THE KLONDIKE
The teaching job at Nogales was a pleasure in every way except for the pay which was $90 a month for nine months. I was planning on getting married and needed to buy clothing, a ring and the first months rent on an apartment. So when the school year ended in May 1938 I began to look for a summer job. A fellow teacher, Pearn Prather, also wanted to work so we went together to Utah where Peters Construction Co., my old Roosevelt Dam outfit, was driving a tunnel into a mountain to bring water to the west side of the Wasatch Mountain Range. We signed up on WPA in Manti County Utah and drove up to the work site which was at the ten thousand foot elevation. There were snow banks all around and the place looked like a disaster area. The tunnel caved in most every day and a number of men had been seriously injured. We boarded a mine train and went into the tunnel about half a mile where we stopped the train and told the operator to take us back outside. We wanted to work very badly but not at that place.
We went on to Salt Lake City where we found the USA Cafe offering meals at very low prices. We could get a hamburger steak, two vegetables , bread, butter, coffee and a piece of pie for fifteen cents. We spent a few days there but could not find work so we drove south to Chloride, Arizona where Pearn's sister lived. We managed to get jobs at the Klondike Mine about 15 miles northwest of Chloride. The mining effort at the Klondike was financed by Sears Roebuck and Co. and all equipment was first class. Pearn was paid $5 a day as an experienced miner. I was paid $4 a day as a "Mucker." We each paid $1 a day for board and room and the food was excellent.
The Klondike Mine had first been worked by the English who took the ore down to the Colorado River six miles away. They floated it down the river to the Gulf of California on barges. Here it was loaded on sailing ships and taken around Cape Horn to Cornwall, England where the gold and silver were finally extracted. The drifts (tunnels) dug by the English were straight and smooth with the tops arched very precisely. Our mining was not precise at all. The drifts wandered around following veins of paying ore as mapped by a "sampler" who furnished chips of rock to an assayer who determined whether the samples were rich enough to pay. We could make a small profit if the ore ran seven dollars a ton in gold and silver. Gold prices were controlled by the Federal Government and were pegged at $35 per ounce at that time. I do not know what the price of silver was. We hit one pocket where the ore ran $5,500 per ton but that was rare.
In my opinion, mining is a tough way to earn a living. It is a dirty strenuous activity and is quite dangerous. The day shift goes in and drills holes for dynamite using pneumatic, liners stopers or jack hammers. They work in pairs with the miner in charge and the mucker as helper. The miner knows how to place the holes in order to deepen a shaft, extend a drift or enlarge a stope. He is also expert in loading dynamite and detonators in the drilled holes to break out the ore bearing rock in a desired way.
