Page 38 - Vol. 1 Walks In The Black Range - 2nd Edition

The Ready Pay Mine
The Ready Pay Group was patented in 1914 and has also been known as the Gold Star, Scandia, and Unicorn. The primary commodities taken from the site were gold, copper, and silver in ores of chalcopyrite, argentite, and bornite. The first year of production for this site was 1885 and the last was 1934. In 1914 Fanny Garrison Villard was the owner, in 1934 Edward D. Tittman (see Diary of a Hunt) of Hillsboro owned the site. “The estimated value of production from the site between 1885 and 1931 was about $10,000 USD...workings reported in the 1930’s consisted of a 160 ft. vertical shaft, a tunnel 500 feet in length and about 200 ft. of drifting”. (USGS website)
The Ready Pay Mine is one of the mines shown on the sketch map (p. 273) from 1910 in “The Ore Deposits of New Mexico”, Professional Paper 68 of the USGS by Lindgren, Graton, and Gordon.
D. C. Hedlund’s 1985 (preliminary) report “United States Department of the Interior Geologic Survey - Economic geology of some selected mines in the Hillsboro and San Lorenzo quadrangles, Grant and Sierra Counties, New Mexico” page 9 & 11 describes the Ready Pay Vein as “The Ready Pay vein is located in Ready Pay Gulch where it has been intensively mined and trenched over a length of about 5,000 ft (1,500 m). The vein strikes N. 15°-20° E. and is an anastomosing fracture zone 10-15 ft (3-4.6 m) thick that contains abundant quartz veins. Pyrite, bornite, chalcopyrite, and free gold have been reported to occur in
Ready Pay Mine, Ready Pay Gulch, NE of Hillsboro
The Ready Pay Mine site is one of the better sites in the area. As always, open shafts and old structures can be dangerous and the usual critters are about - a good area for Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, for instance.