AMETHYST TRAMWAY.
The ore is very low grade, but was of great value to these men, who were smelters, for the lead it carried.
By the time the snow began to fall there were a number of prospectors in the new camp, and having tired of the place, which was one of the hardest, roughest regions in the state, Creede sold what claims he had for one thousand seven hundred dollars, but returned every summer for five years, cleaning up in all about three thousand dollars.
In Monarch, as in his last success, there were a number of jealous miners who wanted the name of the camp changed.
They were, or most of them, at least, light-weight politicians, who didn’t care a cent what the town was called so long as they had the honor of naming it, but the name was never changed.
CHAPTER XV.
BONANZA CAMP—THE PONCHA BANK—CREEDE DETERMINES TO SEE OTHER SECTIONS.
LEAVING Monarch, the prospector journeyed through Poncha Pass, over into the San Luis Valley, and began to climb the hills behind the Sangre de Christo range. On a little stream called Silver Creek he made a number of locations, among them the Bonanza, and he called the new camp by that name, just as he named Monarch after what he considered his best claim. The country here was more accessible and consequently a more desirable field for prospecting. South of Bonanza, Creede located the “Twin Mines,” which proved to be good property. The ore in the twin claims carried two ounces of gold to the ton.
A year later when the pioneer prospector decided to pull out and seek new fields, he was able to realize fifteen thousand dollars in good, hard-earned money. One claim was sold for two thousand dollars, the money to be deposited in Raynolds’ bank at Salida; but the purchasers for some reason insisted that the money be deposited in a Poncha bank, very little known at that time, but whose president shortly afterward killed his man and became well, but not favorably, known. Creede’s two thousand dollars went to the banker’s lawyers. The bank closed, and now you may see the ex-president in a little mountain town pleading at the bar—not the bar of justice.