CHAPTER XXVI

The famous Bonanza Copper Mine is on the mountainside high above the Kennicott Valley, and near the Kennicott Glacier--the largest glacier of the Alaskan interior. This glacier does not entirely fill the valley, and one travels close to its precipitous wall of ice, which dwindles from a height of one hundred feet to a low, gravel-darkened moraine. From the summit of Sour-Dough Hill it may be seen for its whole forty-mile length sweeping down from Mounts Wrangell and Regal.

The Bonanza Mine has an elevation of six thousand feet, and was discovered by the merest chance.

The history of this mine from the day of its discovery is one of the most fascinating of Alaska. In the autumn of 1899 a prospecting party was formed at Valdez, known as the "McClellan" party. The ten individuals composing the party were experienced miners and they contributed money, horses, and "caches," as well as experience. The principal cache was known as the "McCarthy Cabin" cache, and was about fifteen miles east of Copper River on the trail to the Nicolai Mine.

The Nicolai had been discovered early in the summer by R. F. McClellan, who was one of the men composing the "McClellan" party, and others. Another important cache of three thousand pounds of provisions was the "Amy" cache, thirty-five miles from Valdez, just over the summit of Thompson Pass.

The agreement was that the McClellan party was to prospect in the interior in 1900 and 1901, all property located to be for their joint benefit.

The members of the party scattered soon after the organization was completed. Clarence Warner, John Sweeney, and Jack Smith remained in Valdez for the winter, all the others going "out to the states."

In March of 1900 Warner and Smith set out for the interior over the snow. There was no government trail then, and the hardships to be endured were as terrific as were those of the old Chilkoot Pass, on the way to the Klondike. The snow was from six to ten feet deep, and their progress was slow and painful. One went ahead on snow-shoes, the other following; when the trail thus made was sufficiently hard, the hand sleds, loaded with provisions and bedding, were drawn over it by ropes around the men's shoulders. From two to three hundred pounds was a heavy burden for each man to drag through the soft snow.

Climbing the summit, and at other steep places, they were compelled to "relay," by leaving the greater portion of their load beside the trail, pulling only a few pounds for a short distance and returning for more. By the most constant and exhaustive labor they were able to make only five or six miles a day.

They replenished their stores at the "Amy" cache, near the summit, and in May reached the "McCarthy Cabin" cache. Here they found that the Indians had broken in and stolen nearly all the supplies.

When they left Valdez, it was with the expectation that McClellan, or some other member of the party, would bring in their horses to the McCarthy cabin, that their supplies might be packed from that point on horseback,--the snow melting in May making it impossible to use sleds, and no man being able to carry more than a few pounds on his back for so long a journey as they expected to make.

However, McClellan had, during the winter, entered into a contract with the Chitina Exploration Company at San Francisco to do a large amount of development work on the Nicolai Mine during the summer of 1900. He returned to Valdez after Warner and Smith had left, bringing twenty horses, a large outfit of tools and supplies, and fifteen men--among them some of the McClellan prospecting party, who had agreed to work for the season for the Chitina Company.

When this party reached the McCarthy cabin, they found Warner and Smith there. An endless dispute thereupon began as to the amount of provisions the two men had when the Chitina party arrived,--Warner and Smith claiming that they had five hundred pounds, and the Chitina Company claiming that they were entirely "out of grub," to use miner's language.

Warner and Smith demanded that McClellan should give them two horses belonging to the McClellan prospecting party, which he had brought. This matter was finally settled by McClellan's packing in what remained of Smith and Warner's provisions to the Nicolai Mine, a distance of nearly a hundred miles.

McClellan, as superintendent of the Chitina Company, used, with that company's horses, four of the McClellan party's horses during the entire season, sending them to and from Valdez, packing supplies.

In the meantime, upon reaching the Nicolai Mine, on the 1st of July, Warner and Smith, packing supplies on their backs, set out to prospect. The Chitina Company, in the famous and bitterly contested lawsuit which followed, claimed that they were supplied with the Chitina Company's "grub"; while Smith and Warner claimed that their provisions belonged to the McClellan party.

After a few days' aimless wandering, they reached a point on the east side of Kennicott Glacier, about twenty miles west of the Nicolai Mine. Here they camped at noon, near a small stream that came running down from a great height.

Their camp was about halfway up a mountain which was six thousand feet high. After a miner's lunch of bacon and beans, they were packing up to resume their wanderings, when Warner, chancing to glance upward, discovered a green streak near the top of the mountain. It looked like grass, and at first he gave it no thought; but presently it occurred to him that, as they were camped above timber-line, grass would not be growing at such a height.

They at once decided to investigate the peculiar and mysterious coloring. The mountain was steep, and it was after a slow and painful climb that they reached the top. Jack Smith stooped and picked up a piece of shining metal.

"My God, Clarence," he said fervently, "it's copper."

It was copper; the richest copper, in the greatest quantities, ever found upon the earth. There were hundreds of thousands of tons of it. There was a whole mountain of it. It was so bright and shining that they, at first, thought it was Galena ore; but they soon discovered that it was copper glance,--a copper ore bearing about seventy-five per cent of pure copper.

The Havemeyers, Guggenheims, and other eastern capitalists became interested. Then, when the marvellous richness of the discovery of Jack Smith and Clarence Warner became known, a lawsuit was begun--hinging upon the grub-stake--which was so full of dramatic incidents, attempted bribery, charges of corruption reaching to the United States Senate and the President himself, that the facts would make a long story, vivid with life, action, and fantastic setting--the scene reaching from Alaska to New York, and from New York to Manila.

The lawsuit was at last settled in favor of the discoverers.

On January 14, 1908, Mr. Smith disposed of his interest in a mine which he had located across McCarthy Creek from the Bonanza, for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It will be "stocked" and named "The Bonanza Mine Extension." It is said to be as rich as the great Bonanza itself.