By Charles B. Genung, 1915

(Edited by Parker Anderson and Kathy Krause)

(Charles B. Genung (1839-1916) came to Arizona in 1863 and was involved with the earliest mining in the area around Stanton, Rich Hill, Yarnell and Walnut Grove. He settled in Peeples Valley, was active in civic and community affairs and befriended Sharlot Hall, aiding her in preparing for the establishment of the museum in Prescott. The following is a continuation of his account of gold mining in 1863. He and his partners had just registered their claim, the Montgomery.)

Charles Genung:

"We soon realized that we had to have tools and more provisions, so Jack (as we called Beauchamp) and Mayhan went back to the little town of Weaver and got what tools they could, which consisted of some second-hand one-inch steel bars, such as the Mexican placer miners use instead of picks, and a couple of shovels and picks. They could get no blasting powder nor fuse. Neither could they buy a hammer. They had the steel bars cut and made into drills at the blacksmith shop, and bought a lot of rifle powder in small cans. That was the best outfit for quartz mining to be had at that time, short of La Paz! Later, we got a twelve-pound sledge that a man named Armstrong had brought to the country.

Beauchamp went to work getting out ore, while Mayhan and I worked at building an arastra. Mayhan had worked silver ore by the arastra process in Mexico. We built the arastra with what tools we had, and a brace and bits and a small chisel that we borrowed from a neighbor eleven miles down the creek.

There were no bolts nor nails. Wooden pegs and rawhide took the place of iron. Our harness was home-made, a roll of blanket for a collar, and rawhide tugs.

With this crude machine we worked one ton of ore and cleaned up $298.50, calculating the gold at $16.00 per ounce.

With the gold we had retorted in an old musket barrel, I started (on December 24, 1863) to meet a Mexican train that we heard was coming from New Mexico with provisions. I expected to go as far as Chino Valley (Del Rio-Whipple camp-ed.), but met the outfit at Granite Creek, where Prescott now is, and it was a very agreeable surprise to me. I was awful hungry, although I had that day killed a chicken hawk and broiled it on the coals of my camp fire. That night I stayed with Uncle Joe Walker, who led the Walker party to Arizona, and had good grub for the first time in nearly one month. (Their supplies had run very low and all they had for that month was red beans!-ed.) The next day I returned to the mine early, and we all had a good feed for Christmas dinner.

That was the beginning of quartz mining in Northern Arizona.

After half a century, our law-makers are beginning to realize the necessity of doing something to help the prospector by establishing a school in which a prospector or miner can get some information.

I hope that, now the start is made, the government will do as much for the miner as it has for the farmer. It would be a great help if there could be at the school of mines a cabinet of all valuable minerals, and enough of such minerals so that a small sample of each could be donated to anyone who might want to use them for reference.

Although fifty years has done much toward developing the mineral resources of this country, I firmly believe that mining is only in its first stages here.

I know of several gold properties that have been turned down through incompetent management, that I am sure can be made to pay big if properly handled.

I note there is something doing on the Sterling. That mine was worked in 1865 and 1866, and made to pay good, by the Wyley Bros. But when the owners sold it to a California company, and put a Frieberg expert in charge, he made a failure. The mine has tellurium ore in it, as have many others that I know of.

The prospectors will learn in time to demand a tellurium test when they have their ore assayed."

(By 1915, when Genung wrote this, he appreciated the fact that tellurium had value. Tellurium is found free in nature and in the ores containing silver, gold or copper. It is one of the primary ingredients in blasting caps used in mining. Today, it has many more uses unheard of in Genung’s time. It’s used in manufacture of transistors, solar panels, CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs. It’s also used to color glass and ceramics; added to copper, stainless steel and lead, it improves durability and strength. – ed.)

Sharlot Hall Museum’s Blue Rose Theater will present "Cold Chills and Gold Fever" about the life of the famed Yavapai pioneer, Charles B. Genung, on August 20-21, 26-28. Call 445-3122 for tickets and performance times.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(ra179pb and po1655pc) Reuse only by permission.

The Charles B. Genung ranch in Peeples Valley, c.1909 and C. B examining some of his "rocks" in 1910.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po1655pa) Reuse only bypermission.

Charles at 69 years of age, 1910.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(m253p) Reuse only by permission.

An arastra from the old mining days. It was a common and crude way of crushing the ore by using a person, mule or horse to drag a large stone over the ore chunks to extract the gold. It was easily made using logs and water, with the gold sinking to the bottom of the arastra pit. They were normally about 12 feet in diameter and rimmed with logs or stones to make a circular pit. After the ore was crushed, the dredge at the bottom was panned for the gold.