AZentertain: Arizona Gold Rush: Campo Bonito

The Campo Bonito Mines

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This information is published in "Treasures of the Santa Catalina Mountains" covering the history and legends of the Santa Catalina Mountains Purchase the full print or Kindle version on amazon.com. Download Free PDF sample of the book and purchase on Amazon.

J. L. Clark and Fritz Ewe originally staked an independent-lode mining claim in the Old Hat Mining District on January 29, 1887. President Benjamin Harrison granted patent land rights to J.L. Clark and Fritz Ewe January 10, 1891. 1102 The land later became part of the Campo Bonito claims.

William "Buffalo Bill" Cody wrote about his new venture in a letter to friend George T. Beck on May 4, 1902: “The gold mine is a winner I guess beyond a doubt its being kept quiet just now as we want some property adjoining it and a water right from a stream nearby. We are getting out ore and the vein provides a true fissure.”
 
Cody was encouraged by the gold samples produced by his partner, L.W. Getchell. A year later Cody wrote to his sister Julia on March 13, 1903, that the “long-sought vein of ore had been struck after seven months of night-and-day drilling, and predicted that the mine would begin to pay off within four months. As soon as the roads were passable, wagons would haul ore and their own mill would be built during the summer.” 1104 This may have been in reference to the three searches for the Iron Door Mine made by William Neal and Cody.

Above: Prospector Flint Carter overlooking the Campo Bonito grounds where mining for gold and other precious metals lured thousands of men and women during the Arizona Gold Rush of the 1880s through 1910s. © BZB 2010.

Above: One of the tunnels dug near the Campo Bonito site. © BZB 2010.

A tub used for cleaning and separating ores still at the Campo Bonito site. @ BZB 2010.

By 1910 Cody was fully involved in his mining venture near
Oracle. Col. L. W. Getchell, Burgess, and Cody turned six
claims at Campo Bonito into a $600,000 corporation under the
name of the Campo Bonito Mining and Milling Company.
 
The nearby Southern Belle gold mine became property of the Cody mining enterprise in February 27, 1911. By June, they developed one hundred claims over two thousand acres. Burgess, a mining engineer, acquired many of the claims years ago and was convinced they contained valuable placer deposits.
 
That same winter, Cody encouraged Colonel Daniel Burns Dyer, a former Indian agent at Fort Reno, to join his mining venture to prospect tungsten, gold, silver, and lead in the northern range of the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson.
 
Both were friends socially until they invested in the mining venture. Dyer was the former president of the Augusta Railway in Georgia and a member of New York’s Union League Club.

The mines at Campo Bonito contained gold, silver, and tungsten that yielded about $30 a ton. Tungsten was an ore used in hardening of steel and making lamp filaments. With
new light bulbs on the market the demand for tungsten began to increase. The plant had a capacity to process one hundred tons a day. “In one part of the estate the ores run to gold, copper and silver, in another to lead, silver and gold, and in another section to gold, lead and tungsten.” That could be a profit of $2,000 a day, according to sources in the daily newspaper. Cody was known to carry around a pure gold nugget from Campo Bonito in his pocket. 1127 Worth $60 at the time, the 3.17-ounce nugget would be valued today at over $4,200.
 
Unfortunately for Cody there was a marked decrease in the overall production of tungsten in the United States in 1911. This was mainly because there was a lack of a market for tool steel for which tungsten was used. The price in 1911ranged from $4.50 to $8.50 per unit depending on quality, quantity, and bargaining. However, the only deposit of scheelite in the state was at the Cody-Dyer mines.