GOLD MINE: IN OUR DREAMS
Do you remember? There’s a Gold Mine in the Sky —Far Away
We will find it, you and I, some sweet day…
Another one of those golden oldies that will require that I trek to Barnes and Noble to find out the words, when it was written, etc. etc. I believe it was Bing Crosby, and later, Pat Boone, that were the noted crooners who recorded this song. Hearing these old songs spurs memories that I want to share, so bear with me. This is a story about a gold mine— a gold mine owned by the Brunelle family. It’s unfortunate that the word lost can’t be worked into the story. All gold mine stories worth a hoot have lost somewhere in their telling, like the Lost Dutchman or the Lost Blue Bucket. But alas, the Brunelle gold mine wasn’t lost. At the most, about the only things that may have been lost were some investment opportunities that would have put us on Easy Street, or, maybe, we lost the opportunity to “start the great slide of irresponsible Brunelle’s”. These, fortunately, didn’t happen. Easy Street and irresponsibility (other then minor lapses) is not our style. Having had a gold mine in our past, however, is part of our heritage.
According to Mark Twain, the definition of a gold miner is a liar with a hole in the ground. Of course, his point of reference was California and Nevada around the 1860’s and 1870’s. Do you suppose any of those “liars” migrated northeastward into Idaho? Of course they did. Did our gold mine have any connection with one of those migrating gold miners? Of course it did. And who was this later day Argonaut? His name was Emmanual M. Smith. He reportedly was born in 1845 and he died on April 12, 1929, at 173 King Street, Wallace, Idaho, the home of my grandmother, Jessie Brunelle, and my aunt and uncle, Jeannette and Ray Wilks. I was born 20 days after he died so we had no contact in this world. I do, however, have a relic of Mr. Smith among my souvenirs. It’s a “Colt 45” - that’s right, a real six shooter out of the old West - that E. M. Smith most likely carried with him for protection against rattlesnakes, claim jumpers, and all those other varmints that prowled the land a hundred or more years ago. For those with a historical bent and, perhaps, interested in the value of old collectable stuff, the Patent dates inscribed are Sept. 19, 1871 and July 2, 1872. The number engraved on the components is 2683. I think the original barrel was cut down to its present five inches. I’m sure that greatly affects its value.
And now, back to the gold mine. All mines, as well as mining claims, have names. In most cases the names are more interesting and have a much richer history then the mines or claims themselves. We’re lucky because our gold mine had two names. Originally, and through the lifetime of E. M. Smith, it was known as the Golden Winnie. Shortly after his death, our matriarch, Jessie, succeeded in changing its name to The Four Square. Neither one of these is too colorful, but there has to be a story or two hidden in there somewhere.
Our story begins in the mid 1880’s in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in Northern Idaho. Placer gold was discovered on what is now known as Prichard Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. Andy Prichard, for whom the creek was named, was the discoverer. As with most discoveries it resulted in a gold rush. Into the narrow, wooded canyons, around Murray and Eagle, Idaho, came thousands of gold seekers. Most of these came from the west, mostly from California, which disproves the current theory that Californians have just recently discovered Idaho. Among these gold seekers was our E. M. Smith. Where he was from originally, how long he had been in California, or where he may have stopped in between I do not know. The Wallace Press Times reported in its April 13, 1929, edition that he had died the day before at the home of Ray Wilks on King Street, that he was 85 years old, that he came to Murray in 1886 from California and that his nickname was “Arrastras”. The man was old, he was probably broke and he had a strange nickname. His nickname I can explain.
Undoubtedly, while Smith was in the California gold fields he observed how the Mexican miners used a burro, tethered to a horizontal pole, to crush gold ore. The burro walked in a circle, its diameter determined by the length of the pole, which caused big rocks also connected to the pole and weighing several hundred pounds to roll over and crush smaller rocks, which, hopefully, had copious quantities of gold mixed in with the white quartz. Such a device was called an arrastra, whence came the nickname and from whence came its derivative, rastus. When my father spoke of Smith he often called him Rastus. Further, presuming that our Rastus Smith had a burro, and presuming that it was a lady burro, the name of his gold diggings was named for “Winnie”. Just as a female horse is a filly, a female burro is a jenny. Thus our mine was named for Smith’s jenny that he called Winnie. This will have to do unless something better comes along.
In “Eldorado” most of the original discoveries are the small flakes of gold found in the sands along the banks of streams. These are called placer deposits which is pronounced as “plasser” and should you happen to say “place-er” and are in the proximity of knowing miners you will be derided and scorned and from that point on have absolutely no credibility. Tenderfoots reading the news on television are favorite targets. Thus, along Prichard Creek was found the gold flakes and an occasional nugget. These flakes and nuggets had to come from somewhere. That somewhere was the veins of metallic minerals found in solid rock that were above the streams. These veins are referred to as “lodes” (pronounced loads-so there will be no scorning) and our gold seekers are forever searching for the mother of all lodes which is referred to as the “motherlode”. In the Eagle-Murray area, our Mr. Smith, named Emmanual, which means the Messiah, but nicknamed for a donkey walking in circles, came to Idaho in search of the motherlode.
As this story is part of my “Off The Top Of My Head” memoirs, no great effort has been spent on research. What are presented here as “facts” are from things I have in my files, what I can recollect from observations and overheard conversations of decades ago and what my brother John, who is about seven years my senior, shares with me. It’s kinda like the guys credited with writing The Bible. You just go with what you got, roll it up and hide it in a cave.
Following Mr. Smith’s arrival into the Murray, Idaho area, he located his Golden Winnie mining claim. This hardrock, or lode claim, was located on the south side of Prichard Creek. On the north side of Prichard Creek was the King Mine. Both of these were situated about two miles west of the town of Murray. A few years later, in 1894, a new family moved into Murray. Arriving from the Helena, Montana area was Thomas Alcime Brunelle, his wife Jessie and four children, three boys and a girl. The oldest boy was seven, my father Alvan, who was born in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota in 1887. The other three, Barney, four years old, his sister Harriette (Hattie), two and the baby Every, just a few months old, were all born in Mitchell, Montana. To house the family, Thomas, or Little Pa as he was called, built a log cabin near the mouth of Tiger Gulch where it joined Prichard Creek. Over the next several years the family moved back and forth between Murray and Wallace. In 1900 the property on King Street in Wallace was purchased and a home was built. By 1905 their were two more girls in the family, Jeannette, born in 1902, and Frances, born in 1905. It was in May of 1904 that tragedy struck the family. Every, ten years old at the time, skipped school and with a friend headed up Placer Creek above the family home on King Street. While playing on a raft he fell into the frigid water and drowned. About six months later, his fourteen year old brother, Barney, died of a broken heart. It was a few years before the sisters were born and the brothers died that Alvan had met E. M. Smith.
The meeting of the young lad and the old gold miner was reported to be near Smith’s diggings while Alvan was fishing. It seems that my dad was a better fisherman then he was a student at the local school. As soon as the last bell rung Alvan was on the creek casting his line. His fishing treks often took him the two or so miles below town where he chanced to meet Smith, observe his mining operation and actually become pretty good friends. By the early 1900’s Smith had located quite a few more claims and with his donkey walking in circles was grinding some of the rock he had mined as well as some from a nearby mine. Dad had given up school by the time he was 14 or 15 and probably worked at odd jobs, both in the Murray and Wallace areas. When he was 16 going on 17 he was working on the flume up Placer Creek when he was alerted that his brother had fallen off a raft and was drowning. He tried to save him but couldn’t.
How much inter-action their was between Alvan and Smith during this time is not known, but one story my dad related to me years ago probably set the stage for the Smith-Brunelle interlock on the mine. It was probably around 1906 or 1907 when Dad was 19 or 20 years old. He was living in Murray at that time and decided he should walk to Wallace and buy a new pair of shoes. It’s about 20 miles of either up hill or down with very little on the flat. Arriving in Wallace he found that the shoe store, or stores, was closed. With his shoe money in his pocket he happened to venture into one of the gaming houses where he observed the playing of roulette. As you know the game, it is either odd or even, or black or red, or, if you are in a hurry to lose your money you can select a number between 1 and 36 or a zero or double zero. On the numbers, of course, if you happen to hit you get rich quick. Observing the game, my father, the patient fisherman, began mentally selecting odd or even or red or black or a number this or a number that. He found that he was “in a groove” so out came the shoe money and by daylight the next morning he had won a lot of money. Whether he bought a new pair of shoes I don’t remember, but he did go to Sutherland’s Livery Stable, hired a carriage and filled it full of canned goods and other comestibles and headed for Murray where he stocked the barren shelves at his friend E. M. Smith’s cabin at the Golden Winnie Mine. Smith by this time was in his mid-60’s. Dad, in his early twenties, moved in with Smith and did some mining but he was also spending a lot of time treking back and forth between Murray and Wallace. Wallace was where the action was and, what the heck, you have the rest of your life to fish and mine. By the summer of 1915 his courting days were over. He and Mom were married. Children were born in 1916, 1918, 1922, 1926 and, the year of Smith’s death, 1929.
Well, Al the gambler had grubstaked Smith and with his dad, Little Pa, helped develop the mine. My grandfather, Thomas, died in 1920 at the age of 58. Smith was 75 years old. As he had no relatives he adopted, or was adopted by, the Brunelle family. When he died the Golden Winnie became the property of the Brunelles, principally, Jessie and her No. 1 son, Alvan.
Now this may seem strange but I must admit that I didn’t really know my grandmother Jessie even though we both lived in Wallace and she was nearly ninety years old when she died in 1958. Suffice it to say, the Irish Haneys and the French Brunelles were not very compatible. It was a strong-willed Irish-Catholic lady that dominated our household. While my French-Canadian grandmother started out and ended up Catholic, she became disenchanted with the Church when Father Becker preached to the congregation at her son Barney’s funeral that, in essence, the two boys deaths were her fault because she was an unfit mother. Ye gads! Having suffered through this, Jessie, a strongly religious woman, was ripe to be plucked by the purveyors of salvation, ecstasy, rapture and all the other flim-flam stuff that was then and continues to be peddled. It was not surprising then, that in the 1920’s Jessie became a devote follower of Aimee Simple McPherson. Sister Aimee was the founder of a religious movement that she called the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a name derived from her vision of heaven with four walls. What a great name for a mine. Goodby Golden Winnie; Hello Four Square. Mining, and especially gold mining, has always been a “leap of faith”—so for a gold mine without much gold it was a most fitting name.
Economic conditions in the United States was not too good in the early 1930’s. In fact, it was not just called a depression it was called the Great Depression. During such times gold mining usually picks up. It wasn’t unusual, then, that a partially developed mine with some reported production would be of interest to an “investment group”. Such a group materialized in the persons of a Mr. Harry Pearson, a renown Wallace mining promoter, and a Mr. Julius Hall, a mining engineer. Both of these gentlemen dressed well, drove big cars and oozed confidence. They touted that it was just a matter of time before the Four Square Mine would be the biggest operation on the North side of the Coeur d’Alene Mining District. All that was required, as any good mining promoter knew, would be a new mill with the latest flotation equipment and, most of all, someone with money to grease the operation. The Brunelle’s didn’t have any money, but Alvan was available to keep up the assessment work on the claims and to show the operations to any potential investors. My brother recalled that when Pearson and Hall would bring potential investors to the mine the first order of business was to entertain them with a big fish fry. The fish, of course, were fresh trout caught in Prichard Creek by Al Brunelle.
It was probably the summer of 1932 or 1933, when our family, except my oldest sister Loretta, moved into a cabin at the mine. Now mining was the name of the game, but I was only 3 or 4 years old and my game was feeding blue jays and chip monks. As there was always hot cake batter left over after everyone was fed I was allowed to develop my culinary skills of cooking cakes for the wildlife. According to my brother, it didn’t dawn on me to move the bowl with the batter close to the griddle. With one spoonful at a time I crossed the room with batter. Sometimes I made it, often times I didn’t. I don’t recall ever having to clean the floor- so perhaps John or Patsy handled that detail. For John it was a summer of fishing in Prichard Creek. As he was only 10 or 11 at the time he often forgot to put his fishing gear away. Fish hooks are pointed and sharp and when one becomes embedded in a three-year old’s foot it requires a skillful person to un-embed it. This was done by one of the potential investors named A. A. M. (Myk) Arnold, a Texas oil man who had been bitten by the gold bug. I reportedly referred to him after that as Dr. Arnold.
And so it came to pass that the promoters built the mill and peddled the mine to Mr. Arnold. For how much I don’t know, but the “Brunelle Estate”, according to a newspaper article, received $40,000. Now in this day and age 40 grand is a middle-middle class annual salary. In 1936 it was a potfull of money. Not being privy on how it was divided, my guess is 3/4 to grandma and 1/4 to my dad. I’m sure my mother was not happy with the arrangements nor was Aunt Hattie, who threatened to sue her mother, because, she claimed, she had grubstaked Alvan, who, you will recall, grubstaked Smith. Now my dad was a kind and gentle man who wanted no part of a family feud, and was probably thinking that if the damn shoe store had been open none of this would be happening, became the arbitrator. Hattie ended up with something, but Jessie was the big winner and bought lake front property which will be another story at another time.
And what of the Alvan Brunelle family? What great success story followed them? Well, if you can imagine, all of a sudden having $10,000 in 1936 would be like having 10 or 12 times that much now. Psychologically it was even greater because almost everyone else didn’t have anything. I kind of think that my dad became intoxicated with the idea that he could become a mine promoter. He had witnessed a mine of dubious value successfully promoted and, while he thought that perhaps Mr. Pearson was often close to selling “blue sky”, he felt that a new venture he’d become involved with, a good lead-silver prospect near Helena, Montana, called General Mines, only needed his honest and straight forward promotional ability. In other words, he felt he may have been blessed with the Midas Touch. Unfortunately, the one lesson he failed to learn from Pearson&Hall was never, ever, put your own money into the game. Suppose for a minute, just suppose, what a $5000 investment in General Electric or General Motors in 1936 would be worth today. Like Lincoln with McClellan, my dad picked the wrong general.
With the other $5000 it was kinda fun times. How much for a brand new 1936 four door Hudson with an electric shift? Cold cash—$1200. A brand new Montgomery Ward electric refrigerator— probably a couple hundred bucks; but no one else in our neighborhood had such a thing. They had those ugly, old oak things that you had to put a block of ice in. You sure as heck couldn’t make grape popsicals in ice cube trays in those things. It’s hard to be humble when you can make your own popsicles. And my oldest sister, Loretta, got to go to college, something no Brunelle up to that time had done. And my dad, the fisherman, the gambler, the blacksmith, the novice mine promoter, took two years off. He had always felt that our house in Woodland Park, located a couple miles up Canyon Creek from Wallace, needed a hand made rock foundation. The effort put forth in gathering the stone, mixing the mortar, fitting them together like a giant jig saw puzzle and ending up with plumb walls, at least a foot and a half thick, had to be a labor of love. By 1938 or early 1939 the money was gone and Dad went back to work for George K. Garrett, a Wallace coal dealer.
In 1959, my mother Marguerite, died at Wallace. Dad chose not to keep his house of over 40 years with the hand made rock foundation so he sold it for a couple thousand bucks and moved back to Murray. There, he located a placer claim up Tiger Gulch so he could resume some mining he had started in the mid 1890’s. As a kid, he told me, he would watch the miners cleaning bedrock above where his dad had built their cabin. Seeing that he was interested, the miners would mark out an area for him to clean up and he’d get to keep the gold he found. He knew that a little bit of gold bought quite a bit of candy in town; so he always quit after he found that “little bit”. There probably wasn’t much gold left in 1959 or 1960, but with his wife deceased and his kids and grandkids spread around the country, it was a place to renew memories. That gold mine in the sky.
4 years ago • Notes