Old Bookaroo
Silver Member
- Dec 4, 2008
- 4,474
- 3,794
Douglas Group Worked
Old Silver Mine Near
Famous Tayopa Property
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Old Silver Mine Near
Famous Tayopa Property
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In the Los Angeles Times of last Sunday, there was printed an exclusive story of the reported discovery of a fabulously rich silver mine in [the] vicinity of Chihuahua, thought, according to the story to be the famous lost Tayopa mine in whose labyrinth of tunnels there is buried, legend says, some $23,000,000 of silver bullion. The story reports the basis for the story has been the appearance of some pieces of bullion brought out of the Sierra Madres giving rise to the alleged discovery of the lost mine.
Whether the story is true is not a matter of large concern here ~ but the printing of the story sufficed to recall to numerous Douglas people; some mining experiences a group from Douglas [Arizona] had in much the same area some 30 years ago. The Douglas people were engaged in exploiting what was believed to be richly mineralized territory in which silver and gold were the major objectives of the miners. While they had heard of the lost mine in the Spanish legend, they did not give thought to hunting it but were opening up mining properties on their own account.
In the group from here that invested in the mining enterprise only one appears now to be living here. That is Mayor L. I. Tuttle. He recalls that with a group of several of his friends including, he remembers, H. B. Rice, now of Santa Cruz, California; Robert Rae, now of Phoenix; John A. Rice, now dead and some others of whose names the mayor was not certain, he provided whatever the assessment per individual was and they sent a crew into the territory to do the development work. They centered their effort in a mine which had been worked and which was known as the Guayanopa, one producing silver[,] and they did a considerable work but the problem of transportation was a hard one and getting the outfit to the smelter was so costly that it left no considerable return and after a while the enterprise was abandoned.
~ Douglas Daily Dispatch [Douglas, Arizona], 22 November 1936 (Vol. XXXIV. Number 125)
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Lingenfelter’s great book Death Valley & The Amargosa teaches that a successful mine must be near water – and it can’t cost more to haul the ore to a smelter than the value of the recovered silver or gold.
I have not been able to locate the LA Times article cited above. When I find it, I’ll share it.
Good luck to all,
The Old Bookaroo
