Radersburg, Montana

MINING

About mining, Tom Moore said, “The finding of placer gold about three hundred yards from the camp created a stampede, which was the customary expression used in describing a mining boom. The gold was mined by a crude process in those days. The men packed the dirt a half mile to the creek and washed it in a rocker, a crude device with a screen which would separate the gold from the gravel. Gold and currency were 5, 10, 15, 25, 50 cents and $1.00 and up. Excitement grew rapidly and soon Radersburg became a real town of the real old western type. A few of the names of the miners are still registered in my memory. James Woods, Patrick Quinn, Charles Warden, Bill Moffitt, Tim Cogshall, Jake Blacker, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Batchler, Peter Overback, Bud Hoffman. There are others whom I do not remember.”

Placer rights were located, not like mining claims, but by the acre. Some of the places recorded: Dec. 1, 1895 Olaf Berg located what he called Keating Center; Aug. 17, 1887, Wm. Dunstone claimed 20 acres for placer; Feb. 9, 1893, E.D. Edgerton, 100 acres placer; Feb. 11, 1985, Allen Easterly, Spotted Cow placer; May 21, 1879, C.L. Harrington, 800 ft. placer, and July 1, 1884 he located 30 acres placer; Charles Holling located 18 acres placer on Jan. 1, 1895.

There were many, many more. The “Diggin’s” on the hills west of town are still prominent, showing mute evidence of the labor these men did. It was quite a job to get water to the placer claims, and a harder one to get the gravel and dirt to the water in order to wash it for gold.

To a degree, some of the back-breaking labor of placer mining was eased by one Billy Quinn, born in 1842, and who came to Montana in 1864. He spent his first years in the new Territory freighting between Virginia City and Salt Lake City. In 1867 he moved on to Bedford where he spent a short while mining, then came to Cow Creek where he started working as a placer miner. In 1868 he employed a number of men with picks and shovels to dig a ditch, bringing water to the placer mines. This was a big undertaking, since it was necessary to dig five miles of ditch. It was hard work, the ditch following the contour of the gulches where possible, and where it was not, a flume was built to conduct the water across the gulch. The name of Flume Gulch is still used to designate one of them.

The placer miners paid Billy fabulous prices for the use of the water, his annual income being $10,000. In this way he made the expense of having had the ditch dug, and made a handsome profit, too. With good water pressure, the miner with a six-inch canvas hose and a 2½ in. nozzle could cut the dirt, wash it into a sluice box having a false bottom of two-inch plank in which were numerous holes 2 inches in diameter where quicksilver, or mercury, was put. The quicksilver acted as a magnet for catching the gold from the dirt.

Below the Diggin’s, Billy Quinn put a slum dam in the ditch. Here the water used on the placer claims ran through, was cleared, and went on down into the valley. In the late fall, after the water in the ditch froze, men turned their attention to prospecting for gold-bearing quartz and again good fortune crowned the efforts of the most fortunate prospectors. One of the mills was situated about one-half mile south of Radersburg, the site of which is still called the “Old Mill”, even though the highway now covers all but a bit of the tailings. About 1940, a Martin Kroll built a two-story house at his point. The Krolls moved to North Dakota, and when they left they sold the house to George Nilson who moved it up town. The house burned a year or two after being moved up here.

JOHN KEATING
John A. Keating, a native of Wales, was born in 1836 and came to New York in 1850. In the spring of 1865 he outfitted in St. Joseph, Mo. and came to Confederate Gulch where he was in the mercantile business until the summer of 1866. He then came to Cedar Plains mining district near Radersburg where he located the John Keating (mine) in 1867. Investigation proved this to be a rich vein of free-milling ore. He owned the Keating, Ohio and Congress mines.

The Keating was a group of mines of claims, made up of the Keating, Blacker, Leviathan, Pinchback, Left Hand, Midnight Bell, Gold Crown, Beauty and the Tidal Wave.

A ten-stamp mill with amalgamating plates to recover free gold was built at the Keating in 1870, employing a number of men. The Keating proved to be the richest, and probably the best known mine of the hundreds located. John Keating and Dave Blacker were partners in the venture.

Just below the mine where the floor of the little gulch is level, sprang up as mining camps did, Keatingville, located 1½ miles west of Radersburg. There were several houses and cabins built there, one of the cabins occupied by John Keating.

Mr. Keating was quite short and invariably, when he bought overalls, the legs were much too long. Having no wife to take over the task of shortening them, he simplified the matter by placing them on a chopping block and with one quick flash of a sharp axe, shortened each leg. The only drawback to this method, while quick, his pants always had one leg which might strike him half-way between ankle and knee, the other above the knee!

He was blind in one eye, an explosion having nearly cost him his sight. Having dinner one evening at Mrs. Moffitt’s Boarding House, a bowl of gravy was placed near Mr. Keating’s plate. He calmly transferred some onto his plate and proceeded to eat it. When he finished he smacked his lips, wiped his mouth and said, “My, that’s good soup!”

In 1873, he married Miss Jennie Clark, a native of the Island of Jersey and they had two children, John Blaine and Lilly Alma.
Another story told of John is that his family lived in New York. He continuously chewed tobacco, and on one of his visits with them Mrs. Keating had placed shiny brass spittoons at every convenient place. One day Mr. Keating said, “Jennie, if you don’t move these, one of these days I’ll spit in one of the damn things!”

After Mr. Keating retired, the mine was leased and operated at different times by a number of people, including George Winslow, who gave Everett Ralls a rock supposed to come from the 1200-foot level which ran 5 oz. in gold and 24% copper.

An English company, for whom Tom McMullan worked as foreman, ran it for a time. The AS&R (Anaconda Smelting & Refining Co.) mined it for flux. During their operation a two-story boarding house was built.

A Mr. Proctor acquired it and during his operation a large mill was constructed, as were several houses on the hill. During this time two Englishmen, Jack Tregonning and Jimmy Williams, worked a small streak of ore in a cross-cut between the Keating and Leviathan. They mortared the ore and panned the free gold then shipped the “tailings.” When they quit they had enough gold in quart jars, plus what they received from their shipments to return to England and retire.

DEPRESSION YEARS
During the depression years, several people “worked” the dump, making various sums of money— some very little, some more lucky. In the words of John M. Ralls this period is described:

“No history of Radersburg could possibly be complete without something written about the Depression of the ‘30s. Nearly everyone worked up on the Keating Dump. They would take out a ‘Radersburg carload’, which consisted of from three to five tons of ore and hauled it in to the smelter in East Helena. No one could go back to work until they heard from the ore [assessment], because if it didn’t pay, or, to use an ‘old saw’, if it ‘went and didn’t come back’, you had to hunt a new place in the dump. Nearly everyone had a little money, and there was a ‘pony’ of beer on the street every Saturday night.

“Waiting for the returns was a very complicated and interesting procedure. From the day the ore was shipped, you knew very well it would take at least 14 days to hear from it. One would naturally think you could go ahead and take out another shipment, but this was impossible. You had to go to the post office each and every one of those 14 days to see if your settlement sheet- and maybe a check would be there. When it wasn’t, there was nothing remaining to do but go up and sit in front of Ben Martin’s ‘Pool Hall’, where Ben had displayed in a prominent place the pride of his life as a literary masterpiece, a sign reading:
‘We don’t know where MOM is, but We’ve got POP on Ice.’
“Here the affairs of the world in general, and the fate of the shipment in particular, were discussed until it was time to go home for the night and wait for mail time the next day. There wasn’t one- not one- lazy man in Radersburg, Montana! They were just waiting for the returns.”

OHIO-KEATING MINE
Among the lucky ones were Bill Zimmerman and Joseph “Mugs” Shea, who in 1934 set up a little mill where they tabled their material from the dump in order to make a concentrate, using water from the Ohio-Keating. They hit a streak where much of the ore couldn’t be broken because the gold held it together. Even the rock one would ordinarily throwaway ran 10½ oz. to the ton. Bill Zimmerman took one piece of ore to Goodall Bros. Assay Office in Helena. The rock weighed only one pound and brought $134. They gave a piece about the size of a walnut to John M. (Jack) Ralls who received $26 for it. Of 126 pounds of it, Zimmerman and Shea received $2,699.50. Altogether, they took out about $7,000 worth. Even the wall rock they discarded was later picked up and shipped, running 5.36 oz. The ore was assayed and showed it would run 1,345 oz. of gold to the ton, 88 oz. in silver, with a total value of $42,849.16 per ton! Only trouble was, there wasn’t enough of it!

After this Leo Cody and George Griswold acquired the Keating, hiring a number of men and worked the mine several years, going to the 300-foot level.

About 1939 Walter and Alex McLaren (the M&M Mining Co.— who also operated a mine and mill at Cooke City) acquired the Ohio mine and operated the mine and mill there and hired a number of men. Pete Mosier was mine superintendent, Harold Sitton was mine foreman and John Ralls was assayer. Pete and Arlene Mosier lived in a charming house near the mine. Mrs. K. P. (Ann) Thurston operated the boarding house and K. P. (Sully) Thurston worked in the mill. There were two bunk houses for the men. Two families had trailer houses.

The mines ran until the outbreak of World War II when the price of gold was such that operation was unprofitable and they closed.

There was rich ore in the Ohio, some of which was on the 500-foot level. The McLarens installed a cyanide mill (designed and installed by Carlos Heiber), the precipitates from which John Ralls made into gold bricks, each about 2x6x3 in., worth approximately $5,000 each, which were shipped directly to the Denver Mint.
The mines were not opened again until after the war when the Radmont Co. of Butte leased the Keating and again operated it for several years. They pumped it out and went as far as the 1000-foot level. Below that the acid water ate the pipes. Pete Mosier was superintendent here, Gunnar S. Johnson was mine foreman.

This was the last time the Keating or Ohio were operated. Mr. and Mrs. P.M. Mosier moved to Arizona, Mr. and Mrs. G. S. Johnson to Anaconda. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Sitton and family moved to Washington state, and John M. Ralls with partners operated his own mine. All the mill machinery was sold, the mill, boarding house and all buildings at the Keating were torn down or moved away. The mill and buildings remain at the Ohio, but the mill machinery was sold, and the building ransacked and everything of any value or use taken out.

The boom was over— the bigness, the activity, the excitement— only a memory to be written down so the past glory of Radersburg may find a final resting place in a few pages of history.

During the mining history of Radersburg, the worst disaster happened January 18, 1911. These headlines in The Townsend Star and the following article, which was printed in that paper tell the tragic story:
   Terrible Explosion at Radersburg
Six Men Killed in Keating Mine
Cause Not Definitely Known
“Townsend and Broadwater county in general was thrown into a state of excitement and sorrow Wednesday afternoon when the news of the awful calamity reached us. Undertaker Thomas J. O’Connor [uncle of the present Thomas E. (Gene) Connors of Townsend] and County Attorney C.P. Cotter went over as soon as possible, as did all who were particularly interested.

“After holding an inquest at which Mine Inspector Walsh of Helena and Jesse B. Rotte of Butte, besides the County Attorney and Coroner O’Connor took part, the verdict of the jury read as follows:

“We, the jury, empanelled by the Coroner of Broadwater County, Montana, in the inquest over the bodies of Edward Ryan, Dan Ryan, Dan Whyte, Luther Tucker, Percy Way and Harvey Abbott, on the 19th day of January, 1911, find the above mentioned persons came to their deaths on the 18th day of January, 1911, by an explosion of dynamite in the Keating mine. The cause of the explosion is unknown to the jury.’ This was signed by James L. Wood, Wm. Sitton, W. S. Williams, P.J. Latsch, J.C. Blacker, and C.R. Stevenson.

“The bodies of the Ryan brothers will probably be buried Monday. The remains of Mr. Abbott were taken to Drummond for interment, and the remains of Mr. Tucker were taken to Virginia.”

The Helena Independent published the disaster thus:

“As a result of an explosion in the Keating mine at Radersburg about 2:30 o’clock Wednesday afternoon, six miners are dead and two are badly injured. Ed Ryan, shift boss, married; Dan Ryan, his brother, married; Dan Whythe, Percy Way, Louis Tucker, Harvey Abbott, married. The injured are: John Russell, both arms broken and Alex Westlake, leg broken.

“All the bodies were recovered and the men working below the 300-foot level were taken out through other than the main shaft.

“The impression around Radersburg is that the powder magazine in the mine in which is stored enough powder for the shift exploded. This magazine, which is said to contain between 500 and 800 pounds of dynamite, was on the 200-foot level and it is stated the men were killed by the concussion. The force of the explosion was felt for miles.

“Superintendent M. D. Graves stated that he was at a loss to know how the explosion occurred. He expressed the belief that a quantity of powder, which the ‘powder monkey’ was about to take to the lower levels had exploded. Louis Tucker was the ‘powder monkey,’ a name by which the men around mines who handle all the powder is known— Tucker’s duty was only to look after the powder. After the explosion, his body was found on the 300-foot level of the mine, but why he should be on this level instead of the level on which the powder had been placed has not been explained.

“Supt. Graves stated that there must have been six boxes of powder, or 500 pounds which exploded.

“Whythe and Percy Way were working on the 300-foot level when the explosion occurred and near them was Tucker. The two Ryans and Abbott were 60 feet above the 200-foot level, engaged in fixing a shaft roller. Russell and Westlake were on the skip, about 20 feet above the three men who were working in the shaft.

“The lives of the last two men were saved in an unexplainable manner. Immediately after the explosion, the bell rope was pulled, probably by falling timber. The engineer, catching the signal, lifted the skip, into which two injured men had fallen at the time of the explosion, and they were pulled to the surface in time to escape the deadly gas.

“It is the belief of Mr. Graves that the six men who lost their lives were killed by the gas after the explosion. With the exception of Ed Ryan, whose face and body were mutilated by a cave-in following the explosion, none of the men were disfigured, and they were either killed by concussion or by the gas from the exploded powder.

“Westlake and Russell, the two injured men were taken to Helena for treatment.

“The six miners killed, as well as the two injured, were all well known in Radersburg. They were all Americans and comparatively young men. Three were married and lived in the gold-mining camp with their families.

“The accident was the worst in the history of the camp and has cast a shadow over the entire community.”

The writer has been told by one who remembered the tragedy that it was believed generally that the “powder monkey” had been thawing frozen powder and that it had gotten too hot and exploded.

During the height of the mining business, this article was printed in the June 1, 1887 Townsend Tranchant :

“The citizens of Radersburg have an idea that they are again in the midst of a mining boom and that not without good foundation. Business in the place is livelier than it has been for some time. When the new force of men who are at work on the Keating and Blacker mines come to town, business will really boom. These mines are situated a mile and one half from the quaint and picturesque little burg with its tree-shaded homes and its cordial welcoming word that always appealed to the editor on his occasional trips to the town.

“The main shafts are each covered with a huge frame building containing the ponderous engines and hoisting machinery, etc. The hoisting capacity of each mine is 100 tons a day, which, with ore at $30 per ton, in unlimited quantities, is wealth for some and well paid labor for many.

“At the present time there are six four-horse teams hauling the ore to the production works at Toston and fifteen more teams and more men will soon be employed. The new furnace to be erected at Toston will be able to handle the increased amount of material.”