Medford mail tribune., February 23, 1936, Page 19, Image 19

Mrs. T. W. Wheat studied gold mining at the Sacramento Go'd Mining jT .
S She is here showing a woman
T"UST lies deep off the pavement;
D prospector holes peer from man-zanita-covered
hills; but the sleepy
cliost towns of the early gold mining
days In Western United States no
longer are sleepy they're pulsing to a
new golden thrill. A thrill created by
that flashing, yellow, hard-worked-for '
metal, gold.
Hundreds of men, many of them with
their families, are moving into these old
towns, building new homes or occupying
old ones, long vacant. These men are
on the search for gold or else have taken
a Job with some mine. Among these men
is a new type of gold seeker, women.
There are women who are successful
as steamship captains, doctors, lawyers,
building contractors, baseball players,
tennis players, explorers, Governors,
legislators others of the fair sex have
pioneered in aviation, but with all the
infiltration of women into various lines
of business, the one line we would least
expect to find headed by a woman Is
that of mining.
Mining today, generally speaking, is
different from in the eighteen-hundreds
when gold was discovered in California.
Today as a whole it is carried on with
giant machinery specially designed to
mine deposits in large quantities. Of
course, some mining is still carried on
by the use of the rocker, gold pan and
sluice boxes. No matter what the method
today, it Is still a man's Job, as In the
days when gold was first discovered.
One of the modern methods of dig
ging deep Into old stream channels to
take out gold Is the dredger. Surely a
gold dredge is far too masculine ever to
become affected by the feminine touch.
Maybe that's what you think.
BUT the dredging field, too, has come
under the spell of at least one young
woman, and today she Is endowed with
the title of the only woman operator of
a gold dredge in the world. She Is Miss
Mary E. Smith, of Lewlston, Trinity
County, California.
Miss Smith took over the active man
agement of the Trinity Dredging Com
pany in 1926, three years after the death
of her father and the settlement of his
estate. During the Interim the company
had been managed by her brother, E. L.
Smith, Jr. His interests lay more with
dredge design and building than opera
tion, so he retired as active head of the
company In favor of his sister.
Miss Smith's first task was the re
building of the old dredge, which had
been In constant use for thirteen years.
A new hull was Installed and the ma
chinery transferred to it, the dredge re
suming operations in the Spring of
2P36.
This dredge had been originally built
by her father in 1913. and differed from
other California dredgers Inasmuch as It
was especially designed as a sluice type,
to handle the coarse, gold found In the
Trinity River. There is no stacker In
the rear, but a type of placer sluice over
which the gravel Is washed for thei re.
covery of the gold; the debris and tail
ings pass out over a rock chute at the
side of the dredge.
While this method would be con
:iV r7-v- xvwivr lVVvUV '' j, f miss Mary ii. smun. of i.ewimon, cant., is me
sidered crude in other localities, the
coarse gold of the Trinity ,Rlver does not
need finer recovery methods.
Miss Smith's dredge has a digging
depth of thirty-nine feet and uses eleven
cubic foot buckets. In order to dig Into
the bedrock of the region of operation,
the buckets are wide-mouthed and
linked at widely spaced intervals on the
bucket line.
To date the Trinity Dredging Com
pany has dredged about 450 acres of
property, following the spotty placer
geology of the district. More than half
of this acreage has been dredged under
Miss Smith's supervision.
There are from sixteen to eighteen
men steadily employed on her dredger.
From 90,000 to 100,000 cubic yards are
handled monthly.
Provided additional property can be
acquired, Miss Smith Intends to remain
in the dredging business as long as she
has a dredge to operate. And, from the
present indications, that means a long
time, for this woman falls to regard
her choice of a career as unique. To her,
gold dredging is Just a business enter
prise to which she has been able to
adapt herself profitably.
ANOTHER woman miner Is Mrs. Ruth
B. Frazler, a former resident of San
Francisco, Calif., and niece of Congress
man clarence F. Lea, of Santa Rosa,
Calif. She thinks mining Is a lot of
fun, and she doesn't mind the hard work
a bit. Eventually, she believes, the mine
she Is developing on the old Saucerman
properties near Georgetown, Calif., will
net her a nice fortune.
"It is not Just because I expect mining
to make me some money that I think it
is fun," she said. "To make my story
complete I must go back four years. I
found myself in poor health, caused by
a highly nervous state of mfnd. My
doctors advised me to get Into the out
doors away from people, or at least the
crowds in the large cities.
"I had never lived a life in the great
open places before, but always feeling
competent to do anything, ; set out with
my two children, Donald, now 15. and
Ruth, 18. Eventually, after working hard
to build ourselves a home, I took up
mining.
Sure, it was hard at first, but now
.h . R . R
you cannot get me away from It. I love
our mountain home and so do my chil
dren. Some day we will build ourselves
a larger house. I don't mind the work
any more. I have my health back. I
have muscles In my arms, enough to
knock any man down.
"Strangely enough and unknowingly.
I returned to the old haunts of my
grandfather, James E. Lea, who came to
Georgetown In the early fifties and
made a fortune out of mining.
"Upon arriving at the site of my pres
ent home my children and myself set
up a modest camp. We then went about
building ourselves a log cabin. We
cleared the land of manzanita and
chaparral. At first the work was so
hard for us that we could saw and chop
oown but six tough manzanita trees In
one day. Later we wera able to work
-i v n
If there's gold In
"them thar hills"
Mrs. Ruth R. Frazier
hopes to And it. She
is here shown at the
entrance of her mine
all day cutting many of the shrubs from
the land where our home was to stand.
"Eventually we completed our present
home. It was new health and strength
gained by work on the cabin that turned
my thoughts to mining."
OTARTTNO as a society woman looking
Jfor health, she found It and now doesn't
rare a thing about the big cities. She
can now muck 110 buckets of rock and
dirt, each bucket weighing 200 pounds.
In a day. She has broken as much as
six tons of rock In a day. She drills
tier own powder holes, using an auger
for soft materials and a hand drill for
rock, fills them with powder and does
her own shooting.
Near Grass Valley, California, a
woman has proved that the senti
mentality and lh faith of a man in his
Rocky Mountain Valleys Are Dotted
I k' i l
With Claims Where Women
Actually Are Working and
Supervising the Mining of
Yellow Metal And
Thev Are Successfi
old home place were well founded. She
has made It possible for that faith to be
remunerative far beyond this man's
wildest dreams.
Thirty years ago George Icard left
Grass Valley for the Philippine Islands,
where many mines are now under his
control. Then, and since, he has had
the ambition to estnbllsh a mine on the
family homestead In the Rough and
Ready district.
Icard left for the Philippine Islands
to make his fortune at mining when a
youth. Throughout the years, through
bad fortune and finally through good,
he retained control of the Icard Ranch
for sentimental reasons as well as the
belief the property would prove valuable.
Continually he poured money Into the
property until $30,000 had been spent
trying to develop a mine on the ranch.
Many mining men tried but failed.
A few months ago his niece, Mrs.
Joan Icard Kelly, took charge of the
work at the Icard Ranch Mine. She
took steps to prove that her uncle's'
faith was well founded. It was her be
lief that the work was being carried on
la the wrong place.
SHE put diamond drills to work on an
other section of the land. A rich ore
vein at about the 100-foot level was con
tacted, assaying at times as high as 134
a ton. Ore from 12 to $3 a ton in dia
mond drilling is considered good.
There are mnny other stories of the
activities of women In mining. There
in Mrs. George Morgan, wife of one ,of
the partners operating the Davey Mine
at Oarden Valley, California. She has
helped her husband develop this mine
from a mere prospect Into an active
producer.
She was helping the two men when
they encountered rich ore In the bottom
of the 120-foot shaft. She panned $700
In gold out of a small quantity of quartz
In less than an hour.
Recently George William Smith, of the
Bennett Company at Etna, Calif, dis
played a 1450 turtle-shaped gold nugget.
It was found by Mrs. M Filch, near the
Bonnally placer mine on the Salmon
River, where she had been mining with
her husband for several weeks.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bums were con
vinced there was still loose gold to be
found In Southern Oregon, so they went
there a few months ago from Oklahoma
to learn prospecting.
Mrs. Burns took her turn with her
husband, shoveling gravel, working the
rockers and cleaning the sluices, besides
doing her housework.
While thousands in Oregon and Cali
fornia make only a meager living, a few
make exceptional finds. Mrs. Burns Is
one of those few. While panning a
gravel deposit she uncovered a nugget
which brought her $1015.
One of the most notable as well as
unusual small gold mines In Amador
County, California, Is one operated by
A r j. l I
only woman gold dredge manager working on the
rivers of the Golden State
the Peterson family, six miles east of
Jackson, near Pine Orove. From a chance
piece of quartz found by William Peter
son the mine developed into a bonanza
producer.
They found gold from the very grass
roots. Instead of chicken farming, pie
entire family, even the women, turned
to mining. The mine was operated as
a family vault or private bank.
If either Mrs. Peterson or her daugh
ters needed a new dress all they had to
do was go In the mine, break off a few
pieces of the quartz and mill the gold
out of It. Through their help the mine
was gradually developed to the extent
that men could be hired to do the work
and machinery bought to grind up the
rock and extract the gold.
rpHEN there la the Golden Aster mine
-- near Hot Springs, Ariz. Visitors at
this mine have seen at work, setting ore,
a well preserved woman of 70. She Is
Mrs, C. E. Champln, owner and super
intendent of operations, working three
men bringing up gold from levels down
to 500 feet.
Fifty-five years ago she and her hus
band rode a stage from Texas into the
Hot Springs country and there she has
lived since.
She has reared ten children. Two
grandsons still work the "Little Joe
Mine," the first claim staked out by
their grandfather. '
She has remarked: "I learned about
mining by going with my husband In
those early days. It was lonesome and
dangerous In the camp.
"There was the menace of prowling
Indians In the days before Oeronlmo
was captured, but afterward more real
damage was done by his former allies,
Mexican bandits."
THERE are many records of women
owning mines, among which are Mrs.
Dades Dell Davis, of Hollywood, owner of
the Sunshine and Last Chinee Mines In
Plumas County, California, which are
planning to open In the near future, and
two twin sisters, Miss Maybell and Isa
411 Dlratel, who some time ago took
over placer mining claims on the mouth
of Middle Creek near Redding, Calif.,
calling them the Maybell and Isabel!
mines.
Mrs. Ellemerle Morgan, of Placcrvllle,
Calif., not only owns a half Interest In
the Three Queens Mine but she Is the
superintendent of the project.
The operation of the mine, which Is
located four miles from Forest Hill In a
rich mining district, Is completely under
her personal direction. Nattily attired
In boots, breeches and white sweater,
she directs fourteen men In operating
the ten-stamp mill, two plate and con
centrating tables and mining operations
on the ty 100 and 270-foot levels.
Mrs. Morgan Is the o.ueen of the Tiire
Queens Mine, and she rules it like a
queen. At present she Is planning to
expand her operations to Butte, Mont.,
where she Is interested In a 12,000-acrt
gravel claim.
Cteyiir'ti
PAGE THREE