Page 226 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

JasonJ. Baxter,andWilliamColeman.OnJanuary 2, 1880, they were attacked by a vastly superior party of Apaches, that resulted in the death of Fulton and the loss of their mules and horses. Aided only by a few burros, they made a forced night march to Fort Cummings, covering over 30 miles in 16 hours even though four of the men were slightly wounded.
The situation became so desperate that Peter Strey was credited with being the only person to remain at the Cooke’s Peak camp from 1881 to 1882.123 Whatever the true situation was near the top of the mountain, most sources credit A. P. Taylor and a man named Wheeler for locating the best producing mines in about 1880 when they staked out the Mon- tezuma, Graphic, Desdemona, and Othello Mines. Other interesting mine names included the Busted Banker, Silver Cave, Old Commodore, and the
Hope, Faith, and Constant. Charity was apparently foreigntotheminer’svocabulary.1"4
Although the Southern Pacific Railroad had reached the site of present-day Deming, it was not until the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad completed its line through present-day Florida Sta- tion to a junction with the Southern Pacific line at Deming that it became economically feasible to ship the heavy ore to El Paso for smelting. Now only a road up Hadley Draw to the mining camp was re-
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quired to facilitate production.
George L. Brooks arrived at Cooke’s Peak Mining
Camp in December 1881 to capitalize on the mining potential there. Exactly what his holdings were is not known, but most sources credit him with grading the wagon road up Hadley Draw in the summer of 1882. A substantial Apache threat still remained, so the work was carried out under the watchful eyes of soldiers detailed from Fort Cummings to protect the workers. Reportedly, Brooks hauled out the first load of ore over the narrow twisting road, and before long he had shipped 2,700 tons.126 The honeycombed, iron-stained ore was 30 percent lead
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and carried 80 ounces of silver per ton.
years, concentrators nearly doubled the recoverable lead for each ton of raw material shipped.
The Apache threat to the miners at Cooks con- tinued from time to time. On these occasions, the Fort Cummings commander sent a detail of soldiers up the mountain to escort residents to the fort. When the threat abated, the men and their families returned to their labors at the mines. The threats must have been false alarms, otherwise the Apaches
wouldprobablyhaveburnedtheminers’shacks. With the establishment of a means to market the mining products, reasonable containment of the Apaches, and the resulting influx of manpower to remove the ore, the camp at last became a town. In fact, it became three towns. The cluster of mines and buildings that grew up on the peak’s east slope be- came Cooks (Figure 52), and those on the west side
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Both were reached by Brooks’ road, although in time another road accessed Jose from the west. The site of Hadley, near the old Graphic
mine, was located part way up the hill to Cooks. Before long, Albert Wallis built a massive rock struc- ture in Hadley Draw at the foot of the road to Cooks. It contained several large rooms to accommodate equipment and his drivers who hauled freight to Hadley, Cooks, and Jose and brought ore down on the return trip. The wagons were of heavy-duty construction for hauling the lead ore and were
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pulled by teams of six horses or mules.
At first, primary ores were not exploited because
of their depth and the easy access to the oxidized ores, mostly lead carbonate, either on or near the surface. The ores ran very high in recoverable lead content, some as high as 60 or 70 percent after concentration, and included traces of silver. When tunneling was conducted later, the richest deposits frequently were found in vugs (pockets) or caves such as the Kieft cave in the Jackson Tunnel Mine. This particular crystal lined cavity was about 100 feet
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long and varied from 35 to 50 feet wide.
Upton Elwood McDaniel was one of the earliest miners at Cooks and one of the longest residents in the small mining community. He first appeared on the scene in 1882, handling the mail at Fort Cum- mings. It was apparently not a tremendously profitable venture because he only received $147.40 per quarter, and that, despite efforts by various Fort Cummings commanders, was in serious arrears for
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By mid-summer 1885, McDaniel had evidently left the employ of the United States mail contractor, because he was found by the census recorder at Samuel Carpenter’s hostel near the spring, along with fellow prospectors W.
Crooke and James Wheeler. 134
By late spring 1890 the Cooke’s Peak Mining Dis-
trict was one of the most productive lead producing regions in the Southwest. A proposal to subject Mexican lead ores to an import duty was making progress in Congress, and the demand for the
Development of the Cooke's Peak Mining District
In later
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became Jose.
portions of 1883 and 1884.