|
By Bob Difley Metalliferous Murphy did not have a lot of friends. Several local miners in the rich silver mining town of Pioche, Nevada, doubted his skill and aptitude as assayer, since he seemed to find riches in every ore sample. One day some skeptical miners spotted an opportunity that would finally catch and expose his obvious ineptitude.
A wagon on its way from a small settlement in Utah bound to Pioche lost its load, a grinding stone, which fell off the wagon shattering into several pieces. The miners scooped up some of the broken pieces and carted them off to the assay office, whereupon Murphy, as predicted, found it to be of the richest grade silver ore. Upon his announcement of this dubious assessment, he was immediately and unceremoniously run out of town.
But that is not the end of the story. Among the miners there were some doubters, or maybe they were just unrealistically hopeful. Nevertheless, they quietly removed the broken grinding stone pieces from the assay office and took them to another assayer who, miraculously, came up with the same results--a rich silver ore content.
And so the rush began to the tiny Utah settlement that would become known as Silver Reef, to the origin of the infamous grinding stone. John Kemple filed the first claim in 1871. Others soon followed. Silver Reef's population exploded to nearly 2000, with forty flourishing businesses and a community of 250 Chinese with their own mayor.
As they had at home, the Chinese practiced the ancient custom of placing food on the gravestones of departed relatives. This was a great discovery for the desert weary Paiute Indians who often visited late at night, attaining a taste for Chinese cooking.
As with most mining towns of the old west, Silver Reef was not without its own gunfights, gambling saloons, and lynchings. One of the town's more notable incidents involved Thomas Forrest, a belligerent, frequently drunk miner who was fired from his job at one of the largest mines. Seeking revenge, he waited in ambush for his boss, Michael Carbis, a popular community leader of the silver mining community, and killed him. Though the sheriff arrested and jailed Forrest, forty men stormed the jail following Carbis's funeral, dragged the murderer off, and hung him from the cross brace of a telephone pole. Unfortunately, the brace broke. However, not to be daunted, the men repeated the job, this time using the strong branch of a nearby cottonwood tree.
Ten and one-half million dollars in silver was extracted from Silver Reef claims before the price of silver dropped and the mines exhausted their ore. By 1891 all the big operations had shut down and by 1910 the town's only occupants were the ghosts of its once boisterous past.
When the mines closed, Sam Wing, the former Mayor of the Chinese community, called upon the conscientiousness that conceivably got him elected (and of which some of our politicians might take note). Using his own personal funds, he built new caskets and paid the freight costs to ship all of his dearly departed countrymen back to their homeland.
Exploring Silver Reef
In 1985 a non-profit citizens committee was formed to preserve and protect the historical town. Today the Wells Fargo bank building has been restored and houses an art gallery and museum. Several other buildings have also survived.
If you feel adventurous, continue beyond Silver Reef (northwest) on the road out to the Oak Grove forest service campground, at the edge of the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness Area. Just across the bridge that spans Leeds Creek look for a trail that leads a short ways from the rear of a gravel pull-off to a creek coming in from a side canyon. Across the creek you will find a strange beehive looking brick structure, which is a kiln, standing twenty-five feet tall and twenty feet in diameter. Built by unknown masons sometime between 1880 and 1890, local legend holds that Italian miners designed the structure according to kilns they remembered from the old country. A Roman arch style entryway lends some credence to the legend. The kiln was used to make charcoal, which produced an even controlled heat necessary to separate the silver from the ore mined in Silver Reef.
Loggers worked the nearby slopes, as evidenced by the many stumps, to provide oak and pinion to fill the kiln. The logs were loaded through a hole in the top and the main entry was sealed with a large metal door. When allowed to smolder for long periods, the logs transmogrified into charcoal.
To find and explore Silver Reef and the kiln for yourself, take I-15 northeast out of St. George, Utah for 17 miles to the Leeds exit. The town is two miles north. | 