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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.
The story continues …
Apache Camp, Jan. 14, 1912
“I don’t know whether I ever told you about the Trowbridges or not. They are a family who are spending the winter on a ranch down at Oracle, [Triangle-L, which Wm. eventually purchased] on account of the health of the younger daughter who has the bugs [Probably TB]. The girls are Ruth and Gladys Carrol. Mr Trowbridge being their stepfather I think. Last week, the well daughter Ruth and Mr. Trowbridge came up here and staid [sic] over a day and I enjoyed their visit very much. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. We took a trip underground and went all over the works and played cards in the evening. I enjoyed their visit very much myself and hope to go down and spend a Sunday with them sometime. Ruth plans to return east to be married very soon I think.”
[Finally, Sawyer shows how much he appreciates being at Apache Camp:] “This is always one of the best times of year in this country and we are having beautiful weather here now, bright warm days and cold clear nights. I haven’t been away from camp since I came back after Christmas and I am hoping not to have to for some time.”
Apache Camp. Jan. 25, 1912
“I don’t remember whether I told you of my planned trip over to Mammoth or not. A man over there has a mine which he has been trying to interest the company in. About two weeks ago I had a letter from Mr. Sherman asking me to go over and examine it when I had time and last Thursday, a week ago today, I started over. I went down to Oracle the first day and spent the night at the Trowbridges. The next day I rode over to Mammoth and spent the night in a little adobe house where they take boarders. Mammoth is an old mining camp, a relic of the early days. There is still a little work going on over there but it looks pretty dismal and deserted and the coyotes yelping all night made it seem more so. I examined the mine the next day and spent another night there, then rode back to Oracle and spent another night at Trowbridges and then rode in to camp I found the mine very interesting but rather small to do much with. I mean its outlook is for a small amount of ore rather than a large amount.”
Tucson, Arizona, Feb. 6, 1912
“We have just located some good new ore on the bottom level, which means quite a lot to us. I think now we shall continue down with the shaft and that means first putting in a new hoist larger and speedier than the one we are using now. For the past month or two I haven’t considered our outlook so promising, but right this minute I think it is a little better than it ever was. I don’t mind how fast we grow but I am not going to let things get tied up so that I can’t get away within the next four or five months for a vacation.
“The Douglases will be back in Bisbee the 16th of this month I understand and I have an idea Mr. D. will be up to camp soon after.
“Col. Cody and Col. Getchell [Colonel L. W. Getchell, mining engineer] are expected back soon I think. I wish I could say as much for their mine as Col. Getchell did about [my] mine, but my honest opinion is that it is a tremendous swindle and I am very much afraid that Cody is innocent and Getchell is playing him for a sucker. I think Cody will get wise pretty soon and the work will be abandoned.” [Cody biographer Don Russell says that by the end of the summer in 1912 “Cody discovered that the gold and tungsten of Oracle was insufficient to finance his retirement. His debt had been traduced, but he still owed too much to quit show business.” Cody apparently never returned to his Oracle Mine. His “adopted son,” Johnny Baker is said to have tried to sell it in Europe and in the US east, with no luck, apparently. After Cody’s death in 1916, Baker built the High Jinks ranch house complex on the property.- The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill]
Tucson, Arizona, Feb. 11, 1912
“Our drift on the bottom level which had just struck ore is still in ore and it looks now as if we would surely have to start down with the draft again and open a new level. I consider this new development adds half as much again to the ore we had already developed.
“The enclosed letter from President Smythe [of his old college] may interest you. I have just answered it and said I thought the mining school was all right. They really do need a new building there and I hope he gets it.”
HISTORICAL NOTE: Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912.
Apache Camp, March 14, 1912
“Everything is going smoothly here at the mine but I am a little disappointed in the new ore on our bottom level. It is all right for size but the general average grade is lower than it should be. I think W. Douglas is back in Bisbee by this time and will soon make a trip out here. I don’t know what his attitude will be but I have an idea that he may decide to pay for the properties and keep them as an investment for some futures time when the price of copper may be better. Having developed so much stake in ore it would be too bad to drop the whole thing now and lose the money we have put in when there is a fair chance that conditions may come about some time under which it could be handled profitably without any further developments. Whatever does happen I am going to make arrangements some way to leave for a vacation before very long and make a trip east.
“We have had a terrific storm here for the past two days. It rained and snowed alternately all day yesterday and last night and this morning we have about eight inches of heavy snow. The sun is coming out warm today and the snow will soon melt off. The days are like summer here this time of year, when the sun shines.
Tucson, Arizona, March 17, 1912
“I presume Mr. Douglas is back in Bisbee by now but I haven’t heard anything definite about his arrival there or his coming up to camp. Everything to do with that work depends entirely on him and I can’t help feeling that by one arrangement or another the work will be stopped. Either they will anticipate the final payments and buy over the whole thing to keep as an investment, that is what Mr. Sherman wants to do, or they will drop it altogether.
“I believe that, as far as I am concerned, they are entirely satisfied with my work, both in planning and laying out the work and in handling the business side of it. I know I have their confidence from the way I have been left with complete control. They have never offered me a word of advice as regards expenditures or policy but have simply turned the money over to me to go ahead with, according to my requisition.
“It has been a wonderful experience for me and has set me ahead in my profession more than five years of the one sided kind of work I was doing in Bisbee I don’t know what they will offer me next if the work is stopped. I suppose it depends on what they have to do. They might want to put me in the old place as Chief Geologist , but I shouldn’t care so much about that now. I like the executive and all round work best.’
Tucson, Arizona, May 8, 1912
“I have been back in camp about a week now and have been very busy. I have not had a visit from Mr. Douglas yet, but I have something which I consider to be definite assurance that it is their intention to buy the mine, at least what is known as the Geesaman group where we have found most of the ore. Mr. Ellinwood, one of the attorneys has asked me to find out all I can about a conflict over one of the claims. Mr. Geesaman included the claim with the group which he bonded to the company but it is also claimed by Mr. Stratton, an outsider. I think Geesaman has most right to it. The Co. will make application for patent and then Stratton will file his adverse claim probably and the case will be tried in court. If Stratton does not file his adverse claim before the patent is granted he will be too late.
“The Co. will not mix themselves up in a lawsuit in Geesaman’s behalf unless it was their intention to buy the claims. I think I will know definitely about this in a very short time. I think the plan is to buy the claims and abandon them for the present.
Apache Camp, May 13, 1912
“I have had some definite news as to the company’s plans at last and they are about as I said I expected in my last letter. They are going to buy the Geesaman group and close down the work for the present. I have had a … long letter from Mr. Douglas. He is not coming up here himself but he leaves everything in my hands, the disposition of stores, etc., and the plans for breaking camp. he tells me, as soon as I can get things settled and everything taken care of to take a two months vacation, which will come in very nicely.
“I haven’t made any plans yet as I have no idea how long it will take to close down.”
TUCSON, ARIZ May 17, 1912
“I have been very busy in town for a day or two and am starting back this morning I rather dread the prospect as it isn’t so comfortable traveling this time of year as it is in the winter either for the horse or myself.
“We will probably stop work and break camp within the coming month and then I expect to be free, It is possible I may have to be around a while longer on account of the law suits which will probably come up. Anybody can run a mine, but not everybody can make one..Anybody can run a mine, but not everybody can make one.”
Apache Camp, May 21, 1912
“There is no news in particular with me. We are still working here, but we are not getting in anymore supplies and I think three weeks more will see us closing. Tomorrow I am going over to a camp about 12 miles from here, called the Foran Camp, to see what their prospects are. It is reported they have struck some rich ore and I think they are trying to sell stock to the C.Q. It probably will not be over six weeks at the outside till I can start for home. Let me know what you think about the time. If Polly is going to be married in the fall it might be better for me to wait till my two months will include her wedding day. I don’t know whether I can do that or not as the company may want me to get away as soon as we are through here in order to be back for something else. I feel that this work has resulted successfully and I believe they are well satisfied. They are buying it and P.D. [Phelps-Dodge] and Co. haven’t the reputation around here as looking for gold bricks. I have made a mine and that is a big thing to do.”
Apache Camp, May 27, 1912
“ I wrote you just a short note last week before I went over to the Foran Camp [No other information has yet been found about this claim-EJA] with Mr. Leatherwood. We had a successful trip and I was very much interested in their property. They have been working there about the same length of time we have and have found no ore, yet they have a much better looking prospect. If I could have had my choice at the start I would rather have had that than this, in fact I would almost be willing to swap right now, for I think I could make a bigger mine there than we have here. I was glad to see it look so good because I think sooner or later there will be a mine there and that will help bring a railroad in here. If the company that is working there now gives it up I shall try to get the C.Q. to take it.”
My plans are no more definite than ever, and it may be a month before I can say when I can get away. Closing up and getting everything taken care of will be a pretty big job .
Your letter came with the pictures enclosed and I’m glad you like the horse. I am sitting on. That is my horse Leopold, Leo for short. I have another picture of him taken by Miss Carroll at Oracle which I am enclosing with this. I think he is the best horse in the country.”
“Be sure to let me know when the best time would be for me to be at home.””
July 7, 1912
Sawyer wrote that he had talked to Mr. Douglas who told him to take a two month vacation and then the company would put him to work again. He might be placed might be a new mine in New Mexico or back at Bisbee.
All that we know about the subsequent life of Eugene Sawyer (besides his having a daughter named Mrs. Albert N. Hopper who donated the letters) comes in the letters written after he left Arizona.
September 8, 1912
Hotel Utica New York
Written at lunch at the hotel just before he catches the train for Chicago, this letter says that he had been in New York for about a week. He “went over to the Colonel’s house” [Getchell?] and saw “lion skins, elephant tusks” and such. He also had been five days at the Trowbridge camp at Spit Fire Lake – directions for which he got from Mrs. Trowbridge delivered to the Howard Club.
September 10, 1910
Rock Island Line
In this last letter in the collection, he says that he is in the center of Kansas (on the train) and will be getting off at Hutchinson just to mail the letter. He will be in El Paso the next day and in Bisbee by the second day (Sept. 12). Apparently getting his wish that he go back to Bisbee and the Copper Queen, Mr. Sawyer tells us nothing further.
What a treasure the letters were for the history of the Apache Camp/ Control/ Oracle Ridge Mine.
It appears that the mine did not open for work again until 1937. This series will continue with the history of the mine 1937 until today in future articles. Meanwhile, the related stories of some of the Oracle people mentioned in these letters can be explored.
To the reader: Information about Oracle Mining Company can be found at http://www.oracleminingcorp.com/overview/
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.
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