Black
Cat
Vintage
Art, books,
comics and
vintage
clothing
Eve’s Garden
Bed and
Breakfast
Thur-Sat
12-6
108 N. 5th St.
Alpine
432.294.0895
when he noticed that the rock
was a lot heavier than it should
have been for its size.
The Bull Frog Gold Mine
was in operation from 1904
until 2006, and has produced
millions of dollars in gold.
There is nothing on earth
that will pique people’s interest
and get them more excited than
tales of lost gold and buried
treasure. The Big Bend area of
Texas cannot be left out when it
comes to tall tales of lost mines,
Spanish gold, and buried treas-
ure, such as stories about a
cache of Spanish gold coins that
were found by a Mexican goat
herder on top of a remote mesa
in the Sanderson, TX area; rem-
nants of Spanish silver mines in
East Texas; or the famously lost
Bill Kelly Gold Mine in the Big
Bend Country of Texas. These
stories and others fuel the fires
of the adventurer’s soul.
But before you load your
gear and head to Far West Texas
to find your fortune in this hot,
rugged landscape, you should
educate yourself about hunting
for lost treasure.
When Texas was admitted
into the Union, she lost much
of her mineral-rich lands when
she gave up millions of acres to
pay her war debts. These debts
were incurred fighting for her
independence from Mexico.
These grounds included gold-
bearing mining districts in New
Mexico and Colorado. The for-
mer Texas mining districts of
White Oaks and the Jicarilla
Mountains of southeastern
New Mexico have yielded up
the largest gold strikes in New
Mexico history, and gold is still
being mined there. Colorado
gold mines also produced bil-
lions in gold ore. Gold is still
being extracted there to this
day.
Because of geological make
up, Texas is better known for
her silver deposits. But precious
metals like gold and silver usu-
ally run together in varying
amounts, with the most promi-
nent mineral deposit determin-
ing which metal is mined. The
mines at Shafter, Texas (1880-
1926) testify to this. The
Shafter Mining District has
employed up to 400 men dur-
ing peak operations. This mine
produced 3.6 million ounces of
silver (10 ounces per ton).
Since Texas boundaries were
redefined as we know them
432.386.4165
Ave C & N 3rd • Marathon, TX
[email protected]
www.evesgarden.org
today, gold is rarely found
except in unprofitably small,
almost microscopic amounts.
The forces of nature which
work to produce gold just don’t
exist within modern-day Texas.
Most mountains in Far West
Texas are remnants of ancient
reefs, not mineral-laden rock.
Geology alone forbids many
gold strikes in the state of Texas.
But there is always the
exception.
The closer you get to the Rio
Grande, geology changes in the
prospector’s favor. For instance,
the Shafter Mining District is
just 20 miles north of the Rio
Grande, but no mineral-rich
strikes have ever been made
north of Shafter in Texas. At the
Shafter Silver Mines, 8,400
ounces of gold were recovered.
At roughly $20 an ounce back
then (late 1800s through early
1900s), that would be
$168,000 in gold ore alone.
Then, east of Shafter and along
the Rio Grande, a man named
William Kelly made a well-doc-
umented rich gold discovery,
continued on page 14
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2019
13