Chapter 1 of 5
This
article is going to be broken down into several parts, since the project is
very large and covers a long period of time from 2009 to 2018 and beyond since
the story is not yet completed. We will start out with how we discovered the
Golden Reef Mine Tramway and the history that has been identified.
TRAMWAY LOCATION
Tramway Discovery The Golden Reef 10-Stamp Mill removal project
started in early 2009 and we were in the process of bringing the stamp mill
from the mill donor, Joni Chatman’s patent claim, to the Cave Creek Museum. I
was at her house one day early in the second quarter 2009 when the towers were
spotted. We were discussing the spare cam that was being used as yard art. I
noticed one of the towers off in the distance and asked her about them. She
said she thought that the towers that were still standing were on BLM land, but
she was not sure. She said the towers on her property were pretty much fallen
down and rotted badly and the only items left were the tower steel parts and
the 1 1/6” and 7/8” cables. The tramway went from the Golden Reef Mine about
2,000 feet to the stamp mill near Joni’s house.
Why Use a Tramway? You might wonder why they built the
tramway. It would have been easier to build the stamp mill closer to the mine
and not 2,000 feet away. The answer is easy, the closest water to run a mill
was 2,000 feet away from the mine and it was easier to place the mill there and
build a tramway to access the ore. The tramway also made it faster to get the
ore over the rough terrain, narrow paths and close to the main access
road.
Where are the towers on the maps? We spent quite a bit of time trying to
determine where the towers were actually located on a topo map. Joni gave us a
Mineral Survey # 4334 that covered the (4) patents on Continental Mountain:
Homestake, Alexander, Golden Reef and the Cottonwood Loads. This seemed to show
that the tram towers marked “B” on the survey were not on any of the patents,
but there was not enough detail to identify their physical location. When we
talked with BLM they thought that the towers were on State Trust Land, since
the area north of the patents was State land.
Locating the towers on a Topo Map Since there are no markers left to show where
the tramway is in relation to a topo map, we used a GPS and mapped the points of
the towers on a Topo map below. You can see that the towers on the topo are not
located on any of the patents shown. I talked with one of the neighbors that
has a claim on the land where some towers still standing were located. I talked
with BLM and they originally said that the towers were on State Trust Land. To
make a long story short the towers that were still standing are on BLM land. I
asked if they would allow us to disassemble and take two of the towers to the
Cave Creek Museum to display and they said no. The BLM conducted a review of
the towers and found that they were historically important and they had to stay
where they are.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Cave Creek and Carefree, Arizona A History of
the Desert Foothills, by Frances C. Carlson This book discusses two
brief mentions of the Golden Reef Tramway in Frances Carlson’s book, Cave
Creek and Carefree, Arizona A History of the Desert Foothills.
Chapter 3 Continental Mountain
Page 55 States, “In 1910 the Illizona Company,
following the footsteps of William B. Hellings, poured thousands of dollars
into setting up for mining on a large scale. Its owners installed a ten-stamp
mill, strung two thousand feet of tramway across the crest of the mountain to
carry the ore from the mine to the mill, and added heavy air compressors and
drills to ease the job of getting out the rock.”
Page 56 States, “The old Golden Reef is quiet today. A
private home occupies the level patch of ground below the mine, the same spot
that held William B. Hellings’ bustling gold camp in 1878. The old cook shack
from the Illizona camp now serves as a storage shed; The broken remains of the
old stamp mill just out from the hillside nearby, and portions of the tramway
still decorate the crest of the hill.”
Inspection of the Site
There is not a lot of written history on the
Golden Reef Tramway. One of the most important pieces of information is located
on tower #6 from the tram station. There are (6) towers in a row on the
mountain that are still standing, but the 6th one has collapsed. One
of the bases on this tower was marked with a person’s name and date 4 .11. 13
Mineral Survey NO. 4334 Field Notes Homestake, Alexander, Golden Reef & Cottonwood Lodes February 27,
1949 states, A scan was conducted
of the content of the survey yielded the following information on the tramway.
Again, there was not a lot of information in this document.
The entire document was reviewed that included a
section on each of the claims under this Mineral Survey. This included
Homestake, Alexander, Golden Reef & Cottonwood Lodes
Homestake lode This lode was the only lode that yielded any reference
to the tramway was in the Homestake Lode. The tramway was located only on the
20.66-acre Homestake lode. It stated, “Cross center line of abandoned aerial
tramway bears Northeasterly and Southwesterly.”
The material was going to be moved from the Golden Reef lode through
tunnels and sluices to the tramway. In the early days before the tramway they would
bring the ore down a narrow trail to the 10-stamp mill.
Claim Values It is worthwhile to note that the Golden Reef Lode had
the largest amount of ore values, by far, at an estimated $33,149. In today's
market the value of the ore values would be over $826,000
Other Improvements It listed the following information on the tramway,
“The lower end of an aerial tramway bears N. 48° 30’E 348ft. from the 291.95
ft. point on line 2-3 Homestake lode.”
Days an Ways Magazine, December 1, 1962 While visiting with Mary Trimble at her home on
Continental Mountain, she brought out a framed picture of the tramway.
The picture to the left is the cover of “Days an
Ways Magazine from December 1, 1962. The article was written by Hal R. Moore
The following is the wording taken from the
lower right-hand corner of the magazine cover.
“Remains of this old aerial tramway march across of
the hills near Cave Creek slowly crumbling under the assault of rain and wind,
and of course human efforts. The tramway was originally built to carry gold ore
across the steep and cactus-tangled hills to a stamp mill located far from the
mine diggings.
Built at tremendous cost and efforts, the tramway was
never used to carry a single bucket. As gold miners so often do. This one- the
Golden Reef Mine- die young.
Some of the tramway was dismantled for fire wood.
Other of the towers have been toppled by wind. The rest are slowly weathering
away.
SILENTLY THEY STAND against the desert sky, ghosts of an
operation that never even came to life.”
Newspaper Articles, Arizona Republican.
(Phoenix, Ariz.), 1917-03-30 The article states the
following information about the Golden Reef Mine, “PUBLIC INVITED Road to Golden Reef Mine will be
finished and. opened to the public next SUNDAY Automobiles can then be run from
Phoenix to the GOLDEN REEF CAMP in about two hours. DISTANCE, 35 MILES. Go
north on Central Avenue and out through Hyatt's Camp. Road fully marked with
signs pointing way to GOLDEN REEF MINE Property will be open for inspection
next Sunday. All are invited. Lunch will be served at the camp. Take this
opportunity to see a Bonanza Gold Mine in Maricopa County, with a large body of
high grade ore showing.”
DISCOVERY,
WHAT REMAINS?
Towers Still Standing on BLM land There are actually
some remnants of the tramway still left on Continental Mountain. There are (7)
out of a total of (13) towers standing. The remaining towers still standing,
the upper tram station, and some wire rope still remain on BLM property. The
tramway that is about 2,000 feet long crosses the Homestake patent. The towers
on that land are collapsed and rotted. There are still some metal parts of the
towers on that land, along with the wire rope.
The picture below shows the remaining towers standing that are on BLM
land: All of the towers were built with the same dimensions so that they could be constructed faster.
They
dealt with the varying heights of the towers due to the uneven ground by
constructing them on cribbing to make up the differences in terrain. The
picture below shows this method of construction.
The picture below shows a typical tower close up. Some towers are still
standing, but they would no longer hold the weight of tram buckets filled with
ore during operations
Upper Tram Station The picture below
was taken of the upper tram station. You can see the various parts of the
station including the ore bin, transfer area and the drive wheel that is still
in place. The lower station no longer exists and we don’t know if the tramway
was motorized. It could have been a gravity operated tram by the looks of the
upper station.
Remaining Tram Bucket The tram bucket below is one of the
surviving buckets from the tramway that was donated to the museum. It was made
by Trenton Iron Works, Trenton New Jersey.
This
completes the early history and Discovery phase of the Golden Reef Stamp Mill
Tramway. The next phase is the construction of the tram towers.
NEXT: Chapter #2 TRAMWAY
DESIGN
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