Newport Prospectors Hit a Five-Foot Vein of Silver-Lead Five Miles From Town
A rich ledge of silver-lead carbonates on the Key and Last Chance claims has been exposed at eighty-three feet, with Newport owners planning to consolidate the adjoining properties.
A strike was made on the Key and Last Chance prospects, adjoining the Comstock and on the same ledge, this week. The properties are in the Newport district, about five miles from town. A ledge of silver-lead carbonates of a rich character and five and one-half feet in width was exposed. The property is owned by J. M. Culberson, H. McCullough and E. Alger, of Newport. Work has been shut down on the property for a short time pending a reorganization and consolidation of the Comstock, Last Chance and Key claims. A shaft has been sunk 83 feet and the strike was made at this depth.
“A ledge of silver-lead carbonates of a rich character and five and one-half feet in width, was exposed.”
In 1908, a rich outcrop five miles from town could set off a wave of claim staking, stock sales and dreams of a mining district. Newport's economy still wrestles with how to turn natural-resource booms into lasting local wealth rather than a speculative cycle.
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