Lost Lead Mine
North of Sabinal in early days lived a ranchman named Hoffman. He had come from California, and he used to sell lead to occasional settlers who went to his cabin to buy it. One day Will and High Thompson, brothers, were helping Hoffman brand calves on his ranch, now known as the Nixon Ranch, when they said something about needing lead to mould into bullets. Hoffman said that he had plenty and that if they would keep on working he would get them all that they wanted. The Thompson boys kept on working; Hoffman rode away, and in about two hours returned with the lead. He said that he had got it out of his mine and that just as soon as he could sell his cattle he was going to work the mine. He did sell his cattle soon afterwards, but almost immediately was killed by the Indians.
The Thompson brothers then began to hunt for the mine. One day while they were searching, High called out to Will to come and see “this great, big, blue cow chip.” The cow chip proved to be lead. They were at the mine. Very shortly afterwards, Will, who was always leader, was killed either by Indians or by robbers. The mine was forgotten for a time, and the land passed into hands of people who would not allow any but their own kin to hunt for the lead.
In after years Henry Taylor, a brother-in-law of the land-owner, got High Thompson to try to locate the mine again. He made a location and sank several shafts, but never found any lead. The mine is still a lost mine, talked about by many and perhaps even searched for by some. [[64]]
THE NIGGER GOLD MINE OF THE BIG BEND[1]
By J. Frank Dobie
Wherever men talk of the Bowie Mine, of the Rock Pens, of lost mines of the West, they tell of the Nigger Gold Mine. The site of Reagan Canyon varies from south of Dryden in Terrell County to a hundred and seventy-five miles west in Brewster County, in some accounts being identified with Maravillas Canyon. Likewise, the gold lead shifts from one side of the Rio Grande to the other. Mr. Carl Raht has put into print an account of the Nigger Gold Mine[2] but he has not stressed the legendary features. For material I am indebted to R. R. (“Railroad”) Smith of Jourdanton, who got his information from Tex O’Reilly and others who know Campbell, the railroad conductor; also to Edgar Kincaid of Sabinal and West Burton of Austin. I tell the legend as it is told, not as history would sift it.
The Reagan brothers were camped down close to the Rio Grande in the Big Bend country on a canyon that now bears their name. Reagan Canyon opens into the Rio Grande, affording an excellent passage for stock, and the Reagans used it to smuggle stolen cattle and horses back and forth between Mexico and the United States. Some say that they were in partnership with a gang of horse thieves that operated “a chain” all the way to the Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma.
One time when one of the Reagan boys was in Valentine he came across a negro tramp. He picked him up in his spring wagon and brought him back to camp and put him to work. Not long afterwards a horse got loose with a saddle on—some say with merely a drag-rope—and the men in camp scattered out to find him. When night came and the men returned, nobody had [[65]]found the horse, but the negro rode in with a morral full of something heavy, and calling off one of the Reagan men, he said, “Mr. Reagan, jes’ looky here; I’se found a brass mine.”