span across begin 1800 feet. Behind is a natural reservoir,
in which water can be backed for seven miles by a dam 110 feet in height. One
hundred and fifty cars of cement and 500 tons of steel interlocking piling have
been ordered and as soon as they arrive, 150 men will be put to work building
the dam. In three years the dam, together with its twenty-five miles of canals
and 35 miles of laterals, will be finished, at a total cost of over $1,000,000.
It is believed that within another year enough of the
construction work will have been completed to furnish water for about one half
of the tract to be reclaimed and an influx of settlers is expected at that
time. Scores of inquiries are being received from different parts of the
country in regard to the opportunities offered and the indications are that
many who have written intend to locate here when the new section is thrown
open.
This is the future of the Lost river; and established,
well-governed and prosperous community capable of supporting many thousand
people. The course is clearly defined and all that is needed can be summed up
in one word – money and men. Men to till the soil, to irrigate and grow crops,
to be citizens in this new and prominent inland empire.
BIG COPPER MINES AT MACKAY
Situated five miles to the south of Mackay are the mine of
the Empire Copper company. This concern own thirty-six claims a large smelting
plant and a mountain railroad connecting the mines and the smelter.
The group of claims was located many years ago and for some
time struggled along ust as many of the promising prospects of the district are
now doing. Finally capital was induced to take hold by the exceptional surface
showing, and the property after changing hands some three or four times with an
expenditure of several millions of dollars in development work has grown into a
producing and highly satisfactory money-making property. Owing to the low price
for copper in the world’s market at the present time tis operation has been
temporarily suspended, but with a renewal of the industries which consume
copper a better market will be created and the price of the red metal will
again get back to normal condition, in fact, is already getting back, and is
operation is one of the big events to be looked forward to soon.
The mine has undergone enough development work to prove it
one of the whales in the copper mining industry of the United States. The
property has a network of tunnels, shafts, raises, stopes, etc., all showing
great quantities of a very high grade of copper-gold-silver ore. Millions of
tons have already been extracted from this mine and millions await the return
of normal conditions in the mining world.
The ore is transported over the road by Shay geared
locomotives and treated at the smelter, which is located just south of town.
The plant and the mine furnished employment to three hundred men and is the
means of distributing in the neighborhood of thirty thousand dollars a month
among the people of Mackay and Central Idaho. While the operation of this
immense mine and smelter assists greatly in sustaining the business o the town
and country it is by no means the only avenue of commerce, as the reader
perusing these pages has doubtlessly discovered, yet its operation is always a
joyous and much desired proposition, and when the operations are again resumed,
Mackay, with its mines going full blast, with more mines being developed, with
its farm land producing as never before, with big irrigation projects in course
of construction, with the mining life of the Salmon river country renewed,
contributing to Mackay a large volume of business, with the freighting industry
at its height, with all those things, Mackay will be the hummer of the west.
A GOLD PROPERTY OF PROMISE
Mackay’s most promising gold property, the Silver King Gold
and Copper Mining company’s group of nine claims situated about four miles west
of Mackay in what is known as Taylor canyon, is rapidly approaching the plane
of a dividend payer. This property was discovered early in the summer of 1907
by Otto Hudson, an experienced Utah and Nevada prospector, who organized the
present company and became its first president. The surface croppings showed
free gold in quantities, and development work was prosecuted by sinking a shaft
on the “find” to a depth of 40 feet, at which point a large ore shoot was
uncovered. Assays from the grass roots to the bottom of the shaft ran all the
way from one-half ounce to eight ounces in gold, copper from twelve to thirty
per cent and silver from ten to fifty ounces per ton. Work at this point was
discontinued in the shaft and a drift started about 150 feet down the hill with
a view to tapping the ledge at a lower depth. At the present writing the drift
is in 300 feet and the ore body is being tapped. All stock has been sold and
the shareholders to a man are holding tightly to their “Silver King.” A fortune
is in sight for them all.
The present officers and directors are: Dr. Francis H.
Poole, President; Dr. Samuel K. Paxton, Vice President; Editor Leslie E.
Dillingham, Secretary; H.W. Vanderwood, Treasurer, and Justice M.D. Kilgore and
J.D. Daniels, directors.
There are many other as good properties in the neighborhood
that need only the prospector’s pick and perseverance to let the light of day
in upon and bring fortunes to those who can read the sign of the times and east
their fortunes in the “Lucky Mackay” country.
THE LUCK GULCH GROUP
Another mining property that is responding nicely to
development work and is in the list of properties that have every evidence of
making good in the very near future, is the Lucky Gulch group, owned by Messrs.
Gilber and Carr, and situated six miles from the city. Mining is a slow process
when properties are in the prospect stage. The discoverers generally struggle
along with their claims, doing what work they can from year to year and this
has been the history of this group up to a few months ago, when it had been
sufficiently opened up to attract the attention of miners who obtained a lease,
and began the work of taking out ore. The property is no longer in the prospect
class, the work having proven beyond doubt that another big cooper mine is
being opened. Capping the ore bodies is a great deposit of iron ore and shafts
and tunnels now on the group prove that immense deposits lie underneath. The
ore was just recently broken into and something like 30 tons are already on the
dumps, ore of a quality that will pay a handsome profit. The Lucky Gulch group
means another big mine for Mackay, the Copper City of Idaho.
THE HORSESHOE COMPANY
Another group of claims near
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State Bank of Mackay, 1908.
