The Gold That Wasn't There: How Speculators Tried to Mine Their Way Into a Public School Section

The most flagrant wholesale theft of school land in Washington was attempted by parties who own land distant from the city by less than a mile. It is described as Section 20, township 20, range 3 east. Before the recent shrinkage of real estate values, expert and investor estimates put the tract at $30,000. Taking the average price of 1890, this amount is in excess of the total price of all the school lands in the rich farming counties of Whitman, Garfield, Columbia and Lincoln. It is greater than the total price of all the school lands disposed of by the state prior to the financial depression — and those were the choicest.

Immediately before the admission of the state, when Tacoma was booming, a scheme was organized to secure possession of this section under the placer mining laws. A number of gentlemen of Washington City got in 'on the ground floor.' Five claims of twenty acres each were taken up by J. G. McBride and other persons banded together as an alleged mining company, for a test. The 125 acres were estimated to be worth more than $300,000 for city lots. In the long struggle between the state and these claimants, the controversy has been known as 'the McBride case.'

When pay gold was said to have been found, McBride was a hardware merchant, but he soon became a 'mining operator,' an organizer of mining concerns and a jobber in mining stocks. It is a matter of common report in Tacoma that his side of the expensive litigation has been supported by a few citizens in the banking and wholesale lumber business. Organized fraud has been alleged by the state on every hand. Witnesses have testified to the 'salting' of the land, and to having received from McBride offers of large compensation to join the conspiracy.

The contest has cost the state approximately $15,000 to date, and the placer-mine real estate speculators cannot have paid out less. On the state's side appear Attorney General Jones, Prof. J. P. Kimball, Prof. S. C. Woodhouse, Mr. T. M. Reed, Jr., of the land commission, and Mr. Charles Ehrman, the foreman, together with a host of witnesses, including practical miners. Beside Mr. Holcomb and Mr. McBride, the other side has spoken through 'Prof.' Ben Stretch, a civil engineer appearing as a mining expert.

In the investigation, 97 cubic yards of gravel taken from the original shaft, running to a depth of ninety-seven and one-half feet, yielded a total in gold of less than 5 cents; and out of all the samples and tests made throughout 2,165 feet of shafting, the highest yield found anywhere was 38-100 of a cent. These are the best results the state has ever been able to obtain through the efforts of the ablest chemists and analysts, and of the most experienced placer miners.

Five Northern Pacific hydraulic cuts on the Puget Sound shore, with the pump station 600 feet distant and a sluice 600 feet in length, cost 13 cents per cubic yard. On the so-called McBride claim, without bedrock to begin with — a physical impossibility in placer mining — a sluice a mile and a half in length and a pumping station two miles distant would be required. If it costs 13 cents a yard to move the same gravel on the Sound shore, it would cost many times that to sluice this claim.

Because of these facts the scientific gentlemen representing the state have never failed to detect the presence of the 'salt,' as it bears these characteristics — the gold of the claim is flaky, soft and very yellow, and market gold all contains particles of quicksilver. The old practical miners employed by the state observed the presence of quicksilver in the pans continually.

In the hearing, a German called by Mr. Holcomb testified that he had sluiced $25,000 worth of gold out of this gulch. Asked where he had disposed of it, he said he had sold $1,500 worth to a man in Tacoma; the next moment he denied this and asserted he had sold the entire clean-up in British Columbia, where the alleged sale could not be disproved. Even the sangfroid of Mr. Holcomb, which has carried him through this farcical affair for two years without change of countenance, gave way before the ridiculous testimony of this man. The state administration has determined to carry this fight, if necessary, into the executive mansion at Washington City.