In the past I have posted about an old General Land Office practice that I euphemistically called the "Binger Hermann Policy".?ÿ Mr. Binger Hermann was the GLO Commissioner when the policy was implemented.?ÿ Below are two threads I posted based on this policy.
These two threads describe how a Colorado appointed U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor was to show the positions of prior official surveys from July 1899 through August 1904.?ÿ The deputy was required to make ties between his survey and all PLSS corners/U.S. Location Monuments that prior official surveys had made connections to during their approved surveys.?ÿ The deputy "snapped" the record positions of each of the prior surveys to his surveyed positions of the PLSS corners.?ÿ He then computed the theoretical positions of each prior official survey, displaying those positions on his plat and intersecting ties in his official field notes.
The following example reinforces this policy through a near-endless repetition of the above method.?ÿ Since the Grassy Gulch Placer Claim Land Decision had limited the number of tracts that a placer claim could patent to a single tract, one or more contiguous lode claims were required after 1900 to sweep up miscellaneous fractions, gaps and gores between previously located lode claims.
PRELIMINARIES
To begin, here is a history of a section located in mountainous terraine WSW of Colorado Springs, CO.?ÿ The section of interest is Sec. 18, T. 15 S., R. 69 W., 6th PM.?ÿ The township subdivision plat was approved in 1877 and took U.S. Deputy Surveyors Fowler and Colby 2 weeks to complete.?ÿ The entire township was returned as being non-mineral in character and upon approval, Secs. 16 and 36 were conveyed to the new State of Colorado as "school sections".?ÿ There was little interest in the area for the next thirteen years!
Close-up showing Sec. 18.?ÿ The stream running through the section from NE to SW was interestingly called Poverty Gulch.
Sometime prior to 1900 an undated "supplemental diagram" of the Cripple Creek Mining District was prepared that depicted new courses and distances for several sections in the mining district (parts of 6 townships).
Note the disparity in the positions of the streams between the two plats.?ÿ Holding the SE Cor. of Sec. 18 to be the same the below sketch shows the original lines in blue and the "amended" lines in red.
In the years leading up to 1892 the land in this area was mainly used as summer range for cattle.?ÿ Finally in 1892 the first mineral survey in the section was conducted on the Short Stop Lode (MS 7335) in February and approved on March 29, 1892.
Well, it didn't take too long for there to be a conflict!?ÿ The El Paso Lode, Sur. No. 7377 was surveyed in March and approved on June 8, 1892.?ÿ In fact the conflict between the two claims had to be resolved since the discovery of the El Paso fell within the area of conflict with the Short Stop Lode.?ÿ An amended plat was prepared for the Short Stop Lode and approved on June 19, 1892.
The El Paso Lode Claim was discovered on October 20, 1890 and located on November 20, 1890 by Bob Womack, a cowboy by trade who had scoured the lands to the southwest of Pikes Peak since 1876 when his family moved into the area.?ÿ Womack's father Samuel homesteaded in the area of Poverty Gulch.?ÿ The Short Stop Lode was located by James Duggan on January 14, 1892 and therefore was junior in right to the El Paso Lode despite having a lower survey number and being surveyed and approved before the El Paso Lode.
Below is a link to a brief history of Bob Womack and his discovery of gold in Cripple Creek.
Bob had his dreams and followed the creek beds with his keen eye, searching for that last gold strike. He had a theory there was still gold in the valley of Cripple Creek. Not in the hills, but probably washed down in the creeks and rivers over the hundreds of thousands of years those hills had been there. One day, sure enough! He spotted gold in a creek bed near his family's ranch in 1878. He followed the creek for years and figured a rich vein of gold was the supplier to this creek.
His search finally paid off on October 20, 1890 and Bob Womack staked his claim at the assay office in Colorado Springs. He called it the El Paso Lode. The find assayed at $250 a ton, but nobody paid attention to Ole' Bob; they'd heard it before. The following spring, a mining man, Ed De LaVergne took some interest and formed the Cripple Creek Mining District on April 5, 1891. With the filing of his claim and the new mining district, Womack started the Last gold rush in Colorado. Within weeks, thousands of miners and prospectors, gambler and fortune seekers set up tents, cabins and lean-to's up and down the main dirt street of Cripple Creek.
The story goes, Ole' Bob had a passion for liquor and sold his claim for $500.00 and a bottle one night at the local saloon. Some old-timers don't hold with this theory. It must have been an overwhelming sense of euphoria for Bob to have finally located the source of the gold vein he knew all along was there. Whatever the story, Womack didn't make out too well with his claim; about five million total dollars eventually came out of his original find. The El Paso Lode later became part of the rich Gold King Mining operations.
It wasn't so much that Bob was looking to get rich, but to discover the elusive vein and piece together that incredible jigsaw puzzle of rock formations and erosion causing threads of high grade ore to run rampant. It may be true Bob sold his claim for $500.00 and a bottle, but probably because he had finally, after fifteen years of searching, proven, if only to himself, that there really was a vein of gold running smack-dab through Poverty Gulch! It most likely didn't occur to him what a rich vein it really was. So went the story of hundreds of prospectors.
Well, Ole' Bob did not fair too well at all.?ÿ The claimant listed on the mineral survey plat for the El Paso was the Gold King Mining Company.?ÿ Below is the link to the GLO plat.
After a little more than 10 years of activity, the Stratton Cripple Creek Mining and Development Company located the Alice No. 1 through Alice No. 15 lode mining claims in the section to sweep up the remaining fractions.?ÿ A mineral survey order was issued to U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor, E.S. Snell on August 23, 1902.?ÿ Deputy Snell labored on the survey for nearly one year submitting three drafts of the field notes and preliminary plat.?ÿ On August 11, 1903 an "amended" survey order was issued where U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor F.S. Cox took over the survey.?ÿ Deputy Cox submitted 4 sets of returns and preliminary plats before the survey was finally accepted on August 31, 1904.
The survey was supposedly accepted and approved after the Binger Hermann policy had been finally overturned, but that was not the case (most likely because of the 2 years of effort to get the survey approved).
The fifteen Alice lodes are contiguous to each other and meander through Sec. 18.?ÿ The mineral surveyors made connections to 1 section corner and all four 1/4 corners of Sec. 18.?ÿ The ties fit the dimensions shown on the undated supplemental diagram shown above almost perfectly.?ÿ The next diagram shows 7 lode claims where the mineral surveys have ties to the 5 above corners and the NE and NW Sec. Cors. of Sec. 18.?ÿ The dashed lines indicate which PLSS corner each mineral survey is tied to.?ÿ In other words, which PLSS corner the record is pinned to like the child's game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
The following sketch shows the theoretical positions for the 7 lode claims.?ÿ From the NW Cor. of Sec. 18 and moving clockwise until the W1/4 Cor. of Sec. 18 are:
Rosetta Lode Claim, Sur. No. 8575;
Dead Horse Lode Claim, Sur. No. 7501;
Devide Lode Claim, Sur. No. 9356, Amended;
Bennie Lode Claim, Sur. No. 8197, Amended;
Emma Aimee Lode Claim, Sur. No. 8397;
North Lode Claim, Sur. No. 13577, Amended; and
Crescent Lode Claim, Sur. No. 8615, Second Amended.
Again, the above claims are positioned based on the record information for each claim, not the monumented position of the original, undisturbed scribed posts or chiseled stones marking the corners.
The next sketch shows the shampoo, rinse and repeat exercise for the remaining 105 mineral surveys.
And here is the sketch showing all 112 mineral surveys that are senior to the Alice Lode Mining Claims, Sur. No. 16090
For those wishing to check my work, below is a link to the GLO Records plat of Alice No. 1 through Alice No. 15 Lode Claims, Sur. No. 16090.?ÿ Enjoy!?ÿ ??ÿ
If you squint really hard, you may make out some of the fractions, gaps and gores between 112 patented mineral surveys.?ÿ The sketch below shows the discoveries (magenta circles) and lode lines (red lines) for the fifteen Alice lodes.?ÿ Each discovery is located on open ground although to be correct, I should say what is theoretically open ground.
The next sketch shows the outlines of the Alice lodes (magenta) and the discontiguous tracts (green) with the senior lode claims that for the most part delineate the theoretical open ground that the Stratton Mining Co. wishes to obtain a patent.?ÿ The approved field notes for the Alice lodes (includes additional field notes) are 226 pages in length and describe Tracts "A" through "TT" (a total of 46 tracts).
To add modern reality to the theoretical exercise, here is a NAIP image (2015) of Sec. 18 with the senior lodes and Alice tracts.?ÿ The majority of the claims in the SE 1/4 are now floating in space.?ÿ The open pit mining operation annually produces approx. 250,000 oz. of Au (See Cripple Creek History ).?ÿ It also states that historically the Cripple Creek Mining District and its nearly 500 mines produced 22,400,000 oz. of Au.
A sketch showing the Alice lodes and tracts.
And the NAIP 2015 imagery with the Alice lodes and tracts.
Finally, it is worth remembering that lode mining claims are local in character.?ÿ In other words, they begin with a discovery of a locatable mineral as defined in the 1872 Mining Law.?ÿ The claimant then conducts additional work to delineate the bearing of the lode (i.e. trace the apex of the mineralized vein).?ÿ Below is a sketch showing the discoveries (magenta circles) and lode lines (red lines) of the 163 senior lode claims that comprise the 112 senior mineral surveys.
And here is the same sketch with the NAIP 2015 imagery.?ÿ There are two significant trends for the mineralized veins in the Cripple Creek Mining District; those being SW - NE and SSE-NNW.
And, just to verify that the fifteen Alice lodes discoveries are located within the theoretical tracts (open ground) this sketch shows the results.
The last two plots include the Master Title Plat information.?ÿ It is probably time now to state that the Stratton Cripple Creek Mining and Development Co. was required to file five applications for patent because the Land Office regarded one patent to be too complicated.?ÿ The five patents are comprised of 150 pages and the "Expressly Excepting and Excluding" clauses are very time consuming to go through to see what was actually patented.?ÿ The total acreage for all five patents was slightly more than 9 acres of ground; albeit very valuable ground.?ÿ But remember, the 9 acres is for the theoretical fractions!
Sketch of claim outlines, theoretical tracts to be patented and the Supplemental MTP for Sec. 18.
Same supplemental MTP superimposed on the NAIP 2015 imagery.
As some would say, just a blizzard of boundary lines!
Hope you enjoy my fairy tale about theoretical boundaries that are not too different from today's notions of staking deed descriptions instead of retracing the original boundary lines as established on the ground.?ÿ History does have a way of repeating itself, esp. for those that don't bother to read it.
P.S.?ÿ Buried in the NE1/4 of Sec. 18 is the Stranger Lode, Sur. No. 10501.?ÿ It had several court proceedings and adverse claims that created a somewhat unique disposition of the land.?ÿ The case is a DOI Land Decision (28 LD 321).?ÿ Here is the plot from the Land Decision that graphically shows the land disposition.?ÿ Sketches are original plat, amended plat and LD sketch.
