“Honest to God,” Ernie told me, “I hadn’t dug a foot when I turned up the prettiest vein of lead I’d ever seen.”
In the next six years the Noonday produced approximately a gross of nine million dollars and a net of probably six million dollars.
These figures were given me by Don Kempfer, mining engineer and Shoshone resident, from estimates which he believed accurate.
In 1947 with the rich rewards attained but as yet unenjoyed, Buford Davis made a hurried airplane trip to Salt Lake. Returning, he was only a few moments from a safe landing when the plane crashed and all aboard were killed.
Today, (1950) the property belongs to Anaconda and is considered one of its most valuable mines.
For those interested in lost mines I offer the list that follows. (The names are my own.)
THE LOST CHINAMAN: When John Searles was struggling to make a living out of the ooze that is called Searles’ Lake he had a mule skinner known as Salty Bill Parkinson—a fearless, hard-bitten individual who was the Paul Bunyan of Death Valley teamsters.
While loading a wagon with borax, Salty Bill and Searles noticed a man staggering down from the Slate Range. They decided he was supercharged with desert likker and paid scant attention as he wobbled across the flat from the base of the range. A moment later he fell at their feet. They saw then that he was a Chinaman; that his tongue was swollen, his eyes red and sunken; that he clutched at his throat in a vain effort to speak. He could make no intelligible sound and lapsed into unconsciousness. They thought he had died and was left on their hands for burial.
Salty Bill afterwards stated that he’d said to Searles: “‘Fremont, Carson, or the Mormons old Bill Williams, for whom Bill Williams River, Bill Williams Mountain, and the town of Williams, Arizona, are named was at Resting Springs. He’ll spoil in an hour. I’ll go for a shovel while you choose a place to plant him.’ I’d actually turned to go when Searles called me back.” Searles had seen some sign of life and after removing a canvas bag strapped to his body they took him to a nearby shed, gave him a few spoonfuls of water and eventually he was restored to consciousness. He lay in a semi-stupor all the afternoon and was obsessed with the idea that he was going to die. His chief concern was to get to Mojave so that he could take a stage for a seaport and die in China or failing, arrange for the burial of his bones with those of his ancestors.
He had been working at Old Harmony Borax Works, picking cotton-ball borax with other Chinese employed by the company, but tiring of abuse by a tough boss, he’d asked for his wages and walked out. Some Piutes told him of a short cut across the Panamint and this he took.