Newspaper List
Beatty Bullfrog Miner – Beatty, Nevada [was called the Bullfrog Miner during first two months of publication – not to be confused with the Bullfrog Miner, of Rhyolite, Nevada]
Inyo Independent – Independence, California
Inyo Register – Bishop, California
Rhyolite Herald – Rhyolite, Nevada

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Gold Mountain, Nevada

Newspaper Articles

1871

Inyo Independent, August 19, 1871
"TOM SHAW AND PARTY."
Our readers will recollect that week before last a statement was extensively circulated in all the newspapers of the State to the effect that Tom Shaw, who works an arrastra on Gold Mountain, south of Silver Peak, had been killed by Indians, together with eight other white men. The news came from Hot Creek, and the names of reliable parties were mentioned as having brought it there. From information which we had obtained from Mr. Stansbury, who had just arrived here from the Silver Peak country, we pronounced the rumor false. We are happy to state that a Mr. Meyers, who arrived in Austin from Silver Peak on Saturday last, says that there is not a word of truth in the report, that no Indian troubles have occurred there, and that Tom Shaw and all the other miners of that region are at work and enjoy good health. -- Austin Reveille, Aug. 7.

1908

Inyo Register, June 18, 1908
"SEVERAL ACCIDENTS."
Summary: James S. Kevil recovering from burns to his hands and one leg after being electrocuted with 52,000 volts of electricity. Kevil was working on the power line running to Bullfrog near Gold Mountain.

Rhyolite Herald, December 9, 1908
“FIGHTING FOR OLD ORIENTAL MINE”
On the ground that her late husband endeavored to beat her out of their community property and showed a flagrant preference for his nephew, Mrs. Louise T. Stewart will today file in the district court an action against J.W. Tracy, brother of his nephew, and also his trustees, praying that the title to the famous Oriental min in the Gold Mountain country be restored to her, and that the attempted conveyance be set aside as a fraud, says Thursday's Goldfield Tribune.
The trial of the case will involve hundreds of pages of Nevada's earlier history – the days of the arrastra, the narration of blighted hopes, fortunes almost within grasp, but never acquired, and – probably – a reference to the notorious Whittaker Wright, one of the most daring criminal promoters and schemers of recent times, who killed himself in England a few years ago, just after receiving a sentence of seven years.
Robert H. Stweart died on November 9, 1902, while owner of the Oriental mine at Gold Mountain. Just prior to his death he deeded practically all of his interest in the Oriental to his nephew, Upton Tracy, of Bishop, Cal., who, in turn, deeded it to his brother, J.W. Tracy, of Lida, Nev. The latter got heavily in debt and his creditors filed papers for involuntary bankruptsy [sic].
Offer for the Property
Just about the time that Tracy was in the midst of his financial troubles, rich people from the east put in a bid for the Oriental, placing their offer before Mrs. Stewart, whom they believed owned the property since the death of her husband. They offered her $15,000 cash but she refused the offer. She had been told that she should hold out for $50,000, spot cash, and decided to get that price or take nothing. It was therefore a decided shock to her to later learn that she had no interest in the Oriental, inasmuch as her husband just prior to his death, deeded it away. It was this offer that resulted in the suit about to be filed by Swallow & Walsh, and which will have for its object the complete possession of the mine in her individual name.
Alleges Direct Fraud
Mrs. Stewart will swear that the deed to her husband's nephew was signed just before he passed away and was in distinct fraud of her rights as a wife. It is no known at this time whether or not she will allege any undue influence on the part of the nephew. However, the deed was not placed on record until after her husband's death.
The Oriental was at one time considered immensely more rich than the Bonnie Clare, and it porduced [sic] a great quantity of gold ore which was worked at the old Rattlesnake mill.
Stewart was former general superintendent of the old-time State Line mill, and was a quaint character known to almost every one in the southern part of Nevada. He was a great admirer of the notorious Whitaker Wright, whose shady schemes however, were not known at that time to Stewart. Wright was the original promoter of the State Line mill, which came into existence in 1874, or thirty-four years ago. This mill was Wringht's [sic] first promotion, and times were such in those days that he made a tremendous success of the enterprise. His head swelled with the success of the venture to such an extent that he thereupon promoted exectly [sic] five more coporatons founded on exactly the same milling propsition, calling them by different names and using descriptive ability and painting pictures of treasures that would have made Colonel Sellers a veritable “mutt.”
Whittaker went from Nevada to Leadville, Colo., where he engaged extensively in the mining promotion business, and in Colorado cleaned up a snug little fortune. Armed with gold and a right royal fund of cheek, coupled with a thorough understanding of the gullibility of the human race, Whittaker proceeded across the Atlantic, and in England promoted half a dozen South African mining corporations. He got himself an elegant mansion with fountains, corps of servants, etc., and advertised to the world at large his South African corporations, with divers and sundry dukes, lords and peers on the boards of directors.
Death of Whittaker Wright
The law finally overtook him, however, and whe he was brought before the king's bench for sentence he was not the smooth, sauve [sic] promoter of old. Almost as soon as the court gave him seven years in prison for fraud, he swallowed poison and thus made way with himself.
Mrs. Stewart comes from Florida. She says her husband frequently came home to their little cabin at night and wept bitterly over the inability of the Whittaker or State Line mill to amalgamate the ores. No matter how high the assays on the ore might run, and they frequently went up into the hundreds, there was no amalgamation, and the entire proposition appeared to be a dead loss. As a matter of fact, the State Line mill has always been a loss. For years and years the belting and considerable other equipment have remained rotting in place, but the portable machinery and other valuable parts have long since been the subject of vandalism. Originally representing a tremendous outlay, including the hauling of brick all the way from Boston, the plant today is a living question mark.

Rhyolite Herald, December 9, 1908
“HERMIT OF GOLD MT. IS DEAD”
The “hermit of Gold Mountain” has “gone over the range.”
No one seems to know why Henry Tesch, an educated and accomplished German, presumably the graduate of a famous university in the far-away Fatherland, came to take up the lonely life of a mountain hermit; but more than thirty-seven years ago he hied himself away to the recesses of the desert hills, there to eke out a mere existence, living in poverty and filth and dying alone, without a living soul to cheer him in sickness or in health, without a living soul to close his eyes when he had entered his last long sleep.
The hermit was a robust man when he built his hut at the running spring at Gold Mountain. He might have located and developed many of the splendid mining claims in that vicinity, but he didn't do so. He refused to prospect or to work. He roamed the hills and learned the trails, and sometimes he made maps of trails for prospectors and received pay for same. He begged from passerby and made pilgrimages to Lida to replenish his store of provisions. But the story of his life remained almost a complete secret. He wrote no letters, received none. He was alone in the world, and the mere sustenance of his body was his only care.
The sight that met the eyes of the prospectors who found him dead in his hut last week was one never to be forgotten. He had lived in the hut for twenty-five years or more, and he was a poor housekeeper. The small fireplace in one corner and the bed upon the floor occupied almost the entire room, which is hardly big enough to turn around in. His bed upon the floor was in a pile of rags and filth in which were numerous rat nests of such age as to indicate that Tesch lived and slept with the rodents, as if they, too, were entitled to some shelter from the cold world.
He was cold in death upon the rags and filth which has been his bed for hears. The place was filled with tin cans, and each can had something of no value wrapped in an old newspaper. Among the effects of the hermit was found discharge papers, showing that he was a Civil war veteran. The papers showed that he had enlisted in the Eight-ninth New York volunteers.
Tesch was one of the organizers of the Montezuma mining district in 1867, and some of his location certificates were dated 1865.
A coroner's jury was impaneled Friday at Hornsilver, and the verdict was that he died of exposure and want of food.
The body of this mysterious man was laid to rest by the miners and prospectors of the Hornsilver district.

1909

Inyo Register, May 13, 1909
“THIRTY-SIX YEARS AGO.”
Summary: The Independent offices has come into possession of a pair of field glasses by an Indian in the Gold Mountain, Nevada area. The glasses were supposed to be those of Hahn, the lost guide of the Wheeler Party. The field glasses show a curious phenomena, the transparent substances used in used uniting the two pieces of the object lenses having formed into an almost perfect representation of desert shrubbery. The pair of glasses were kept by the senior of the Independent until their destruction by fire which destroyed his house in Bishop in 1900.

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