The Underground World: A mirror of life below the surface

by Thomas Wallace Knox

FIRST REPORTS OF GOLD IN THE BLACK HILLS—DISCOVERY OF PLACER DEPOSITS—THEIR EXTENT AND RICHNESS—DEADWOOD AND RAPID CREEK—SAD FATE OF AN EARLY EXPLORING PARTY—VALUABLE QUARTZ VEINS—MODE OF REACHING THE COUNTRY—OTHER RESOURCES OF THE BLACK HILLS REGION—BRILLIANT PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE—A REMARKABLE MINE UNDER LAKE SUPERIOR—CURIOSITIES OF SILVER ISLET—WORKING UNDER DIFFICULTIES—ORES OF UNEXAMPLED RICHNESS—MINING ADVENTURES UNDER THE LAKE—NEW ROUTE TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.

When the frontier newspapers first began publishing their exciting reports of rich gold discoveries in the Black Hills, some of their editors doubted its existence there in paying quantities. Gen. Custer had reported gold discoveries, but the scientific gentlemen accompanying his expedition had denied finding it in deposits of a remunerating richness. Doubt and uncertainty shadowed the prospect until the development of the rich claims of Deadwood and Whitewood gulches, and the encouraging indications found on Rapid Spring and French Creek, in the spring of 1876. But the richness and extent of the Black Hills gold mines may now be considered demonstrated. A great deal of money has already been realized from them, and as yet they have not been even thoroughly prospected. The fact that the Black Hills had so long been unexplored and unsettled by white men is not altogether attributable, as has been popularly supposed, to the strength and hostility of the Sioux Indians, who roamed over, and are still dangerously powerful to the west of that region. The principal reasons are that they were not immediately on the moving lines of transcontinental emigration, and that the country had no definite knowledge of their wealth in soil and mine, while the natural resources of other sections of the far West were advertised far and wide. That the Black Hills have been taken possession of by white men in the face of both government opposition and Indian hostilities, proves the correctness of this assumption.

Gold was discovered there by white men years before the lamented Custer entered the country at the head of an army. And it would undoubtedly have been settled and developed immediately after, had not these unknown first discoverers all been massacred by Indians, and therefore the reports of their discoveries were never published. Near Rapid Creek, and on Whitewood and Deadwood Creeks, old “prospect holes” have been found. There is an old shaft on a gold-bearing quartz vein which crosses Deadwood Gulch, and the trees near by bear the marks of bullets and arrows, whose appearance proves that they were made years ago. In one of the Deadwood claims old rusty nails were found, and on another there was an old pile of tailings. Of the conclusion arrived at from these evidences there can be no reasonable doubt: the unfortunate white men who sank the shaft on the gold vein were seized and tied to the missile-scarred trees and riddled with arrows and bullets. Those who excavated the old “prospect holes” likewise fell victims to the Sioux, and not one of these first discoverers was left to report the fate of the others.

THE BLACK HILLS.

The Black Hills are an isolated mass of elevations, about 120 miles in extent from northwest to southwest, with an average width of 50 miles; their area being not less than 6,000 square miles. They are so called from the somber aspect they present from a distant view, caused by the vast evergreen forests of pine with which they are generally clothed. According to the latitudinal lines they are about 60 miles north and a little over 800 miles west of the city of Chicago, and are situated between the two forks of the Cheyenne river, which surround them so completely that both these streams have their origin in the same locality, and their headwaters interlock. The north current is usually called the Belle Fourche, or beautiful Fork.

The Hills are reached by railroad to Sioux City and Yankton, or to Bismarck, on the upper Missouri, or to Cheyenne and other towns on the Union Pacific. They embrace all that is grand and beautiful in nature—cloud-piercing peaks, snow-crowned nine months out of the twelve; deep down cañons, gloomy and savage, with dense forests and craggy walls of slate, granite, or limestone; fairy fountains and crystal streams, and richly flowered plateaus and glades.

The highest peaks are from 5,600 to 8,000 feet high; not so great altitudes as are found among the perpetually snow-capped mountains of the Big Horn further west, but they appear as lofty when measured by the eye in comparison with the surrounding elevations.

THE FIRST MINERS.

As soon as the Custer expedition of 1874, which gave to the world its first authentic knowledge of the existence of gold in the Black Hills, had returned to Fort Lincoln, a party of adventurers organized at Sioux City and went thither. It consisted of twenty-eight men and one woman. They camped on French Creek, in the southern part of the Hills, where Custer City now stands, and erected stockades. They found encouraging gold prospects, but were soon forced to return from lack of supplies. The “gold fever” continued to spread, however, and soon got under such headway all along the frontiers that government opposition was of little avail. Hundreds flocked to the new El Dorado, their objective point being the stockades on the French Creek. In the spring of 1875 these pioneers organized themselves into a town company, and the site of Custer City was staked off into building lots, being at first christened Stonewall. The number rapidly increased, so that by the last of December, 1875, a provisional government was organized, and a few laws, simple in form, but comprehensive in their scope, were adopted, their execution being entrusted to a marshal and justice of the peace. Emigration continued to increase, the new comers first satisfying themselves that gold really existed on French Creek, and next securing a town lot and erecting a building thereon.