The Silver Chief is capped now and off limits to further mining. I have good reason to believe no gold came out of the Silver Chief in the 1990s, nor is the mine the Dutchman. If you are interested why I believe that, PM me.

Matthew

 

[azdave35]

Steamboat,

In early 2000, Ron Feldman, Greg Davis, Ron Lorenz and I were heading out to Aylors old camp in the Superstitions. Ron was driving his truck, Greg was in the front and Lorenz and I were in the back. Feldman was telling me about the HEAT dig at Rogers spring and the conversation jumped over to the Silver Chief. Ron Lorenz started telling me about the Silver Chief being the Dutchman mine and about rich gold having recently been mined from it. I was curious as I had been to the Silver Chief in 1980 when the price of gold and silver spiked to record levels and all those old mines were reworked and the dumps ran for low grade ore.
I asked Ron Lorenz to show me the location on the map and sure enough he pointed to the Silver Chief.

I was at the Silver Chief in 80 with Charles Watters and a group of miners from Globe who were winzing some of the good producing mines in the area hoping to clean up anything that had been missed and run the dumps for low grade tailings.

They winzed off in different directions but found nothing at the Silver Chief of any value, neither gold nor silver. Nothing to justify further efforts.
Ron Lorenz was sure rich gold had been taken from the Silver Chief sometime in the mid 90s so I asked Ron if he would go with me and have a look and we planned to at another day. Lorenz was never able to make the trip with me. I went there several months later with some friends and was able to check out the mine and area. The stories of rich gold being extensively mined from the Silver Chief started coming out in later years. Books were written and fabulous gold samples were flashed around and stories of years of mining that went on at the Silver Chief were everywhere. Photos appeared of the inside of the Silver Chief but no photos of the actual lode that had been mined.

I later made another trip back to Rogers spring and that long ridge where the Silver Chief and about a dozen other mines are located. Something didn't add up. I have come to the opinion there was gold in the old Silver Chief, but not in metal, rather in paper. Paper for books , business promotions and in TV endorsements. The Silver Chief is capped now and off limits to further mining. I have good reason to believe no gold came out of the Silver Chief in the 1990s, nor is the mine the Dutchman. If you are interested why I believe that, PM me.

Matthew

a group of miners going to rework the dump?...how were they going to get equipment up there?...you've been there...no roads..you can barely walk up there

 

[Matthew Roberts]

a group of miners going to rework the dump?...how were they going to get equipment up there?...you've been there...no roads..you can barely walk up there

Dave,

In 1980 when the price of gold and silver spiked up to record levels a lot of miners took to the hills to check out the mines that had once been good producers in hopes the low grade ore that was left on the dumps might be recovered for profit now the prices were high. None of the dumps at the Silver Chief or the other dozen or so mines around it showed enough value to bother with. Watters and his group did winze off in the Silver Chief but did not find it worth pursuing. They had no need for large equipment because their exploration showed no values.

Watters, like all professional miners always leave their mark at the end of where they leave off mining. Watters chisled the mark at the end of the winze in the Silver Chief. If you look close at the photos of the Silver Chief taken after the alleged gold was taken out, you can see Watters winze mark at the end of the digging, right where he left it in 1980. No one had gone any further past that mark.

The only difference I could see in the Silver Chief between the times I was there from 1980 to around 2001 was someone had put a better ladder down the shaft and it looked as if someone had been living in and around the mine.

 

[azdave35]

Dave,

In 1980 when the price of gold and silver spiked up to record levels a lot of miners took to the hills to check out the mines that had once been good producers in hopes the low grade ore that was left on the dumps might be recovered for profit now the prices were high. None of the dumps at the Silver Chief or the other dozen or so mines around it showed enough value to bother with. Watters and his group did winze off in the Silver Chief but did not find it worth pursuing. They had no need for large equipment because their exploration showed no values.

Watters, like all professional miners always leave their mark at the end of where they leave off mining. Watters chisled the mark at the end of the winze in the Silver Chief. If you look close at the photos of the Silver Chief taken after the alleged gold was taken out, you can see Watters winze mark at the end of the digging, right where he left it in 1980. No one had gone any further past that mark.

The only difference I could see in the Silver Chief between the times I was there from 1980 to around 2001 was someone had put a better ladder down the shaft and it looked as if someone had been living in and around the mine.

back in the 80's i had a trailer mounted mill and i used to go around sampling tailing piles for left over values....most of them i checked were not profitable to work...the first thing i figured out was if you couldn't drive to it...it wasn't going to be workable...and i found a few that were profitable to work but there was no way to get my equipment there to work them....and by the time i went through all the red tape and posted bonds to put in a road...then there goes all your profit....it seems odd that a professional miner would even bother checking the tailing piles of mines that were..#1 ..in the wilderness..#2...no roads going to them and no way the forest service would have let them put in a road...most tailing piles were hand sorted back then and only the lowest grade went on the dump...(actually the piles of rock you see at a mine is the dump..tailings have already been through the mill and processed)...so the dump would have to be loaded up and hauled out to another location to process...and the forest service would never allow that (i have battled with them a few times and never won)..so i find it odd that a pro miner would even be up there thinking about processing the dump...its one thing to walk in and scour the dump for high grade that was accidentally thrown on the dump...fill your backpack and leave but hauling thousands of ton of rock off the top of a mountain in a wilderness area with no roads is something no pro miner would even consider

 

[Matthew Roberts]

back in the 80's i had a trailer mounted mill and i used to go around sampling tailing piles for left over values....most of them i checked were not profitable to work...the first thing i figured out was if you couldn't drive to it...it wasn't going to be workable...and i found a few that were profitable to work but there was no way to get my equipment there to work them....and by the time i went through all the red tape and posted bonds to put in a road...then there goes all your profit....it seems odd that a professional miner would even bother checking the tailing piles of mines that were..#1 ..in the wilderness..#2...no roads going to them and no way the forest service would have let them put in a road...most tailing piles were hand sorted back then and only the lowest grade went on the dump...(actually the piles of rock you see at a mine is the dump..tailings have already been through the mill and processed)...so the dump would have to be loaded up and hauled out to another location to process...and the forest service would never allow that (i have battled with them a few times and never won)..so i find it odd that a pro miner would even be up there thinking about processing the dump...its one thing to walk in and scour the dump for high grade that was accidentally thrown on the dump...fill your backpack and leave but hauling thousands of ton of rock off the top of a mountain in a wilderness area with no roads is something no pro miner would even consider

Dave,

You have to remember, in 1980 the wilderness ban on filing mining claims had not yet taken effect. That would not come until midnight on December 31, 1983. The area was still wide open for claims and refilings.

Also remember what the mountains were like in 1980. The cattle were still in there and the thick brush that chokes that whole area today was not like that in 1980. The cattle opened trails all over that whole ridge and it was a dream hiking to the Silver Chief compared to what it is today. Yes no road back then but you didn't have to climb the ridge to the west of Rogers spring and run that ridge all the way north to the end. You could exit the Reavis trail at the point of the Silver Chief and climb the ridge to the west directly into the Silver Chief mine. Much closer route. That's where the old road from the Silver Chief was that took the ore from the mine straight down that ridge to the east to the mill by Rogers trough.

 

[Oroblanco]

Matthew Roberts wrote<snip>

Also remember what the mountains were like in 1980. The cattle were still in there and the thick brush that chokes that whole area today was not like that in 1980. The cattle opened trails all over that whole ridge and it was a dream hiking to the Silver Chief compared to what it is today.

Wow amen and absolutely true! It has changed a LOT since the cattle were pulled out, formerly you could trek across a lot of country that is now choked full of thorns and brush just waiting for a frigging spark to start a blaze. It was a risk to your camp that the cattle could wreck it but it was definitely a better place for a treasure hunter, hiker or hunter in those days. A lot of the country looks so different today you can hardly recognize it from old photos.

Please do continue just wanted to add a little bit there.

 

[azdave35]

Dave,

You have to remember, in 1980 the wilderness ban on filing mining claims had not yet taken effect. That would not come until midnight on December 31, 1983. The area was still wide open for claims and refilings.

Also remember what the mountains were like in 1980. The cattle were still in there and the thick brush that chokes that whole area today was not like that in 1980. The cattle opened trails all over that whole ridge and it was a dream hiking to the Silver Chief compared to what it is today. Yes no road back then but you didn't have to climb the ridge to the west of Rogers spring and run that ridge all the way north to the end. You could exit the Reavis trail at the point of the Silver Chief and climb the ridge to the west directly into the Silver Chief mine. Much closer route. That's where the old road from the Silver Chief was that took the ore from the mine straight down that ridge to the east to the mill by Rogers trough.

true matthew..but filing a claim in the wilderness and building a road there are two different things...the gov will gladly take your money to file the claim but never let you put a road in the wilderness....

 

[deducer]

Finally. A thread where I'm actually learning new things. So rare.

Hopefully this continues before the trolls come in to blow things up with their complete fabrications.

 

[Steamboat]

Thanks to all who responded. Great information. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Ponteach]

That's probably enough questions for one time. steamboat

Pls do continue whats the next set of round, it was very interesting,
a medal as two side, it is clear after reading this tread,
Matthew is a bank of information, on here if not the first,

continue

 

[393stroker]

There`s no fence or anything. Someone left their equipment/trash. From there if you shoot an azimuth of appx. 100 degrees to a clearing up on the other side there`s a wheel barrel and the drift mine.