The Decline
Silver King 1885 - Original image courtesy Orange County Archives
IT IS DIFFICULT to fix a date for the beginning of Calico's decline. Ominous signs were appearing as early as the first months of 1885. Several businesses, including a restaurant and both stage lines, changed hands. Other businesses, such as Mr. Elliott's fruit and ice cream stand and Miss Derby's millinery store, closed. The J.A. Kincaid store was attached by its creditors. By then, the mines were extracting mostly low-grade are. Suffering from “hard times,” in fact, the companies began cutting their miners' wages, to $3 a day. The Print at first agreed with the move but later realized that the cuts would tend to “discourage good miners” and would force them “to strike out for themselves, hence many are busy prospecting or chloriding on leases. . . . inexperienced men employed in the mines will also be infected with a desire to better their condition . . . .” In May, Calico was “becoming duller and hotter every day. There are just as many men at work as ever before but the boys evince a disposition to keep their coin in their pockets.”
Though the price of silver had just jumped to a healthy $1.09 an ounce, the Print was alarmed that the “friends of silver” might be “lulled into indifference.”
The district could not afford to become indifferent. This period of maturity and early decline coincided with the entry of a second rail line into the desert. The line was the Santa Fé - backed California Southern Rail Road, which had recently been built from the San Diego area to San Bernardino. An extension from San Bernardino to Waterman's station, 65 miles, was surveyed in early 1885. Then, working simultaneously from the two points, armies of white and Chinese dug cuts, built grades and bridges, and laid rails. Near Waterman’s yard, roundhouse, depot, and hotel were erected. This operation became the nucleus of Barstow. The extension was completed in November.
The completion of the railroad cut the cost of freighting to and from the mines and proved to be a boon for San Bernardino and Los Angeles. But the fortunes of the district had become tied up in the fortunes of a handful of mines. The faint signs of dull times were growing less faint as 1885 passed. The King's output of $302,000 in 1885 was down sharply from the $507,000 produced in 1884. Then in March, 1886, 20 to 30 men were laid off at the Red Jacket Mine and several others were laid off at the King. These dismissals depressed “the business outlook,” sent many men “scouring the adjacent hills in search of prospects on which to chloride,” and forced others to seek “other climes, but those remaining here are not of the kind to sit contentedly until something ‘turns up,’” as a correspondent explained.
The Print was baffled by the shutdown of the King. The paper's fears were allayed somewhat when the King quickly rehired 20 men. Besides, a large reserve of ore at the King would keep the Waterloo mill running full time; superintendent Dedrick Bahten even predicted that 15 stamps would have to be added to the Waterloo. “. . . . There seems to be a general impression among business men here that the liveliest times are yet in store for Calico . . . . ”
Then, too, other mines were still active. The Kearsarge employed three men in April, 1886, the Burning Moscow and Jessie Tay six each, the Blackfoot 14, the Sue 18. These smaller mines gave teaming a considerable boost. The Blackfoot and Sue each employed two teams. The Calico Freighting Company of Daggett had 10 teams at work and was still two weeks behind in hauling out the unusual amount of low-grade ore waiting on the mine dumps.
The lessons of efficient milling were not lost on the Oro Grande Company. It began erecting a 60-stamp mill in March, 1887; it would cost $250,000. Thirty men were put to work grading the foundation. Next to the site was the 15-stamp mill. It served the Waterloo Mine, then employing 30 men. The two plants would process the massive reserves of ore on the dumps of the Waterloo and handle ore from the King, Burning Moscow, and other company-owned properties. The Print was elated, seeing the return of “the lively times of several years ago,” for business was already “improving in all quarters of the camp.” The school grew slightly, to 66 pupils in late May. After all the mine shutdowns had been rationalized, after all the predictions of lively times had been made, the signs of decline were becoming more evident. The output of the King fell to $120,000 during 1886. As corporations continued to take over the chief mines, regular miners began to turn to chloriding or prospecting; others drifted away. The Print finally had to concede that 1886 had been the dullest in Calico's history. The layoffs had “caused a great depression in the business of the town, but still there were but few failures, and most of those parties engaged in business a year ago are yet conducting their enterprises. . . .” True, the number of miners had increased since 1886, deputy assessor H.B. Stevens estimated in May, 1887, but only because the number of chloriders had offset the loss of regular miners.
Calico was full of such paradoxes, as the representative of the Mining & Scientific Press had learned several years earlier. A writer from the Ontario Record had mixed emotions. Though a three-foot cottonwood stood out as the only tree in town, Calico offered “numerous opportunities to get 'wet.' The town has an excellent public school, but various attempts to hold church services have failed; the mines and mills run on Sunday, and the Calico Print, an excellent exponent of the mining interests [,] is issued on that day. . . .” It was said that it would take a four-horse cart to carry away all the cards swept out of the saloons, but “on the whole, we think, he probably exaggerated a little. We should hardly recommend Calico as the best place in Southern California to bring up a family, but the condition of society is not at all what might be expected even from the facts .we have just stated,” for despite the heavy drinking, “there is comparatively little drunkenness and any serious breach of the peace is rare. . . . ”
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“The average miner, as you see him by the uncertain flicker of his candle, looks a little rough, but no class of laboring men is better informed, reads more, or takes more pride in their intelligence and interest in public affairs. The days of poets and philosophers in the mining shafts are not past yet. The saloon and the gambling den are the miner's curse, but drunk or sober, flush or busted, you will usually find shrewd sense and keen wit beneath their rough [?] exterior.” Like the camp, the mines were a paradox. The writer for the Ontario paper was awe-struck by the immense workings of the Garfield Mine in June, 1887. “. . . . The first sensation is certainly one of coolness, coming in from an atmosphere over 100 in the shade. The distant rumble of ore cars, the faint flicker of the miners' candles, the click of the picks, and the uncanny appearance of the miners in the dim light, made a weird effect that will stamp itself indelibly on the memory of the visitor. We threaded passages, explored chambers, and went down shafts, until the writer could have been easily convinced that enough rock had been dug out of this one mine to make a second 'Old Baldy.' . . . . We saw ore that yields thousands of dollars to the ton, and a man could make a fortune in a few days could he have all he dug out.”Happily, chloriding, the salvation of many small miners, sustained many residents during these lean times. At the Veto Mine, chloriders were netting $6 to $10 a day. After the expiration of leases at the Sue, it was said that none of the 15 chloriders had been “making less than ordinary wages, the majority averaging three or four times that amount. . . .” At the Young Waterman, independent miners were paying out $250 a month in royalties--one-fifth their earnings--enough to enable the co-owner to take a trip to Europe. The success of chloriding was considered “an incentive to others to try their 'luck.’” On December, 1886, the Print would point out that often “ore is discovered in places where miners have walked over for months and years, and rich strikes made in most unexpected places. . . .”
Few in the camp were idle in early May, 1886. The miners were chloriding, working for others, or prospecting. The business community foresaw “unusual lively times within the next two or three months. . . .”
All this talk was wishful thinking. Although it was scarcely recognized then, the district was dividing into two communities, the chloriders and large mining corporations, one poor, the other rich. Several mills, such as the Barber, processed only “custom” ore--that is, material produced by independent miners. The Waterloo, in contrast, would process only ores from the mines owned by the Oro Grande Company, such as the King.
Chloriding kept many employed, but it could be a chancy way to earn a living. Custom mills could charge up to $20 a ton. To process the massive low-grade ore that would not pay chloriders to mill, two leaching works operated at the foot of Main Street in late 1886. It was expected that leaching would “considerably reduce the cost of mining, and turn into bullion a vast quantity of ore that has accumulated on the numerous dumps during the past five years,” the Print reported in early 1887, for already “a stimulating effect is beginning to be felt throughout the camp. . . .” In May, chloriders were “swelling the bullion output to a considerable degree. . . .”
As mining became more corporate, the processing of ore came to be consolidated at three mills. The Pioneer Quartz Mill, sold to the Silver Odessa Mining Company in 1883, was usually called Hawley's mill. When the Oro Grande Company bought the Oriental and Silver King mines in early 1884, the concern enlarged its mill at Daggett to 15 stamps. This plant became known as the Waterloo mill when the Oro Grande company was reorganized and renamed in early 1889. Near Calico, the Garfield mill, of 20 stamps, became known as the King when an English company bought the plant and several groups of mines.
These plants were modern and efficient. By early 1887, the revamped Oro Grande Mill was using hot water to force pulverized ore out of the batteries of stamps and into the pans, where salt, limestone, and mercury separated out the silver. Two thousand gallons of water were used to crush each of the 33 tons produced daily. At the Garfield mill, where the value of ore dropped from about 46 ounces of silver a ton in October, 1886, to 26 ounces in September, 1887, the plant's operators still managed to cut the cost of processing considerably, from $4.52 a ton to $3.10. It produced a hefty 417,215 ounces from the Garfield, Occidental, and other mines belonging to the J. S. Doe & Company of San Francisco.
Such descriptions, however, only masked signs of decline. Calico remained dull through much of the summer of 1887, “in some respects ever since the large force of men were discharged and the King mine closed dawn. The King mine was the principal support of the town. . . .” Perhaps it was merely a coincidence, but one mine experienced a major robbery that year. After picking up the monthly payroll. $4,000 in coin, the superintendent of the Run Over Mine and Mill left the express office at Daggett. He was riding alone. As he neared Wall Street Canyon, a man came out of a gully, pulled out a gun, and took the money and his horse. It was too late in the day to organize a posse. The robber apparently became lost, and a small posse led by an Indian tracker found him at a distant well. The posse had a strange story to tell when they reached Calico. Miner John Ackerman, a posse member, contended that he shot and killed the robber in self-defense, the body was buried at the spot, and the money was missing. The listeners were skeptical, but Ackerman would never discuss his story again.
But there was a worse fiend than a bandit.
First, a fire destroyed the nearly completed Waterloo mill on August 14. The company laid off 19 miners, then quickly rehired them when it found that the boilers and other machinery could be salvaged. The Waterloo would build another mill. The decision to rebuild was “very encouraging to the town.” Meanwhile, the mines were now said to be paying well, and the chloriders were often “making money fast.”
Another fire hit Calico a few weeks later, in September. The blaze had started on the dry shingled roof of the Globe Restaurant. The fire at first seemed to be of little importance, but the water soon ran out and a gust of wind came up. All but two business buildings were turned to ashes in less than an hour. The losses were put at $100,000.
Though stunned, the citizens rebuilt at once. It was agreed that every third or fourth building would be made of adobe. The first adobe came from the dry lake. But the citizens soon wound up excavating basements, mixing the hard red clay of the townsite with water, and pouring the mixture into farms to make walls. Cut rock was also used to make the facades of several buildings. Business “of all kinds” was quickly resumed. The water system was also improved, a bucket brigade was organized, and barrels of water were strategically placed along Main Street. But one important business remained a permanent casualty: the newspaper. The Print suspended publication right after the fire. The paper had been so important that the Mining & Scientific Press had to acknowledge to its readers that its coverage of the Mojave Desert would suffer, at least for a while. Overshiner moved to San Diego, where a year later he was publishing a triweekly newspaper. (During the next two decades, Overshiner would put out weekly newspapers throughout the back country of San Diego County, at Ramona, Julian, and Imperial.) It was later contended that the fire had had a sobering effect on the town. The days of free- and-easy spending were over. The corporations, which controlled the best mines, sent their profits to stockholders far from Calico. Families fled; the school lost more than half its pupils, to 30 in mid-1888. The number of registered voters also slipped, though it remained a still-respectable 292.
As the chloriders continued to feel squeezed, the corporations advanced. The Oro Grande company started work on a seven-mile narrow-gauge railroad from Daggett to the Waterloo Mine's ore bins in March, 1888. The rebuilt mill and the railroad were completed later in the year. Two small locomotives would ease cars loaded with ore down the grade to Daggett and return with supplies and timbers. The completion of the line cut the cost of hauling from $2.50 a ton (by wagon) to as little as seven cents a ton.
The Waterloo's operations were awesome. One state geologist considered the mechanisms for automatically feeding the pans salt, limestone, and mercury “seemingly perfect.” From a rough building brightened by 150 electric lights, another writer for the Ontario Record observed (November, 1888), came “a low rumble, like the distant thunder of artillery; and in the presence of such weird sights and sounds, made doubly intense by the clear air and oppressive silence of the desert, one might imagine himself in the presence of one of Vulcan's forges. All this, however, is ‘the peaceful hum of industry;’ . . .” A 300-horsepower, coal-burning steam engine, which turned a 20-foot-diameter drive wheel and a dynamo, made the writer feel “abashed in the presence of so much power that seems almost possessed of human reason.” In the room containing the 60 thundering stamps, the “noise is terrific and the building groans and trembles with the jars. . . .” In fact, “one would no sooner expect to see silver come out of these pans of whirly muddy water than to pick oranges from the street corner signs in a busted boom town. It is 'pay dirt,’ however and. . . the mill gathers up quite a little mountain of silver in the course of a year.”
The train ride from the mill to the mines was a thrilling experience. The train consisted of four cars, “bins we should call them, each holding nine tons of ore. Perched in one of these cars, with the water barrels splashing in front of us, we were soon whirled over the desert to the few unpretentious shanties that mark the greatest silver mine on the coast. . . .”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the corporate influence on Calico's mining Industry continued to grow. The Oro Grande Company was reorganized as the Waterloo Mining Company in February, 1889. The concern owned the Waterloo mines and mill and other properties, notably the Silver King Mine and its mill. The Waterloo Company built a branch of the railroad past the town to the ore bins at the Silver King Mine in 1889. Meanwhile, several of the Doe properties, especially the Odessa, Oriental, and Occidental-Garfield mines, were sold. The new concern was confusingly named the Silver King Mine Company, Ltd., of London. The Garfield mill, 20 stamps, was renamed the King mill.
The activities of these and other companies led to a modest revival. Families were returning; the school gain students, its enrollment rising to 40. The census taker counted 431 men, women, and children in the area in mid-1890, of whom an estimated 300 lived in town. The business district contained five general and variety stores, four saloons, three lodging houses, and three stables. Telephone and telegraph service and twice-a-day stage service closely linked Calico to Daggett.
