Skeeter1996 Posted; ([msg=285697]Original Thread[/msg])
Spent my career searching for a lost mining claim. The claim was mislocated in another section and the GLO failed to tie the USLM when they surveyed the section. I've gotten the complete record file from the National Archives, but they were no additional help. Has anyone stumbled on a place where I might find hints on where this claim is located? I've spent numerous days looking for diggings and stones to no avail.
More information:
It's a silver Patented load claim located in Montana in the Running Wolf Mining District in the 1890's. The USLM location was mislocated in the wrong section, So the GLO did not tie it when they surveyed the township in the early 1900's. Somebody picked up on the mislocation and penciled in a different Section number on the County's tax Map. The Forest Service's Office records also have the same corrected Section penciled in. The Original Patentee was a Great Falls, Montana founding father Herbert Chowen. He probably never visited the claim. He only had daughters and there are none of his personal papers archived anywhere that I could find. I did find a reference of a Drawer M located in Denver, but could never find a source that had knowledge of a Drawer for Mining claims.
The Mineral Surveyor was James Monroe. He did several other claims in the general area about the same time. He marked his monuments very well and set corners exactly like he described. His surveying is beyond reproach. I'm probably the oldest person around with any knowledge of the area left alive. The present owner bought the claim on speculation and he and the past owner have no idea where it might be located. The only description of the USLM is that it lies 600 feet North of Running Wolf Creek. Unfortunately Running Wolf Creek has two branches in this area. There were two tunnels constructed on the claim long enough to have generated detectable tailings. There are no Lat Long location in the Patent and USLM documents. After several years of searching I have found no tailings or diggings in any of the suspected location areas. The State BLM Office has no records other than the Patent documents. The Archive records I obtained from the National Archives has all the documents pertaining to the claim, but none contain hints on where it might be located. Some where there has to have been a map or directions to the Mineral Surveyor on how to get to the claim.
You might want to look at:
Twentieth Annual Report
of the United States Geological Survey
1898-99
Part III
Precious-Metal Mining Districts
It mentions several claims (mines) in the Running Wolf Mining District.
Pages 450 - 453 (601 - 604 in the PDF)
Claims mentioned:
Woodhurst-Mortson
Sir Walter Scott
Mountainside
Ada
Cascade
Keystone
Lookout
Yankee Girl
Eureka
I did get that record from a research trip to Butte, Montana before internet days. I did locate the Yankee Girl claim and talked to an old miner who knew about it. He didn't remember anything about the Ada Cascade mines. There still is a pile of ore from Yankee Girl near the railroad in Stanford, Montana. They mined there almost to the 1950's. The reference that the Ada Cascade mines were located north of Running Wolf Creek leads me to believe they were looking at a map to make that determination.
Thanks for the post!
This is one of my hobbies.
I would look in the following places for records of the mine.
County Recorder's office - They may have some leather bound books containing the earliest claims from the mining districts that regulated the mining before formal governments were started and before the patent process was started.
County Surveyor's Office - Many times the county surveyor would perform tunnel and ditch surveys in a private capacity and those records may still be in the county files. They may also have copies of old maps that show prospects or tunnels.
County Assessor's Office - Mining claims are real property that was taxed.
Title Insurance Company - The older title insurance companies sometimes have records that the county government does not.
USGS - Usually claims that were worked for any length of time had a tent/shack/cabin and a trail leading to the diggings. Since the trails were the primary method of transportation in the early days, the USGS was very good about showing trails, cabins, prospects, tunnels, and shafts on the early quads.
Google Books - Google Books has a huge volume of historical records – many of them are free. I would search for “Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior” , “Annual Reports of the US Department of the Interior”, “Annual Report of the State Mineralogists”. There is a wealth of information in these records. I would search for the names of the previous owners as well as the mine names.
Digital newspaper service - Research old newspaper articles (using mine name, owner, creek name, mining district name, ect.). The smallest information made the news back in the day.
I would review any adjacent patented claims in the area. Many times the applicant would show neighboring mines as supporting evidence that the land was mineral in nature.
Historical USFS mapping. Sometimes they had the most detailed mapping if the USGS was late in mapping to the 1:2400 scale.
Local Museum – many times people donate historical maps and records to the museum that get stored in a basement somewhere.
In the field - looking for physical evidence of the mine.
I would seek assistance from someone who is experienced with a metal detector and familiar with searching for old mines/cabins i.e. a relic hunter or a miner.
It appears that mining district has a lot of limestone deposits. Is it possible that the lode deposit was discovered in a limestone cave and the waste rock was disposed of inside the cave? This would explain the lack of visible evidence and could also make the mine easy to conceal.
If it was high grade ore, they may have just packed out the best ore on a mule. Otherwise they would have to use another method to transport bulk ore to a place where it could be processed at a profit.
They may have chuted the ore down the hill to a stamp mill (depending on the terrain). This stamp mill would probably be near the creek. It may have been water powered, which would require a ditch or flume to obtain head. It could also be steam powered or battery powered. All of these methods left evidence that can be found. It was common to dump the tailings out of the stamp mill into a creek where they could be washed away.
They may have also used an aerial tramway to move the ore depending on the terrain.
Regardless of how they processed the ore, one thing is for sure, if they worked the mine for any length of time, there will be a trail leading from the cabin to the mine and from the mine to the processing area.
There must have been good ore in the mine or it wouldn’t have qualified for patent. There should have been test pits proving that the deposit was not isolated and small. In the late 1890’s, it does not appear that there were very many producing mines in that mining district. I would be surprised if a claim qualified for patent that it would not have been mentioned in a report at some point (perhaps under a different name).
I've reviewed all the claims in the area. Some did reference claims that never went to patent. Do you know a source of unpatented claim information on the chance that they tied into the USLM of the claim I'm looking for. None of the other claims ever used his USLM, they established new ones.
Unfortunately the County this claim was staked in was divided into three other Counties and records are scattered over the three Counties. It's been kind of a dead end there.
The newspapers are a good lead. The patentee was quite flambouyant and I'm sure received a lot of press on whatever he was involved with. In researching his history I found he was frequently promoting for investors for his endeavors.
They slide ore down off the mountain in a sled ore boat on one claim. Today it's hard to find any evidence of that except the trees are younger in the area of the slide. That claim was worked until the 1950's. I've walked all over the area and never encountered any trails. There was a town at the confluence of the Creek, supposedly there was a school and hotel, but I couldn't find any evidence of them.
The terrain is very steep and I'm to old to climb the mountains. I would have to find the USLM near the creek, before I hiked up the mountain looking for the claims.
It's not a hobby with me, just an obsession.
There was a mill site mentioned in another patented claim with the same name as the claim I'm looking for, but they didn't give any directions to it and it never went to patent. If a guy could find any unpatented mine information that would be a great help
So the Ada and Cascade mines are the ones you are looking for?
I'll get back to you tomorrow if I have time to do a little on-line research.
Yes, Ada Cascade are the ones I'm after. They have a common boundary and are on the same plat.
I'm sure you have been to this site already, but it has an extensive list of resources of reports that may describe your mines. I noticed that the Keystone claim was described as being north of the creek same as the Ada and Cascade. Have you found any information on the Keystone claim?
The Weed citings were the only references I could find that referenced the Ada/Cascade Lodes and they didn't have any hints to the location. I don't think Weed actually visited the claims, he just reported on the recorded outputs. I don't think I ever found any references to Keystone.
Did you obtain a copy of the original field notes for the mineral survey? These should have been filed along with the survey.
You mentioned that Chowen applied for the original patent. Have you been able to find any of his previous claim notices in the county records? This would have been Fergus County at the time, then in 1920 became Judith Basin County?
Perhaps Chowen was taken on as a partner on the Ada Cascade mines and eventually bought the original owner out. If there was another owner, it may give you another name to search under at the court house.
I wonder if Chowen had any water rights along Running Wolf Creek that may have been associated with the mine/mill or a homestead?
Any subsequent patent surveys within 2 miles should have used your mineral monument as a reference before establishing a new mineral monument, However rugged terrain may have prevented this from being convenient.
Between the 1896 edition and the 1902 edition, a cabin and a trail were added to the USGS quad. Have you determine which mine this cabin was associated with? It appears there was a wagon road leading to the cabin. 
As a side note,
Mr. H.O. Chowen later became the manager of the American Sapphire Company and opened a sapphire cutting company in Great Falls.
He then started the Yogo American Sapphire Company, which operated the Yogo Blue Sapphire mines several miles south of your location. It was claimed that he supplied 90% of the worlds supply of watch movement sapphires at one time.
.
Chowen's name was misspelled on the Initial claim as Israel Owens. Made me think someone else was filing the claim for him. I got the entire filing record from the National Archives. It's suspicious that the other claims didn't use his USLM because it should have been right next to the creek and easy to access. There is a promenient rock boulder alongside the creek that looked very promising, but we could never find any marks on it and ties from it to search areas didn't turn up anything. I've got several old Forest Service topographys of the area, but they didn't map the mineral claims on them. I found those on Ebay.
I didn't know he was involved in the Yogo Shappire mines. He was Paris Gibson's accountant and I figured he was trying to get a piece of the action for himself.
An Old Timer(Norm Whitaker)told me there was a Hotel located about where the two forks of Running Wolf Creek come together. I couldn't find any remains of the Hotel or the School house that was suppose to be located there also. He lived in the area all of his life and hadn't heard of the mines.
The Ada Millsite never got patented so I don't think he would have gone after water rights. One of the other claims mentioned the mill site. That claim was farther up the creek so it made me think Ada/Cascade was down the creek. I think they were packing everything out to Stanford where the railroad was located. It was a well used road and a petitioned County Road. The county Road petition didn't mention what mines it was accessing. I know they hauled the ore out to Stanford from the Yankee Girl right up to the 1950's.
I think the area you have circled in yellow is to far up the drainage. The GLO Plat showed a cabin on the south side of the South fork of Running Wolf, but The Weeds document referenced the claims as being on the North side of the creek. There was all kinds of activity in that drainage. It has a large iron deposit North a couple of miles and numerous mines.
The split of the County caused a lot of problems. I did find a reference in the Meagher County Courthouse, but it didn't give any clues to the where abouts of the claims. The Staffs in the Counties are not much help in searching the files as the old ones were.
Since you have mentioned the USLM so many times, let’s start there. All of the Mineral Monuments I have found have been on prominent points of good visibility. You should be able to just drive (or walk) up the road and back down again, looking at the terrain and pick out the one place it would be. You may even be able to pick out the spot looking at the topo on the Quad sheet, but many times the Quad sheet does not have enough detail to catch it. Of course one of the best ways to find it would be to research the other patent surveys done by the same surveyor in that mining district of claims that can be identified and tie the USLM back in from those claims. We always do this on paper (coordinates and maps) before heading out into the field and it makes better use of the time in the field. Always be sure to have all the field notes before going to the field so that you know exactly what to look for and what the accessories were to help in identifying anything you find. Your statement about it being down next to the creek would be foreign to my findings from the past. What does the description say? There is no sense in looking at the boulder if that is not what is described.
You have not mentioned looking at the MT Plats in the BLM office. I would certainly suggest that.
What we typically do is plot out the claim boundary as shown on the patent map and then add all the calls to topographic details from the field notes. That way you can plot it at the same elevation as the topo map and be able to shift it around to see how it fits over the creeks and ridges. That may help you get a handle on where it would fit. This is all hard for us to “see” since you have not posted any of the info for us to see as we try to help. All in all I would not expect you to be able to find the claim by walking up and down the creek. There are features out there up on the mountains that have to be looked at. I have not seen the patent survey, but there may not have been anything set down along the creek. If you have not been able to see any remains of buildings, how do you think you could find a mining claim corner? After plotting it up you will have a much better idea of where to look.
I quickly glanced at the mineral survey plat and it appeared that the township listed was north of where I was looking on that topo map. Did they get just section wrong or the township as well?
You didn't mention if you had a copy of the original field notes for the survey? Do the notes reference Running Wolf Creek?
Posting up scanned images of the information you have would probably generate some discussion, but it IS a lost mine and you may not want to do that.
By the way, according to the Internet - Henry H. Chandler was a banker and was in responsible charge of the Montana State Fair Mineral Exhibit. He died from a heart attack in Feb. 14th 1898 in Great Falls.
Chowen was also on the State Fair Board.
Arthur E. Dickerman was a banker, who served as the county treasurer.
Chandler, Dickerman (and others)invested in other mining ventures in Montana.
Dickerman was also involved with a property investment with Chowen and his mother in Great Falls. The sale of the land to the city (for a park)resulted in a legal battle that went to the Montana Supreme Court.
As to the location of the old hotel, someone familiar with relic hunting - good with a metal detector could point out to you exactly where the hotel stood.
> I quickly glanced at the mineral survey plat and it appeared that the township listed was north of where I was looking on that topo map. Did they get just section wrong or the township as well?
The Township, Range, Section listed on the mineral survey puts it at the forks of Dry Wolf Creek, not Running Wolf Creek. What makes you think the claim is supposed to be along Running Wolf Creek (one township south)?
Those guys were all listed in the preliminary claim documents, but I could never find any claims under their names. That's where Herbert Chowen was identified as Israel Owens. They were all big wigs in Great Falls and were probably some shifty characters. Their names disappeared and Herbert Chowen was the only one listed in the final Patent.
The description of the USLM has a call of it being 600 feet from Running Wolf Creek. One problem is the creek has two forks in that area. The USLM is documented and is of record. Not much help in locating it. It has a call to the creek and an approximate distance to Stanford. MT. We looked up and down both sides of the creek quite a ways down and the boulder I mentioned earlier was the only logical place for a USLM. As I mentioned earlier it never panned out.
We plotted the mine shaft drifts on an overlay and slide it around on a contour map looking for spots the slopes would match the shaft's drift. Searched old aerial photos for signs of diggings. We searched those areas and could never find any tailings or diggings. The country in the area has healed up pretty well in that area and it's even hard to find evidence of claims we know where they are located. We did that to get an idea of what the diggings would look like. The openings are collapsed a few feet back and overgrown with trees and vegetation. Even those are hard to spot when you know where to look.
On the MT Plat the claim is shown in the legend. It's position isn't mapped out. They didn't know where it is was located either. The Patent map is labeled with the wrong Township and somebody corrected it in pencil on the Forest Service's copy of the Plat.
I once found a reference to a Drawer M located in the Denver office. I could never find anyone who could tell me what or how to get materials from that drawer.
Norm Whitaker died a few years back. He was raised and went to the school located in Running Wolf. He would be over a 100 years old today. I chatted with him several times. He had a very good memory. He had never heard of Ada/Cascade mines. The shafts were not very long so it probably didn't get mined more than a year or two.
Skeeter, you mentioned that the USFS's copy had the correction penciled in.
Have you seen the copy that BLM has scanned...
The correction has been crossed out and the note below erased.
The note reads "(on line bet. secs 13&12, T14N R 10E. Maybe)"
What does this number represent? Is this the MT Plat page?
I assume it stands for "connection sheet/s". There is a stamp on other surveys that says "Con. Line Agrees With___"
I also don't know if you were aware, but several months before the Ada/Cascade was surveyed, Chowen had two other claims surveyed in T14N, R10E (MS#3073 & 3074). Mountain Side and Last Chance. These were also surveyed by James Monroe using the same compass variation of 19°50'E. These surveys referenced "I.P. No. 2, T14N, R10E" These surveys do not appear in the database under Chowen.
Could it be possible that I.P. #2 is the same reference monument as Mineral Monument No. 3285 that was utilized 3 months later during a survey for the same claim owner? Could I.P. #2 have been utilized by other surveys by Monroe?
I think it would not hurt to find Mountain Side and Last Chance, back I.P. #2 in and assume it was Monument No. 3285 to see if Ada/Cascade would fall on the north side of the creek.
I would look at all of the surveys Monroe did in the area and look at how his compass variations to see if there was a pattern.
OK, Skeeter,
Do you really want to keep going with this information, knowing that anyone else in the world can read it and will be privy to what help we provide? So far I think we have given you some good ideas and all that, but what comes next may make it relatively easy for anyone to start looking in the right spots. Just wanted to check in with you on that before posting any more info. I may be talked into coming out in the spring and helping you get located on the ground. Maybe we can talk a couple more surveyors into showing up also. Could be a fun experience.
