Treasure Mountain
For Sale
Details
Operation Type : Lode Mine
Serial Number :
MMC241031
Length of Workings :
1000 ft. Drift, 300 ft. Shaft, 300 ft. Raise
Mining Claim Size :
20.66 Acres
Comodities :
Gold, Silver, Copper, Zinc
Price :
$25,000
Features and Amenities
- Camping
- Gold
- River
- Parking
- Creek
- Garnets
- Silver
The Bureau of Mines has estimated that demonstrated U.S. reserves of gold are 85 million ounces. Approximately one-half of the total resources are estimated to be by-product gold, while 40% of the remaining one-half (56 million ounces) could be mined for gold alone … Most U.S. gold resources are in the nation’s western states. About 80% of the U.S. gold resources are estimated to be in Alaska, California, Idaho, Montana and Washington. (Earthsearch, Inc. 1983)
Overview of The Mines
| Several adits and a shaft are included in this claim and several buildings are included. The mines are on the Big Dick and Blanket veins but currently none of the adits or shaft are open. The new owners will want to dig out the portals of the adits to get to the gold/silver veins. Opening the portals will also help to dry out the mine. A dry mine is safer than a wet one. We estimate it would take about a few of days for 1 or 2 guys to dig out each portal. |
| The historical documents show the mine was active from 1915 to 1930. Once the adits portals are opened a locked gate would be required by law to prevent people from going inside and getting injured. The drift and raise are directly on the rich ore bodies. The shaft connects lower drifts on the rich gold/silver veins and to access these lower drifts would require opening the shaft and building a safety platform. |
| The fact that such rich samples are so easily found right from the start make this mine an easy one to begin making a profit from right away. The workings are impressive, the entire mine site is currently very large but could quickly be made larger. |
| Mine operations consist of surface and underground workings. There is one visible shaft. Subsurface depth reaches a maximum of 91 meters (300 feet) and extends 457 meters (1,500 feet) in length. An adit 300 feet long, and east of the adit an inclined shaft 350 feet deep (Pardee and Schrader, 1933, p. 269). Workings explore a north trending vein that dips 30 degrees W in andesite breccia and cuts the low-dipping vein exposed in the Big Dick/Treasure Mountain/Evening Star mine. The vein averages 3 1/2 feet wide and contains quartz, calcite, sphalerite, pyrite, arsenopyrite, and galena; a minor amount of chalcopyrite is contained in the sphalerite. In polished section the texture of the ore minerals resembles breccia; in the workings, however, some lineation parallel to the vein walls is evident. Tourmaline is present as wall-rock alteration product but does not occur in the ore (McClernan, 1976, p.10). The ore mined is composed of sphalerite, gold and galena with waste material consisting primarily of pyrite, tourmaline and quartz. The ore body takes a blanket shape extending 1.07 meters (3.51 feet) thick. |
| 2 VEINS-BIG DICK STRIKES N AND DIPS 20N. BLANKET VEIN-STRIKES E AND DIPS 20N. BLANKET VEIN CUTS THE OTHER AND IS THE MAIN SOURCE FOR THE MINE. THE FOLDING SQUEEZED AND CRUSHED THE ROCKS, OPENING THEM FOR MINERALIZING SOLUTIONS WHICH PARTLY REPLACED THEM WITH SILICA AND INTRODUCED GOLD-BEARING PYRITE. SOME QUARTZ CONTAINS LARGE COLUMNS OF BLACK TOURMALINE INTERGROWN WITH PYRITE. The Northern Rocky Mountains physiographic province of the Rocky Mountain System characterize the geomorphology of the surrounding area. TOURMALINE IN WALL ROCK, TRACE OF CHALCOPYRITE IN SPHALERITE. Ore body width 3.51 feet. Minerals at the mine: Calcite, Pyrite, Quartz, Tourmaline, Chalcopyrite, Galena, Gold, Sphalerite, Silver, Copper, Zinc. 3 OUNCE PER TON GOLD, SOME UP TO 5 OUNCE PER TON GOLD |
| The Evening Star mine, better known as the Big Dick/Treasure Mountain, lies 6 miles due south of Elliston on the summit of the mountain on the south side of Little Blackfoot River. The altitude is 7,000 feet. This property was idle during 1911. The Treasure Mountain Mine is located in the southwest corner of section 6. It is short drive from Elliston to the mine. |
While it is sometimes said old mines have been ‘worked out’ as the saying means there is no gold left, the truth is “it is better to say they are worked over; it is also true that the primitive methods used and the wasteful haste to get rich indulged in, left much of the gold in the ground, so that improved methods … will give even better results than those first obtained.” (MBMG Open Report 466)
| Year | Ore (Tons) | Gold (Oz.) | Silver (Oz.) | Copper (Lbs.) | Lead (Lbs.) | Zinc (Lbs.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1902 |
200 |
450 |
4,000 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
1905 |
500 |
750 |
3,500 |
-- |
100,000 |
-- |
|
1906 |
484 |
924 |
6,187 |
-- |
79,373 |
-- |
|
1907 |
835 |
1,414 |
8,350 |
-- |
110,584 |
-- |
|
1909 |
170 |
195 |
1,234 |
-- |
12,878 |
-- |
|
1914 |
52 |
59 |
652 |
-- |
12,467 |
-- |
|
1915 |
86 |
129 |
1,076 |
-- |
15,255 |
-- |
|
1919 |
39 |
65 |
600 |
-- |
11,433 |
-- |
|
1920 |
89 |
144 |
1,070 |
-- |
18,445 |
-- |
|
1921 |
380 |
730 |
6,405 |
-- |
94,734 |
-- |
|
1922 |
404 |
618 |
4,266 |
-- |
51,783 |
-- |
|
1923 |
139 |
230 |
1,442 |
-- |
14,769 |
-- |
|
1924 |
15 |
22 |
168 |
-- |
1,328 |
-- |
|
1925 |
3 |
10 |
86 |
-- |
863 |
-- |
|
1927 |
48 |
90 |
230 |
-- |
3,700 |
-- |
|
1931 |
7 |
13 |
57 |
18 |
746 |
-- |
|
1936 |
1,700 |
261 |
1,500 |
74 |
19,210 |
-- |
|
1937 |
13 |
27 |
115 |
-- |
2,029 |
-- |
|
1938 |
300 |
80 |
206 |
-- |
2,752 |
-- |
|
1939 |
5,000 |
535 |
4,145 |
1,112 |
75,527 |
-- |
|
1940 |
5,521 |
763 |
3,924 |
444 |
59,261 |
-- |
|
1941 |
127 |
123 |
1,546 |
23 |
20,975 |
-- |
|
1942 |
14 |
24 |
272 |
-- |
4,565 |
-- |
|
1950 |
39 |
12 |
94 |
99 |
1,067 |
-- |
|
1954 |
35 |
19 |
120 |
100 |
2,800 |
3,800 |
|
Total |
16,200 |
7,687 |
51,236 |
1,870 |
716,553 |
3,800 |
|
* All production figures provided by U.S. Bureau of Mines |
||||||
Montana is ranked 7th by the USGS for total gold production in the US and has 31 mining districts. Gold production for the 1800’s to 1968 is 17.8 million ounces and large amounts of gold have been mined from 1968 to present. Geologists have predicted that based on the past and the geology of Montana that several large gold and silver deposits will be found and developed in the future (Bergendahl and Koshmann, 1968).
Details about the Mine:
| Access to the Mine | The road is maintained in good condition to the base of the claim. Road on the claim to the adit, inclined shaft and Ore Bin is passable when we visited. There is plenty of area to park a camper or RV prior to getting to the mine. We advise utilizing a side-by-side or 4 wheeler on your first trip to the mine to see how the road is. |
| Tailing Present | Surveyors estimate well over 6,000 tons. |
| Depth / Length | Drift 1000 feet, Shaft 300 feet, 200' Raise. |
| Minerals in the Mine | Historically mined for gold and silver and copper. Minerals of tourmaline, quartz, pyrite, galena, gold, silver, black sands with rare earth minerals would be expected. There isn't much history specifically for the Treasure Mountain mine except some lines in a description from the Elliston mining district. Gold and Silver and Copper will be the minerals to mine from the Treasure Mountain and there is a lot of very rich ore at the mine based on the reports. Most of the reports lump the mine in with others and we have done our best to pull out only the information for this mine. |
| Foot traffic at the mine | Very little. |
| Last Worked | Unknown. |
| Number of Mines | Several Adits and a single shaft |
| Nearest city with amenities | Elliston, approximately 13.7 miles |
| Access to the Claim | A dirt road breaks off from the Interstate and leads all the way to the mine. Overall the road is in relatively good condition when dry. You will not be able to bring a camper or RV to this claim but there are plenty of camping areas prior to getting to the claim that an RV or camper can be parked. |
| Parking and Staging on the Claim | Claim is situated so it allows for parking and staging of vehicles (ATV's, UTV's) if desired. |
| Resources | Year round water in the creek at the main road, grasses, sage and trees. More than enough trees on the claim for use in the mine. |
| Structures on claim | 1 Mill, Several other buildings and an old hotel. |
| Elevation | Aprox. 6700 feet |
| Total Workings | Over several hundred feet of workings which are cut along a gold rich ore body. At the present time the shaft is caved in and all adits are collapsed. No water is flowing out of the upper adits. |
Climate/Weather:
Climate/Weather:
| The Treasure Mountain Mine appears to have been a part of the Big Dick/Golden Anchor/Evening Star in the USGS Database. | |
Economic information about the deposit and operations |
|
| Operation Type | Lode |
|---|---|
| Development Status | Past Producer |
| Commodity type | Metallic |
| Commodities |
Gold- Primary Silver - Primary Copper - Secondary Lead - Secondary |
| Length of workings | 1000 ft drift, 300 ft shaft and 300 ft raise |
| Host Rock | Boulder Batholith |
| Deposit | 2 VEINS - BIG DICK STRIKES N AND DIPS 20N. BLANKET VEIN - STRIKES E AND DIPS 20N. BLANKET VEIN CUTS THE OTHER AND IS THE MAIN SOURCE FOR THE MINE. THE FOLDING SQUEEZED AND CRUSHED THE ROCKS, OPENING THEM FOR MINERALIZING SOLUTIONS WHICH PARTLY REPLACED THEM WITH SILICA AND INTRODUCED GOLD-BEARING PYRITE. |
| References | USGS Database - 10101974, 10012270, 10221604, 10124956 |
Mining District:
Elliston District |
| The Elliston mining district is about 20 miles west of Helena and south of the Little Blackfoot River. It includes the town of Elliston which is the first town on the Northern Pacific Railroad west of the Continental Divide. The mining district includes the town of Elliston but is generally south of the river in mountainous, heavily-forested terrain. Early reports on the district described about 15 productive mines, most of which were from five to 11 miles south of the town. |
| The geology in the vicinity of Elliston consists of an apparently conformable succession of limestone, quartzite and sandstone. The lowest formation is the Madison limestone which is overlain by the Quadrant quartzite, near the top of which occurs a bed of high-grade phosphate rock. To the south of Elliston rhyolites are present and persist on the flanks of the mountains to 6,200 ft. The ore deposits of the Elliston district contain values chiefly of lead-silver, some of which contain considerable gold. The ore minerals are galena, pyrite, sphalerite, arsenopyrite and tetrahedrite in a quartz-carbonate gangue (Schrader 1929; Pardee and Schrader 1933). |
| The Elliston district began as a placer operation along the Little Blackfoot River during the 1860s... It was not until the 1890s, when lode mining was developed south of town, that the district began to produce significant amounts of ore. Most of the production from the lode mining occurred between 1890 and 1908, at which point the total production was estimated at $2,750,000. Most of this production came from the Big Dick (or Evening Star), Monarch, Julia, Flora, Ontario and Twin City mines. However, during the first half of the 1890s, the town and the area's primary economic base was woodcutting. Cutting cord wood for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company's smelter at Anaconda employed more than one hundred wood cutters and it was during this period that the town of Elliston reached its peak in population and activity. However, in 1894 and again in 1895, fires destroyed the town (Lyden 1948; Robertson 1956; Wolle 1963). |
| Knopf (1913) reported that by 1911 there was little mining in progress in the Elliston district and throughout the region. Pardee and Schrader (1933) indicate that some sporadic mining occurred in the Elliston district during the 1910s and 1920s with a total production of about $200,000, with $70,000 of this coming from gold and the remainder from 90,000 ounces of silver, 700,000 pounds of lead and 90,000 pounds of copper (Pardee and Schrader 1933). |
| Robertson (1956) reported periodic mining activity in the district since then, although no important mines have been developed. He estimates the total production for the district at somewhat more than $3,100,000. During the period from 1909 to 1954 the district marketed about 7,600 ounces of gold, 149,000 ounces of silver, 98,000 pounds of copper, 1,560,000 pounds of lead and 197,000 pounds of zinc (Anderson 1990; Robertson 1948). |
| The country rock is a coarse andesitic breccia, apparently bedded; the strike is N. 50° E. and the dip 20° NW. It is much jointed so that determinations of strike and dip of bedding are likely to be unsafe. The ore deposit is said to be a blanket vein developed by a shaft 300 feet deep and is said to dip north at a low angle. The ore carries galena, pyrite, sphalerite, and arsenopyrite in a quartz gangue; some of the quartz contains numerous large columns of black tourmaline intergrown with pyrite. The ore is reported to have been high grade, carrying as much as 3 ounces of gold a ton. During 1906 a gold-silver-lead ore was shipped to the East Helena smelter and a production was maintained until 1910. The deposit was worked to the west end line; during 1911 the lessees were engaged in sinking a shaft near this end line on the adjoining claim, which is one of a group known as the Finnish or Weston group. It was expected that the Big Dick vein would be struck at a depth of 150 feet. |
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