Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/759

 GRAVEL-MINING. 741

Zdbriskie t 1041. Nor was the Ish mine the only instance of rich quartz. When veins began to be looked for they were found in all directions. A mine on Jackson Creek yielded forty ounces of gold in one week, the rock being pounded in a common mortar. In May a discovery was made on the head of Applegate Creek which rivalled the Ish mine in richness, producing 97 ounces of gold from 22 pounds of rock. Ten tons of this quartz yielded at the rate of $2,352 to the ton. Sac. Union, Aug. 30, 1860, and March 15, 1861; Or. Statesman, March 18, 1861.

Notwithstanding that a number of these flattering discoveries were made, quartz-mining never was carried on in Jackson county to any extent, owing to the expense it involved, and the feeling of insecurity engendered by the experiments of 1860. In 1866 the Occidental Quartz Mill Company was or ganized, and a mill with an engine of 24 horse-power was placed on the Daven port lead on Jackson Creek. Arastras were generally used, by which means much of the gold and all of the silver was lost. Within the last dozen years several mills have been introduced in different parts of southern Oregon. The placers have been worked continuously, first by Americans and after wards by Chinamen, who, under certain taxes and restrictions, have been permitted to occupy mining ground in all the gold districts of Oregon, al though the constitution of the state forbids any of that race not residing in Oregon at the time of its adoption to hold real estate or work a mining claim therein. The first law enacted on this subject was in December 1860, when it was declared that thereafter no Chinaman shall mine gold in this State un less licensed to do so as provided, etc. The tax was $2 per month, to be paid every three months in advance, and to be collected by the county clerk of each county where gold was mined on certain days of certain months. Any Chinaman found mining without a license was liable to have any property be longing to him sold at an hour s notice to satisfy the law. Ten per cent of this tax went into the state treasury. If Chinamen engaged in any kind of trade, even among themselves, they were liable to pay $50 per month, to be collected in the same manner as their mining licenses. Or. Laws, 1869, 49- 52. The law was several times amended, but never to the advantage of the Chinese, who were made to contribute to the revenues of the state in a liberal manner.

The product of the mines of Jackson county from 1851 to 1866 has been estimated at a million dollars annually, which, from the evidence, is not an over-estimate. Hine* Or., 288; Gilfry s Or., MS., 51-3.

The first to engage in deep gravel-mining was a company of English capi talists, who built a ditch five miles long in Josephine county, on Gaiice Creek, in 1875, and found it pay. A California company next made a ditch for bringing water to the Althouse creek mines in the same county. The third and longer ditch constructed was in Jackson county, and belonged to D. P. Thompson, A. P. Ankeny & Co., of Portland, and is considered the best min ing property in the state. It conducted the water a distance of twenty- three miles to the Sterling mines in the neighborhood of Jacksonville. Another ditch, built in 1878, eleven miles long, was owned by Klipfel, Hannah & Co., Jacksonville, and by Bellinger, Thayer, Hawthorne, and Kelly of Portland. It brought water from two small lakes in the Siskiyou Mountains to Applegate Creek, and cost $30,000. Ashland Tidings, Sept. 27, 1878. The results were entirely satisfactory. A company was formed by W. R. Willis, at Roseburg, in 1878, with a capital of half a million for carrying on hydraulic mining on the west bank of Applegate Creek. They purchased the water rights and improvements of all the small miners, and took the water out of the creek above them for their purposes. J. C. Tolman of Ashland in the same year brought water from the mountains to the Cow Creek mines. The Chinamen of Rogue River Valley also expended $25,000, about this time, in a ditch to bring water to their mining ground, and with good results. Duncan s South ern Or., MS., 10. Thus, instead of the wild excitement of a few years in which luck entered largely into the miner s estimate of his coming fortune, there grew up a permanent mining industry in Jackson county, requiri