Placer miners in the Stringer
District a mile from Randsburg and Joburg and south east of Rand
Mountain, were only interested in gold dust and nuggets and
ignored the annoying creamy white heavy substance that weighed
to the bottom of their riffle boards and pans, interfering with
gold recovery. The rock shaped and colored much like a potato
earned the ground where it was found the name "spud patch" In
reality, this rock was high-grade scheelite tungsten.
By April 8, 1905, those unusual
potatoes were sparking interest instead of being tossed aside.
The Randsburg Miner reports:
"Great finds of tungsten…many
claims are being located and some very good ore is being taken
out…Tungsten is worth $6. per unit.. It reminds one of old times
to see men getting up early in the morning and rushing out with
all sorts of rigs to locate tungsten claims, just as they used
to do with gold claims."
Charley Churchill, Charley Taylor,
W.A. Wickard and A.D. Day owned primary properties near the old
Baltic Mine in the old Spud Patch, and began the search for
tungsten. In spite of the "heavy spar" that interfered with the
gold recovery in dry washers and gathered in mill batteries,
tungsten was easily recovered in the dry washer and sluice box.
In a history of Randsburg written
by C.H. Fry for the Pacific Mining News in August 1922,
Charley Taylor was reported as coining the name Atolia from the
combination of the names of two prominent tungsten miners,
Atkins and De Golia, the first to put up a tungsten mill some
time in 1907.
Tungsten helped to stimulate the
Randsburg economy, but it did not really hit the limelight of
the mining world, until World War I when it was valuable for use
in armaments. The demand then rose to an all time high of around
a hundred dollars per unit. Scouts for tungsten over ran the
country, meeting in back doorways on dark nights with high
graders, willing to pay cash. The free lance agent took high
grade where ever he could find it without question to where it
came from. Scheelite was exceptionally profitable in the Ranch
because of its high grade and it’s placer accessibility.
By October 25, 1915 The Los
Angeles Times was reporting:
"A year ago, or a few weeks
before the war broke out, Atolia had a population of about sixty
souls. At this writing there is a small city, mostly tents and
over 300 inhabitants…Storekeepers of Johannesburg and Randsburg
are paying as high as $1.25 per pound for high-grade float,
which is derived in placer form…New outfits are coming in every
day and the desert is alive with campers who are prospecting in
this vicinity…"
By April 30, 1916 the Times
reported:
"And today storekeepers are
trading "grubstakes" for 60 per cent ore at $3.50 per
pound…"They’ve gone crazy over tungsten," said a mine
superintendent recently when discussing his difficulty in
getting miners…"
Al G. Waddel reported for the
Los Angeles Times April 30th best tells the story
of Atolia and tungsten:
"A few months ago Atolia was a
sleepy desert mining town. Tungsten was worth something like $6
per unit and the Atolia Mining Company was supplying all the
tungsten needed with a small crew at work in the mill and mine.
The war produced a great demand for the minerals which harden
steel. Tungsten ore jumped to $90 per unit. Then it was that the
population of Atolia jumped to 300 souls…When tungsten first
jumped there were two automobiles in Randsburg. Today there are
200 to be to be seen on the main street most any evening…
There are stages running between
Atolia and Randsburg. There are auto stages running over to
Barstow. Others make regular runs to Mojave. The miners working
on the leases for wages, ride out to work and come into town in
the evening in machines. These desert "jitneys" go anywhere at
any time and passengers can pay fares in coin or tungsten.
Illingsworth and Dunnel take
tungsten ore in exchange for groceries and general merchandise
or buy it outright. The firm has taken in $200,000 worth of
tungsten since the first of the year. There are other tungsten
buyers in the district also. Eastern manufacturers have buyers
on the ground who bid for the tungsten just as wheat buyers or
cotton buyers bid for crops.
Tait and Baker refused $21,000
for a pile of ore that could be carried away in the tonneau of a
seven passenger touring car. S. E. Vermilyea, a well known
mining man of this city, purchased a lease for $2,000 and
thought he would be lucky to get his money out of it. Three days
later he struck "high grade." The next morning a man visited the
lease and asked him if he would take $25,000 for the property
and it was refused…
This tungsten is so valuable
that the miners are watched like the laborers in the South
African diamond mines.
The Atolia Mining Company will
not allow the miners to bring up their own dinner buckets. As
soon as the men are through eating, a guard takes the buckets
and sends them to the top of the 900-foot shaft. They are
inspected and given to the men when they come up. The miners are
even made to change their clothes before and after coming off
shift.
Before tungsten went up, a man
could have high-graded a fortune in a month by bringing up a few
"spuds" in his pockets each day. But when the mineral jumped in
value the owners got wise. One "bear dancer," champion "high
grader," stepped out of the skip when coming off shift and
tripped over the cable, falling to the ground. He had so much
high-grade on his person that he could not get up. Another
"high-grader" limped around for days claiming to have the
rheumatism. He was taken to the doctor to be examined and it was
found that his rheumatism was just about fifty pounds of ore in
his pants leg, worth $5 per pound…
A young stage driver stopped to
change a tire. In scraping a place in the sand to place the
jack, he chipped off a piece of scheelite. He put it in his
pocket and as soon as he delivered his passengers, filed his
location papers. He uses his auto to haul his ore to the vaults
now…
Around tungsten properties the
desert roads are in excellent condition now. Louis Nikrent drove
Cactus Cate across the desert from Mojave at forty-five miles an
hour, slowing down but for two washes and three sharp turns.
Between Saugus and Mojave the road is in perfect condition at
this time. Thirty miles was averaged to Willow Springs…"
During the wild tungsten boom, it
was not unusual for an old timer to wake up in the morning to
find families with a half a dozen children, several dogs and a
large wagon loaded down with camping equipment on his property
hoping to make big money on the Spud Patch.
The end of World War I lowered the
demand for the potato like ore and prices fell. With most of the
cream picked off of the top, tungsten production declined around
Atolia. Tungsten ore mined and shipped from China was less
expensive than the ore mined in the from the deserts of
California.
Today dirt bikers and modern
4-wheel drive vehicles pass through the spud patch, with little
thought. The once prominent headframe of the Union Mine was
burned by a vandal in October, 2014 (see
Atolia Union Mine
Headframe Burns, EHC November 2014).
