Gold in the Superstition’s

Part I

 Gold Sample FW0047 

By 

Fred Williams 

Alan Zink

Matthew Roberts

The official search for gold in the Superstition Mountains began in earnest, sometime around 1864 when the first serious prospectors entered the range and began looking for signs of mineralization. No one knows what degree of success those early prospectors may have had as much of what they found and their mining activity was largely undocumented. It is known that those early anglo prospectors encountered numerous excavations throughout the range, some of them extensive. Much speculation exists over their origins. Most agree the Mexicans surely mined in the Superstitions from the 1840s onward while still others believe the Spanish who predated them had their own workings. It is agreed upon by all, the Superstition Mountains have a long and colorful history regarding the search for gold.

Nothing so drastically changed the search for that gold in those mountains as did the Wilderness Act of 1964. The Wilderness Act of 1964 (WA64) was first proposed by congress in 1934 but was not enacted by the House of Representatives and the Senate until September 3, 1964 when they passed legislative act P.L. 88-577,78 Stat.890; 16 U.S.C. 1121, 1131-1136. thereby creating the Superstition Mountain Wilderness Area (SMWA).

From it’s beginning, the Superstition Mountain Wilderness area was a contradiction in terms. The Act itself describes the wilderness as an area where earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area retaining it’s primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, the imprint of man substantially unnoticeable.

If ever a description did not fit the Superstition Mountains, the Wilderness Act description was it. By 1964 the SMWA had been colonized by several ranches beginning in 1877 with the Cavaness ranch which would later become Tex Barkleys Quarter Circle U Ranch. Thousands of head of cattle grazed the entire range. Watering holes, windmills, stone structures, line shacks, fences, earth and rock dams as well as corrals dotted the entire landscape. Some of these structures had stood for almost a century. In addition, numerous mines and prospects within the SMWA were in use and more being explored all the time. The Superstition Mountains did not fit the definition of a wilderness area yet the plans to create a wilderness in those mountains went forward with disregard. This was just one of a long line of questionable and contrary decisions that would surface and evolve over the next 20 years as the wilderness process moved toward it’s final completion.

                                                 Old mine tunnel, now buried.

Under Section 3 subsection a. of the 1964 Wilderness Act a provision was made in which within one year after September 3, 1964, a file map and legal description (survey) of the Superstition Mountain Wilderness Area boundaries must be filed with the Department of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. To this date, 43 years later, that specific legal description remains unfinished and has never been officially submitted to the Department of the Interior or the Insular committees. It was the responsibility of the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to submit the findings of their assigned studies to the President of the United States and Congress. The Secretary of the Interior was tasked with the responsibility of conducting an in depth survey of the mineralization of the Superstition Mountains with regard to mines, mining and prospecting within the SMWA.

The US Department of the Interior assigned this mineral survey to the US Geological Survey and Bureau of Mines Intermountain Field Operations Center in Denver, Colorado. The survey was authorized under Public Law 88-577 and the Joint Conference Report on Senate Bill 4 of the 88^{th Congress. The survey was officially designated the Mineral Investigation of the Superstition Wilderness and Contiguous Rare II Further Planning Areas, Gila, Maricopa, and Pinal Counties, Arizona. Known also as MLA 136-82.}

The first phase of the field survey work began in October of 1973 and continued through March of 1974. This early field work was done by Geologists Henry Meeves and Frank Williams of the US Geological Survey (USGS) office in Denver. Their work was aided by a parallel study that had been ongoing since 1970 in the Superstition Mountains by Dr. Martin Stout, a geologist at Cal State University in Los Angeles. Dr. Stouts ongoing work on the volcanic venting and fault zone mineralization within the Superstition Mountains was of great value to the early survey. Stouts meticulous field notes as well as his detailed drawings, diagrams and maps pinpointed hundreds of fault lines, fault zones, volcanic vents and the mineralization found in conjunction with these features. Since most metallic mineralization such as gold is found close to these features, his findings and documentation of mineralization was highly important and helpful in determining a systematic pattern for taking samples. Dr. Stouts passion was felsic volcanism and the resulting surface venting and fumaroles associated with surface magma flows. A geological science that dovetails perfectly with the exploration of gold. Meeves and Williams spent the fall and winter of 1973-1974 taking mineral samples and analyzing them .

       Pit in the mountains, now buried.     

The method for their sampling was as follows. Standard chip samples were taken across mineralized, altered and sheared zones as well as across country or host rock in related areas. Altered or visually mineralized samples and fragments were taken from any mining dump or prospect pile the geologists encountered. Chip samples were taken inside tunnels and shafts where the mineralized veins were visible. All samples taken were fire assayed for gold and silver and wet assayed or spectrographically analyzed for copper, lead, tungsten, chromium, and zinc. Atomic absorption was used to further analyze samples of copper, lead and zinc whose spectrum analysis was between .03 and 1.0 percent. Results of all analysis and assay work was reported in oz./ton. Where trace amounts of mineralization occurred, the report entry was either Tr. (trace) or ND (not determined).

In the early days of the survey, every area of the SMWA was sampled, including all mining dumps, prospect holes, tunnels and shafts. This criteria would change drastically later on in the survey. A detailed description of the host rock, quartz and associated mineralization was meticulously noted by the early sample takers. Later on in the survey this criteria would become almost generic. Detailed diagrams and locations of fault planes, fault zones, fault lines and related mineral locations were made by the early survey geologists, this would become non existent as the survey progressed. It was almost as if the entire focus and purpose of the mineral survey changed as the sampling and analysis progressed.

A good question to explore is what exactly was the purpose and focus of the original SMWA mineral survey ?

For that answer, one must refer back to the wording of the Wilderness Act of September 3, 1964. The geological survey was conducted to determine the mineralized locations lying within the boundaries of the SMWA and to determine their value. The SMWA Act specifically made a provision ( Section 4 d. ) in which prospecting and mining could continue within the SMWA providing the location, claim and or patent was filed before midnight on December 31, 1983. Another provision in the Act ( Section 5 b.) directed the Department of Agriculture ( United States Forest Service ) to provide free and unrestricted access going to and coming from any and all existing claims and patents ( filed prior to December 31, 1983 ) along customary, established routes. In conclusion, the survey was intended to determine precisely where the prospecting, mining and exploration was being carried out within the SMWA, what type and quantity of minerals were present, and what the approximate value of those mineralized areas are, that when the December 31, 1983 deadline expired, the Department of the Interior and the US Forest Service would be appraised of the mining activity they would have to contend with within the Superstition Mountain Wilderness Area. The SMWA geological mineral survey began in 1973 with that goal in mind, however, by 1975-1976, the focus on that goal had changed dramatically.

What changed that original mineral survey plan and it’s focus ?

It is not hard to follow the course of events that transpired and come to a conclusion. In the beginning the plan was to allow the continuation of prospecting and mining after the Wilderness deadline on claims that could be proven to have a verified minable resource present. Two Federal agencies were tasked at appraising the minable mineral deposits and the later oversight of the mines and mining. Those agencies were the Bureau of Mines and the Department of Agriculture (US Forest Service). In 1973 the Bureau of Mines began its survey and strictly held to its goal and original plan. But by the fall of 1976, that agencies plan took a sharp turn. The method of sampling, the records kept and even the areas being sampled changed. Where in 1973, the entire Superstition range was being sampled, by 1976, the entire northern half of the Superstition Mountains were withdrawn from the survey and only the southern half was being sampled. This does not mean the northern half did not fall under the scope of the survey because it did, it simply was ignored and the field work that had already been accomplished there, never saw the light of day.

The early field work done by the geologists from the US Bureau of Mines, building upon Dr. Martin Stouts field work, was a thorough and meticulous analysis of the geology and mineralization of the mountains, much of that work done in the northern half of the range. The northern half of the range could be described approximately as everything north of an imaginary line running down the east west alignment of LaBarge canyon. It seems incredible that such a large portion of the SMWA would be ignored and is a question that has never been answered. The assumption is the final report concluded there was no mineralization in the northern half yet the field notes and records of the early geologists paint an altogether different picture. In fact, it shows a pattern of mineralization that would certainly at the least, require further excavation and exploration to understand the size and scope of the resources that were found by the sampling. The survey instead, from 1976 on, focused on a small area surrounding Weavers Needle and mines and prospects lying outside the proposed SMWA boundaries. Along with this zeroing in of the Weavers Needle area, much of the findings were purposely laced with the tales and legend of the Lost Dutchman mine. For what purpose one can only speculate, most likely in an attempt to minimize the survey and sensationalize the legends, making the case that mining in the Superstitions was all a big useless treasure hunt with no possibility of mineral discovery.

The stage was now set. By 1976 the mineral survey had degraded into a small area surrounding one legendary landmark and many areas not even within the Superstition Mountain Wilderness Area boundary. All other areas were ignored and not even considered. The final survey predictably showed there was no mineralization whatsoever within the SMWA boundaries. The only thing left now was for the Bureau of Mines and the Department of Agriculture to catalog the mining claims filed prior to the December 31, 1983 deadline and eliminate them. This was to be accomplished by conducting a survey on each claim and disproving the mineralization, thereby effectively invalidating the claim and the land returned to the SMWA. It would come to pass that the individual claim surveys would also degrade into an exercise where the claims were withdrawn without any actual survey being conducted. Numerous protests were lodged by individual claim holders who petitioned for a survey of their claims and were either ignored, or in closed hearings, were denied or over ruled. In most cases, claim holders received a notice in the mail stating their claim had been invalidated without any field survey or former notification. By 1985, every mining claim filed within the SMWA that was current, had been denied and invalidated.

The focus of the 1973 mineral survey had indeed changed. Where once the stated plan was for the Bureau of Mines and Agriculture Department to work with and manage mines and prospects within the SMWA boundary, the plan became the elimination of all prospecting and mining within the Superstition Mountains. This plan was carried out with efficiency, forcefulness and in the end, ruthlessness.

                                                                         In Part II, the real survey, and gold in the Superstitions.