by 
An aerial view of Oracle Ridge Mine, courtesy of ORM.
At the beginning of 1910, the owner of the Copper Queen Copper Mine at Bisbee sent out a young mining engineer to set up exploration of a set of claims called “Apache Camp” south of Oracle on Mt. Lemmon Road about 20 miles up from Oracle at the current site of Oracle Mining Company’s Oracle Ridge Mine.
Eugene Sawyer was to spend just over two and a half years completing that project. Meanwhile, he wrote frequently — a total of 64 letters while working on the mine and four later— to his mother in Maine. Fortunately, in 1961, Sawyer’s daughter donated the letters to the Arizona Historical Society and a copy of each resides at the Oracle Historical Society.
From those can be extracted much information about the Mine and about some people and places of Oracle.
At first, the letters contained mostly family business, but after the winter months, on April 26, 1910, Sawyer wrote, “The temperature gets pretty high but I really don’t mind it as much as the soggy days in the east and the nights are always comfortable.” He was settling in to liking the area.
To get to the site from Tucson, it was then necessary to come up Oracle Road to Mt. Lemmon highway – the only way up to any site on either side of Mt. Lemmon. From Oracle, one rented a horse or burro to get up to the Apache Camp
To get to Oracle from downtown Tucson, one could take the “machine,” the automobile that Neal, the owner of the Mt. View Hotel (now the Baptist Church) ran. Neal would then rent or sell a horse, or whatever was needed to go on from there.
The “road” up Mt. Lemmon was more of a trail, especially by the time it got to the site which Sawyer was inspecting. No automobile and few wagons could make it up the trail, as we shall see in the accounts Sawyer sent home.
Tucson and the local communities were alerted to the activity through an article in theArizona Daily Star, July or August 1910:
“COPPER QUEEN SENDS MAN HERE TO DEVELOP CATALINA PROPERTY
“E.M. SAWYER who is connected with the Copper Queen company of Bisbee is in the city [Tucson] to make arrangements for extensive developments in the Geesaman-Leatherwood properties in the Catalina mountains, recently acquired by the Phelps-Dodge interests.
“Though unwilling to discuss in detail the future plans of the company with respect to its latest acquisition, Sawyer stated that he had been sent to take charge of the properties and will conduct their development. It is stated that the former owners of the claims have received their payments according to the terms of the option recently recorded.”
From that time, we can trace what is happening through Sawyer’s letters:
August 15, 1910
Sawyer recounted his trip, “to look the place over with Mr. Douglas and Grebe. We arrived in Tucson last Sunday night and spent the night there in the hotel. The next morning we got started at about six o’clock [am] in an automobile for a small settlement called Oracle, about forty miles to the north. There we changed to horses and rode up to the camp 20 miles farther making 60 miles in all. There were a couple of old timers up there who own the ground [Geesaman and Letterman] and one of them had an extra tent in which we slept.”
“Wednesday we finished looking it over and left on our horses about noon for Oracle. There we got the machine again back to Tucson and left for Bisbee that night getting in here at about nine the next morning…”
Sawyer began recounting a somewhat pessimistic view of the site: “I was a little disappointed with the looks of the ground up there. I agree that it is a fair prospect but not promising. If I had been doing it, I don’t know as I should have reported so strongly in favor of it as Grebe did. The Co.[Phelps-Dodge] is getting it cheap and I guess at the price it is well worth trying. Of course, for me I can get the experience and do just as good work while it lasts but it would be a lot better if it is a mine and not a fizzle.”
But he settles right in to getting the job done: “The first thing to do is get the road in there. In places an old road can be repaired [The one Stratton had built] and in others it must be built new. The mountains are being washed down now by the rains and there is no earthly use in trying to start anything till the rainy season is over, about the first [of September]. I will probably go to Tucson next week and make that my headquarters for a while… There is a foreman here in Bisbee … I should like to get him if I can.”
Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 5, 1910
After the rainstorms, he recounts his experience trying to get large pieces of equipment up Mt. Lemmon road: “I came down to Tucson [from Apache Camp] yesterday to see about getting a broiler and getting it started in to camp. I have decided to run an air compressor for machine drills and we need a boiler of about 40 horse power capacity. It will be an expensive piece of work and I doubt if we can do it in less than 10 days or two weeks.”
“Things in general went badly last week but I am getting on to the ropes fast and they will never go badly twice for the same reason. I engaged a freighter the first of the week to start in with a load of supplies and provisions, two tons. After dikkering [sic] with him I got him to say he would start Thursday. I wanted him to start earlier but finally agreed on Thursday, because his horses were tired.”
“The road would be just about done then and the men on the road had enough stuff to keep them till the freight got in which would be about Sunday. We had about 10 Mexicans and Yaki [sic: Yaqui] Indians on the road and expected to keep them and start them on some development work. When we told them what we were going to pay them they all kicked and said they wouldn’t work for that, so we told them to hit the long hike. Then I came in to Tucson for some men last Friday and, thinking it was strange I didn’t meet my load on the way in, I went straight to Steinfeld’s [historic store in downtown Tucson] and found the man hadn’t even loaded yet. I was wild with him but it wouldn’t help matters to get another man then for this one was already [sic: all ready] and I would probably have had to fool around another week with another and none of them are any good.”
“Then I rustled around and got 12 Mexicans and a team to haul them to Oracle for 15 dollars. The stage fare to Oracle is $4 but I got a freight wagon and sent them by the ton and told them they could walk from Oracle [to Apache Camp – 20 miles].”
“Last Monday when I started for Oracle in an auto we got mired in one of the canyons and finally took the stage back to Tucson, after the stage horses tried to pull the machine out and couldn’t. The next time I started from here to Oracle was last Friday, day before yesterday. The man kept me waiting about two hours and finally we got started at about 2.”
“If [the driver] had started when he said he would it would have been all right but as it was we came to one of the biggest canyons [prob. Canyon del Oro] just in time to see a big wall of water rush down it and head us off. In five minutes it was a raging torrent and we had to sit there and wait an hour.”
“It all came from a shower which we could see a mile or so above though the sun was shining where we were. The water finally subsided … [and it was] six o’clock when we got to Oracle. The man who runs the machine is in with the man [William “Curly” Neal] who runs the sort of boarding house [Mountain View Hotel – eight rooms] at Oracle. If he had started from Tucson when he said he would, I would have been in camp then and although I hadn’t any idea he was purposely working me, I’d be damned if I was going to stay there that night or leave my horse there. I [usually] put my horse up there when I come to town. They sort of opened their eyes and mouths when I told them I was going to camp that night.”
Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 25, 1910
“The man who started with the boiler got about five miles beyond Oracle [up Mt. Lemmon Road] and got cold feet and came back to Tucson. For two days after leaving Oracle he would have been without water as he had not prepared himself with barrels enough or means to carry them. He had to come back all right.”
“I did not blame him for that for his horses would have been worthless when they came to the hardest part of the job. But I did blame him for not being prepared. The outfit in town here who is doing the job does a lot of that kind of work and they had sent out a poor driver who had not realized what he was up against. This time Gould the head man is going himself and they are taking extra horses and a big wagon loaded with bales of alfalfa and barrels to be filled at every station but they are taking enough to last from Oracle to the next station which is two days from Oracle, Kelloggs Ranch.”
“A freighting job across the country is like crossing the ocean. They take water and supplies and camp wherever they happen to be at night and six days is a quick as any of our freighters have done it in.”
Sawyer finds that he can save time by using the method popular for over 30 years in the area: “Lately, I have had a lot of stuff, about a ton and a half packed in by the trail from Oracle on Burros. That cuts off two days and costs the same so I expect to use that way hereafter for everything that I can, all except rails and cars and pipe, etc. We pay $25 a ton for freight. [To] Oracle it is $0.50 a hundred and I have an old Indian packer who takes it from Oracle to camp for $0.75 a hundred so the cost is the same, $25 a ton for everything we get, supplies, provisions, mining equipment, etc., makes mining operations and living rather expensive in there.”
“I bought my horse with Co. funds and keep him on the same. It is right that they should keep him and they are entitled to the profit or loss from the investment which was the best I could do at Oracle when I bought him. He is a pretty good horse and does well enough between Oracle and camp and between the places a couple of miles apart.”
“The horse’s name is Damn Fool. I named him that because he acts like one when I try to catch him in the corral to saddle him in the morning. Then he behaves all right if I just ride him over to the other camp, but when I turn off that trail onto the trail that goes to Oracle, he knows what’s up right away and he will wheel around and bolt and it always takes me some time to get started on the Oracle Trail. Once started he goes all right again. I am going to keep him but at the same time I am watching out for a better horse who will cover the ground a lot faster and not be such a damn fool. Im buying anything like a horse I am in a hard position because to a rancher or horse trader I am the Copper Queen and made of money and I am almost certain to be stuck even though I get a good horse. About the only possible way out is to get someone else to buy the horse for me and not let on whom it is for.”
“On the other hand everyone kow tows to the Queen. About half the people here seem to be stricken with awe of the great corporation and in the stores where I deal in the name of the Co. they scrape and bow and scurry around for me like slaves.”
“Tucson people are all particularly on the anxious seat right now, because the papers are full of rumors about the [El Paso and Southwest RailRoad] building through to the coast and they are doing all in their power–sending committees to W.D. [Walter Douglas] etc. trying to influence them to come through Tucson.”
Oracle Bisbee, Ariz., Oct. 10, 1910
Crossing out “Bisbee” on Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company letterhead, Sawyers substitutes “Oracle.”
He is now using wagons all the way (it’s hard to take a boiler on burros!) and has devised a way for them to get up to Apache Camp.
“I bought lumber, provisions, ore cars, stoves, blankets, clothes, etc. amounting to six tons. Four tons of it started out from Tucson yesterday and the other two tons are waiting so as to include some machine parts which had to be shipped from El Paso. The four tons started yesterday on two wagons, four horses to a wagon. They will pass through here tomorrow night and about 20 miles beyond here they will unload and hitch up together and take the stuff up to camp in four trips, as the last 10 miles is rough and steep. It was awful getting the boiler up but she is in now and we will soon have steam up. For nearly all of the last four miles we had to literally hoist it up with block and tackle. Hitch to a rock or a drill head and with two and three pulley blocks and four horses pulling we would advance about 100 ft. and then go ahead for another hold.”
Sawyer also mentions that an E.P and S.W. spur is planned. He says he has met “an engineer [named Jones] here in charge [of] a party which is camped about 15 miles away making a road up the San Pedro Valley and as near as possible for a railroad to run to our camp. The road will be built or not according to he success of the mines. Jones kept me busy till late last night telling him where to put his railroad.”
Oracle Bisbee, Ariz., Jan. 5, 1911
By early 1911, a letter brings attention to how small the world of mining is, even at such a distance. Sawyer writes about a man known to his family in the East – the very man who has convinced William “Buffalo Bill” Cody to attempt to develop mines in the in the same general area, though much closer to Oracle and in Pinal County.
“I believe Cody thinks he has a mine but I myself think he had no more mine than your back yard.”
“I was glad to get your letter and hear that you had seen Col. Getchell. He may have been drinking a little I suppose, but he has a temperance reputation around here which is an unusual thing; there are so many soakers, Cody himself being one for the biggest.”
“Getchell has the newspaper idea of our mine which is the general idea in Tucson. They all suppose the success of the mine is assured and the Co. is already to build the railroad in etc. etc. but it is all very exaggerated. It may develop into a mine, but right now it is no better than a fair prospect. I don’t know just to what extent they believe it and to what extent they purposely exaggerate but Cody and his crowd as well as our other neighbors seem to be working hard to spread the report that we have developed a big mine right along side of them. [Actually, the sites were miles apart, by current road.] That of course, helps them raise money for their own purposes. I believe Cody thinks he has a mine but I myself think he had no more mine than your back yard.”
“Developments are slow with us [even though] two months ago things were looking bright.”
Born at the beginning of the just pre-baby-boom year of 1943, Evaline May Jones was a Kansan until she left, in1968, to teach at a community college campus in Centerville, IA. She grew up on a farm near Frankfort, finished a BA and MA in English education at Kansas State University and taught for a year at Washington, KS, High School and at Catholic high school in Manhattan, KS, the latter while finishing her MA. While in Iowa, she taught English and related courses (journalism, theater, photography). She also earned a Specialist degree in community college education at the University of Iowa (Iowa City) and had journalism courses at Iowa State (Ames). When arthritis in her spine became a real problem, she was advised to take a job in the Southwest, so when the first full-tiime English position at Aravaipa Campus, CAC, opened up, she applied. Although she had to convince them that she REALLY wanted to work at a campus literally on the edge of a wilderness area, she got the job. She began work at Aravaipa in the fall of 1975, moved from Kearney to Oracle in 1976 and has been in Oracle since. In Oracle, she began work with the Oracle Historical Society, was a founding member and President twice. Local history became her most-loved hobby, although she did not forget drama. She produced a play called Deadwood Dick, which became the first play for a theater troupe now known as SPATs: San Pedro Actors Troupe. It was a course taught under the auspices of CAC, but the group preferred to go ahead on their own - and are still going strong on their own. Meanwhile she married Abraham Auerbach in December 1980, in the historic Union Church, holding the reception in the Acadia Ranch Museum. She made sure they returned from their honeymoon in time to celebrate the centennial of the American Flag post office building and the installation of the history plaque (Dec. 28, 1980) They produced David in late 1982 and she took sabbatical to return to Iowa to complete a PhD (in instructional design) from May 1983 through summer of 1984. While back in Iowa City, with baby and husband in tow, she began to have more problems with the arthritis, Once back to Oracle, she was a little better, but eventually had three operations on the spine. She had to retire in 1995 on disability. Nevertheless, she continued to work at volunteer jobs: as a docent at Biosphere 2 (on her electric scooter), at the Oracle Library, at the Oracle Community Center, as a medicare counselor for the Pinal-Gila Council on Senior Citizens, and finally, back to the Oracle Historical Society. More recently she served at the Tri-Community Visitors’ Center and the Copper Corridor group, serving the Oracle through Superior area. Now, she is busy helping the Oracle Dark Skies Committee to nominate the Oracle State Park as a designated International Dark Skies Park. She has also taught some courses through CAC on local history, leading local and out-of-town people to see some of the historic places in and around Oracle. She started a small business selling books about local history which has expanded to be “Evaline’s Local Books, Oracle, etc.” Lately she has given talks on Oracle History and led groups on tours, such as a two-day tour for the Arizona Historical Society docents, coming up soon for the Arizona Historical Society Docent Council. She has written articles about history and done some reviews for local newspapers. David was off to China to work for a while and then to Boston, working in financial analysis at Boston Scientific. In March of 2011, Abe, whom she had been caring for at home for about four years as he became less able, had to enter a care home. In January of 2014, loyal and very supportive to the end - Abe passed away at Grace Manor in Oracle. Evaline plans to keep exploring history, Oracles and her own ancestry. She will continue to write and plans to travel as her own health improves.
by by