Page 68

Page 69

Page 71

Friday Aug. 23 1901
Slept in room at the hotel with a bullet hole through curtain and into wall just over bed where a drunken fellow a few weeks ago going home saw light in window and shot at it.
Got up at 5.30 wrote home etc. and got up to Arthur's for Breakfast at 6.30 at 8 we got his mountain buckboard and little mules ready and started for Verde mine 6 ½ miles by survey- 7-8 by road. It was new road just built by Crow and Mr. Hinton and their gangs of men. Roughest mountain trail I ever saw. It threw Crow

Page 73

out of buggy over a rim of rocks. Saw & examined one prospect and then got to the Verde at just 12 o' clock noon. Mrs. Hinton and mother in law got us a fine dinner for the 3 men working in the mine Crow myself and Charley Terwiller who rode his horse out with us. They left to look over another prospect as soon as it quit raining and I started out with G. Fred Hinton Supt to Examine it thoroughly. Starting from his cabin and giving each up to top or brow of a hill we struck the first one of the four claims

Page 75

The old Dominion this claim is same size as the rest 600 by 1500 and doesn't show any signs of "ore" but plenty of traces at the west end of it. ½ way across appears the Serpentine rock & chromic iron (dark green) under which evidences of copper exist for 40 ft wide.
*****
Hanging wall is an altered shistic [sic] ampheboid[sic] shist[sic] mineralized.
Foot wall white milky quartz
*****
vein itself. Iron capping bog iron at surface-and changes to iron pyrites- which is hard as can be.

Page 77

This iron capping goes down probably several hundred feet and is the hardest rock to drill in the District. Sometimes only make 6 inches a week. Sometimes a couple of feet. In the Sardine claim, Iron occurs in the pyrites form which if pure is 1/3 copper, 1/3 sulphur 1/3 iron making a 33%. Copper considerable of which occurs taking the iron capping as a whole it would run perhaps 10-15% with much 20%. Azurite-69.2%
There also occurs considerable copper carbonite 71.9%copper and boromite 55.5% a formation which can carry 40-80% copper. Copper glance 79.8% copper

Page 79

In some places there seems to be considerable of these more valuable ores and Mr. Hinton cut off quite a number of specimens right on the surface of them. There is now on the Sardine, which seems to be the best one a 10 foot prospect hole, a long trench 2-4 ft deep to locate the lode and a 26 ft hole all curbed up with heavy timbers from which very nice ore was taken. Then when the Verde Co was incorporated work was begun and the present large log shaft house erected 20 (18) ft wide by about 50 (45) ft long it has 3 rooms. One where the

Page 81

Men sleep during the winter the next room being the work room having forge for sharpening tools etc. the next has the large shaft in the center.

[Drawing here]

"A" being a ladder straight down 40 ft. "BC" is a canvas stretched across to assist ventilation. "DE" is wheel and axle and "F" is a large pine box ventilating shaft reaching from bottom of mine out the roof insuring good ventilation.

Page 83

The shaft is down over 40 ft with a 20 ft cross cut in one side and a 17 ft in the other. [Inserted is a sketch of shaft]
A couple of buckets of water accumulate in the bottom, which is taken out in the morning. Altogether a constant year's work has been done. Some of the time the men worked night and day. The Head man "Jerry" gets $4.00 a day, the blacksmith 3.50, the two miners $3.00. The work done already has cost about $2500.00.

Page 85

History of the Verde
May 17, 1899 Two prospectors G.F. Hinton of Grand Junction Colo and Henry Harrison of Denver staked out the first claim. In a short time they followed the lode to the other 3 and staked them out and took the 4 claims. "Sardine" was named because they picked up an old sardine can exactly where they started to drive the first stake. Betty Ambler was the name of an old sweetheart of Bachelor Harrison.
St. Clair-Virginia name
Old Dominion-Virginia Harrison from Virginia
They went to work at once and sunk a 10 ft hole then a 26 ft hole and curbed it up. Each shovel made them