The Lost Padre Mine - Southern California

[Old Bookaroo]

FOUND AT LAST.

-------​

Ed. Signal:—The rich treasure so long sought has been found.

An old, deaf, crippled Indian, eighty years of age, by name, Carlos Juan, who has for over twenty years been the recipient of many favors at the hands of Hon. A. G. Escandon, of this place, concluded he had but a few days to live, and personally knowing the resting place of the 'traditional treasure', proposed, as a mark of his gratefulness, to show Mr. Escandon the mine, "Although I will lose my life by doing so" says he.

It seems these Indians have a superstitious fear of discovering a mine to a white man, at least they pretend to have. In company with others, E. and the Indian went into the mountains sometime ago and, after much time spent in searching, [found] first the spring, the willows, the old furnace and, finally the tunnel, drills and other mining implements exactly as Carlos Juan had said they would find them.

He says the last time he or any of the tribe were at the place was in 1837. At that time they found two white men at work, an Englishman and a Mexican, and that they were killed by the wild Indians. The entrance to the tunnel seemed to have been concealed, and near it was a large pile of ore. This ore contains silver, carbonate of lead, antimony, sulphur and arsenic. The amount of Silver obtained in an assay was $160 a ton.

The mine is situated in the San Emeidio mountains, at the head of a salt creek; fine springs of water and plenty of wood abound in the vicinity. It is about fifty miles from here, on an airline, north-easterly, but about a hundred and fifty by a wagon road.

The ledge is apparently a solid mass of ore, fifteen or twenty feet wide, and can be traced on the surface of the ground nearly a mile. Two other ledges were discovered on the same mountain, both yielding gold and silver. About eight miles from these lodes a native is, and has been, unknown before to anyone, quietly running an arasta, making liberal wages.

The old Indians say that in these mountains there are rich placer diggings, but refuse to show them. A number have gone out to prospect and locate claims, and should their report be favorable, thousands will flock to the “Silver Mountain,” as it is already named. Carlos Juan promises a fuller account of these old mines and their locality.

Miner​

Ventura Signal [San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara Co., California], Volume 1, Number 22, 16 September 1871

-------- o0o -------​

This article has not been edited. The original layout has been broken into paragraphs to avoid the 19th century predilection for block format.

The bibliographic reference to this article was found on the Wikipedia page for “Lost Padre Mine (southern California).”

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[Crow]

FOUND AT LAST.

-------​

Ed. Signal:—The rich treasure so long sought has been found.

An old, deaf, crippled Indian, eighty years of age, by name, Carlos Juan, who has for over twenty years been the recipient of many favors at the hands of Hon. A. G. Escandon, of this place, concluded he had but a few days to live, and personally knowing the resting place of the 'traditional treasure', proposed, as a mark of his gratefulness, to show Mr. Escandon the mine, "Although I will lose my life by doing so" says he.

It seems these Indians have a superstitious fear of discovering a mine to a white man, at least they pretend to have. In company with others, E. and the Indian went into the mountains sometime ago and, after much time spent in searching, [found] first the spring, the willows, the old furnace and, finally the tunnel, drills and other mining implements exactly as Carlos Juan had said they would find them.

He says the last time he or any of the tribe were at the place was in 1837. At that time they found two white men at work, an Englishman and a Mexican, and that they were killed by the wild Indians. The entrance to the tunnel seemed to have been concealed, and near it was a large pile of ore. This ore contains silver, carbonate of lead, antimony, sulphur and arsenic. The amount of Silver obtained in an assay was $160 a ton.

The mine is situated in the San Emeidio mountains, at the head of a salt creek; fine springs of water and plenty of wood abound in the vicinity. It is about fifty miles from here, on an airline, north-easterly, but about a hundred and fifty by a wagon road.

The ledge is apparently a solid mass of ore, fifteen or twenty feet wide, and can be traced on the surface of the ground nearly a mile. Two other ledges were discovered on the same mountain, both yielding gold and silver. About eight miles from these lodes a native is, and has been, unknown before to anyone, quietly running an arasta, making liberal wages.

The old Indians say that in these mountains there are rich placer diggings, but refuse to show them. A number have gone out to prospect and locate claims, and should their report be favorable, thousands will flock to the “Silver Mountain,” as it is already named. Carlos Juan promises a fuller account of these old mines and their locality.

Miner​

Ventura Signal [San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara Co., California], Volume 1, Number 22, 16 September 1871

-------- o0o -------​

This article has not been edited. The original layout has been broken into paragraphs to avoid the 19th century predilection for block format.

The bibliographic reference to this article was found on the Wikipedia page for “Lost Padre Mine (southern California).”

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

Well it appears the story may have some merit? That might make it worth further resarch.
In the California state government records there is A. G. Escandon lived Santa Barbara County in 1879
and held a Position as a Member of the State Assembly.

I found him in 4 records. in Us cities directories 1822 - 1995 In 1879 he is listed living in Oakland and 1874 listed living in Sacramento.
A. G. Escandon served as a member of the 1869-71 California State Assembly, representing the 3rd District. He served again from 1873-1875.

Here is a newspaper clipping.

Crow

 

[Crow]

I quote from a wonderful well researched article by Peter gray.

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW:

It appears the San Emigdio antimony deposits were first worked by Indians as the source of pigment for making paintings which can still be seen on sandstone in the vicinity of Antimony Peak (Jermain and Ricker, 1949).

The San Buenaventura Mission operated an antimony mine in this area in the late 1810s and/or 1820s (documented).

During the American era, the deposits were rediscovered in September 1853 by William Phipps Blake who served as a geologist with the Pacific Railroad Survey of the Far West. He reported finding the remains of an abandoned "forge or furnace" at a place his Indian guide (Jose) called "Campo de los Americanos".

It appears that E. J. Weston was the person who found the antimony deposit that started the development of this mining operation: "In 1870, E. J. Weston and others had put up a saw mill in the vicinity, and while Mr. Weston was prospecting on this mountain, he discovered the sulphuret of antimony."

Formal mining claims were filed on Antimony Peak in 1872 and 1873. Records indicate that the first "modern" smelters were built in San Emigdio Canyon in 1878 about a mile and a half below the deposit that was near the summit of Antimony Peak.

Sixty tons of metallic antimony was produced in 1882. Later, a new company named the Anglo-American Association is reported to have shipped several railway carloads of metallic antimony to New York during 1885 (Jermain and Ricker, 1949).

The Boushey company and Anglo-American Association, hauled their ore to the canyon floor with mules along a path that switched back and forth down the steep west side of Antimony Mountain. Metallic antimony from the smelter was then hauled in wagons to Bakersfield and from there by railroad.

Intermittent mining continued until 1892 when the Kern County Land Company purchased the claims.

Since that time active mining has only occurred at two brief intervals during the First and Second World Wars. In 1914, the price of antimony tripled to over 20 cents per pound, and mining and smelting operations were briefly resumed, apparently using the old Boushey smelters. This operation shipped five or six railway carloads of ore during World War I.

In 1940 major exploratory drilling and trenching work was performed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines pursuant to a Congressional mandate to determine whether the area was suitable as an emergency antimony reserve. For seven months, from November 1940 through May 1941, a crew headed by two mining engineers camped in a meadow just north of the peak. During that period they built over 2.5 miles of roads and trails and dug 80 trenches.

In 1941, Charles Fife from Frazier Park mined and shipped about 5 tons of ore which contained 35 percent antimony.

In 1957-58, the Big Pine Mining Company mined about 3 tons of ore. It is estimated that no more than 600 tons of metallic antimony has been produced from the antimony mines since 1882.

The remains of the 1957 workings consist of a caved-in tunnel and a wooden structure that can be found by following a fading road about half a mile down the north side of the mountain. The demolished remnants of a cabin from the 1957 operations can be found in the flat area a few hundred yards north and east of the summit.

In June 1970, the Tenneco Mining Corp. commissioned a four-man survey crew from Glendale to file mining claims and dig a trench. A geologist and other Tenneco employees occasionally came to assist the survey crew.

The road that was carved out on the south side of the peak by the Big Pine Company in 1957, now overgrown and blocked in places by small slides, provides the most convenient way to climb Antimony Peak today.

Padre Mine


Crow