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hey welcome to another edition a very special edition of Mysteries of the
Superstition Mountains we're out here today at Goldfield Arizona and it is a
marvelous place that you should come out and visit and one of the creators of
Goldfield is Bob Schoose we're gonna talk to him right now so Bob tell us the
history of Goldfield the history's a real web it actually started finding
gold out here in 1883 84 that's when some of the first claims were actually
filed Hakes was one of the first discovered he used to come out here
alone and he couldn't get anybody to go with him because some of the Apaches
were still running around in small bands and nobody wanted to take a chance of
coming out here
so he kept making his little trips out here and he kept
bringing samples back but he couldn't get anybody to back them
and it wasn't until about 1892 now realized the Apaches surrendered in 87
that was the
last of the Apache Wars and he couldn't get anybody to come out here with him
till 92 and that's when they got serious he had partners the Merrill brothers and
Morris was his financial backer but Morris sent the Merrill brothers to make
sure that you know everything was on the up and up and they did find the black
Queen I mean there was a whole bunch of them they had funny names George
Washington the Abe Lincoln all these funny names on those first claims but
they started actually mining at the Queen all right and they did find some
good gold over there now they didn't have the financial backing to start a
big operation so they made a deal with Hall and Sullivan out of Colorado and
they bonded the mine that was more or less they they agreed to pay so much
money for the claims so they put that deal together
Hakes again was out hunting rabbits after a big storm that came through and it
watched a bunch of water down weeks wash and it exposed the vein down here on the mammoth
that vein proved to be one of the richest mines in Arizona at the time
they were estimated they pulled a million and a half dollars out of it now
the sad part was the four guys the four partners got five thousand dollars
apiece for the mines and when they found that other vein it automatically went to
the Halls, Hall and Sullivan so they imagine they were you know feeling bad
about selling short and they still prospecting around in the area they
worked over at the bulldog for a while and but Hall and Sullivan produced a
million and a half out of that slope they named it after the four guys the
Mormons stoped there were all Mormons at the time so what got you interested Bob
and creating all this I did I did excavating and construction all my life
and I did a lot of mining in California before I came to Arizona and you know it
always interested me and I'd come from ghost towns where I was mining in the
Mojave Desert and I knew that all of them were kind of going to historical
stuff and becoming attractions and themselves you know people are
interested in old history and stuff and and I got tired of construction going up
and down up and down so I was looking for something that would be more stable
and we happened along this piece of property here it was for sale at the
time five acres and we decided we'd buy it
contingent that we could get the zoning to put something in that we could make
money with which was a mine tour and and some building well they they
wouldn't give us the zoning for if that's all we were gonna do we had to
use more of the property so that's when we
decided what we'll build a few buildings and rent them out and we you know put it
where the old town was but at the time we we started buying a piece of property
we did not know that it actually sat here until we did all that research that
water tower over there sitting on the original foundation those foundations
were here when we built it and it looks just like the other one except that was
a wooden tank and you know we put a medal on it all right so do you have
some ambitious plans to make Goldfield bigger I you know everybody wants me to
take the net go to the next level go to the next level and I don't want to make
a you know a tourist trap out of it I want the history kept you know I got a
couple of sons they wanted me to put rollercoasters in and stuff and I said
no no no we're not doing that you know that ain't I mean what we want to
project come on no log ride no no log ride if they mention that too
well if they wanted a minecar rollercoasters no no all right Bob so in
the day how many people were actually here at goldfields and they say that at
one point Goldfield had a bigger population than then the other the other
towns in the area and that was because of a you know a gold rush happened I
mean name had tent set up all over the place and everybody thought they were
going to come out here and find gold and that only lasted a short period of time
and then they left because not everybody found it there was only I think there
was only really three good producing mines out here but there was prospect
holes everywhere prospect holes everywhere they dug everywhere and it was one
article in the paper that said that during the summertime they would find
more values if everybody didn't dig their shaft under a shade tree
[Laughter]
I loved it!
so Bob I heard that you dug up the body or what was left of a miner here
and then you then after digging him up you reburied him what's going on. yeah
we were we were putting in a conduit under the railroad track down there so
that they didn't have to have an overhead wire I'm going over the track
and there's kind of a weird deal I borrowed the backhoe from Housley who
was running the mine over here at the time and I'm digging away they're gonna
weigh in I'm all of a sudden it had some water in the fuel and we had to stop and
mess with it mess where they had to drain everything put new fuel in it
bleed it we got it going again and I'm I'm digging and I mean I'm on solid rock
scraping you know just trying to get deep enough to put the conduit in and
all of a sudden I got to the other side there and I found a soft spot and I go
okay this is where I'm putting the pole you know cuz we had a pull and then the
conduit in another pole coming back up and so I'm digging and Salvador's with
me now remember he's the little Mexican got it and he speaks real broken English
I used to have to translate for I remember that and and he was speaking
English but I had to translate for him anyway he's standing there and I'm
dumping a pile he goes like this and I'm thinking he's telling me to go deeper so
I go in get another bucket dump it on the pile and there's a skull sitting on
the top of the pile unbelievable and I'm a holy mackerel and we didn't know what
to do you know so we called the sheriff and told him and sheriff came out one
guy and we spent the rest of the day screening digging and real slow and easy
getting you know all the bones out was amazing because the sheriff later told
me that we recovered you know like 98% of the guy there was a
couple little finger bones missing and and something about toe bones and that
was it we other than that we got all of them then after digging him up you
reburied him. well yeah a battle with the county and and
everybody else they kept him for a year down at U of A down in Tucson and they
did all this you know whatever you call it forensics and all that and he was it
was 80 to a hundred years prior by the patina and the bones and stuff he was in
a coffin we got the knots from the coffin and a
couple of Levi's rivets and so other than that there wasn't much left you
know but we fought and fought with the County had to get a special use permit
to be able to bury him rebury him on our property because at the time we did not
own the property that was a right-of-way that the BLM had
give us for the Train and no we eventually ended up buying that land
from the BLM but yeah you know I wish there was been the case I could have put
him back where he was but we buried them by the train station down there and we get
my hell of a funeral yeah oh right and a big thanks to Bob shoes one of the
co-owners of Goldfield Arizona and if you haven't come out here to goldfield
you need to make the trip a wonderful recreation of this old ghost town which
was one of the mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
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