From time immemorial when the first miner picked up a piece of paying gold ore there was, no doubt, someone looking over his shoulder laying plans to get the gold away from him. Of course there was always the strong arm method, but the gentler, more ingenious methods have left their indelible marks on the pages of the Old West.

During the lush Comstock Lode days, one mine had been driven into a hill to the extent of about 500 feet, but the shaft needed to be driven further. With laborers demanding premium prices, work was usually done by contract at so much a foot. In this case, a contract was let to four miners to drive the shaft another ten feet for a total price of $300, which was good even in those days. Quite honestly and confidently the miners started to work. But when they found the face of the rock was the hardest of quartz formations, they decided that the task was too much for them. Accordingly, a wooden plug that had been set in the rock to mark the starting was blasted free, then reset, back a good strong ten feet.

After an appropriate length of idle time the miners requested their pay and left. The mine owner was pleased with the prompt work and prepared to work his ore as before. But when he found the assay ran as previously, he became suspicious. He took the precaution of measuring from the mouth of the tunnel to the supposedly new face of the ore. He marked down the $300 to another experience of the "tricksy miner."

Naturally the mine owners were alert for the stunt from then on. But the wandering miners were a step ahead. A vertical shaft was to be driven another fifty feet, and the necessary crew was hired, again at high wages per foot. About the time the men were ready to draw their money, talk buzzed about a robbery the night before. But apparently nothing of value had been taken from the owner, and the matter was dismissed.

Next morning one of the miners went down the shaft holding a long tape measure in his hand to indicate the new depth. When the bucket clanked to a halt, the owner looked at his end, and noted with satisfaction the job was the proper depth. He paid the men off.

A few days later he was measuring timber to shore up his new shaft. With some surprise he noticed the length was shown as several feet longer than the piece looked. Careful examination revealed the tapeline had been the object of the robbery nights before. A section several feet in length had been cut out of the measure, then the two ends carefully re-sewed. Thus the shaft was still the same depth.

Highgrading was another gentle art where in the mine owner was mulcted out of his best ore. Preliminary in the process of highgrading a miner was willing to steal ore from the shaft where he was employed. To get this ore out, heavy corsets with multiple pockets were used; two suits of underwear sewn together often held several pounds of ore, and many took bits of rich ore out in their lunch buckets.

As a result the man assigned to inspect the miners’ lunch buckets had a virtual bonanza, without even swinging a pick. He would either confiscate the ore from the bucket of a trapped miner, or through threat of exposure demand a share in the proceeds. Either way he got his and everyone was happy.

In the early days of Cripple Creek and later the Nevada boom days the stolen ore was crushed by the miners themselves. Later the crooked assayers moved in to handle the highgrade on a fifty-fifty basis. To insure a steady flow of goods, and give outward signs of honest activity the assayer would ordinarily take in a partner employed in one of the rich mines. The outside man could also make contacts with other miners who were regularly helping themselves to samples.

Most contacts were made at night, although in the final boom days of Nevada the stealing was open and flagrant. Many mine owners looked at the stealing rather realistically. One informed his workers:

"You men know I’ve only got a shot time left to my lease to make what I an. So when you’re helping yourself, remember to leave a little for me."

His was one lease working that paid for both sides.

Boom camps always meant highgrading, and that in turn meant an influx of he dishonest assayers. In Goldfield, one of the last big boom camps, the assayers numbered more than 100; a percentage far more than honest prospectors would reasonably patronize. As this grew to big business, more and more officials got in on the pay-offs. In one instance each assayer chipped in $100 a month for bribes, ranging form superintendents through deputy sheriff.

To offset these wholesale thefts, the mine owners tried to institute change rooms, where the miners would change clothes before leaving the mines, and the use of armed guards underground to keep watch over the men as they worked. Bu the miners struck in protest, and the highgrading continued.

Detectives hired by mine owners, soon became known, and were useless. But one gay spirit, a stranger, came into a Nevada boom town one day trying to sell a piece of gold bar to the known crooked assayers. One weighed the bar but said he didn’t have enough money to pay for it. However, he knew of another assayer who might. If he couldn't sell it, the company man was to come back.

The assayer then fashioned a lead bar the same size and shape as the one offered, covering it with gold leaf. This bar was given to still another assayer, who hadn’t been contacted. When the company man was directed there, a quick substitution was made, then tests made on the phony bar.

"What kind of a stunt are you trying to pull?" the assayer demanded angrily. "This here bar is nothing but lead, covered with gold leaf."

Wide-eyed the company man took back his bar, wondering how he would ever explain the loss of the gold bar with which he was supposed to trap the crooked assayers.

As the assayers became bolder and made transactions openly with dishonest miner, robbers began preying on these men. They would waylay the assayers loaded with either ore or cash for purchase and take it away from them. If ore was taken, the men would often bring it around the next day for reduction, and cash payment.

It was these robbers, along with the closing of some mines and the increased interests of owners in protecting their property that gradually squeezed out the assayer. Miners again began to crush their own ore, and one saloon keeper took it upon himself to begin buying gold on weight, without any test. This infuriated the already desperate assayers, and they set about to fashion buttons and bars of lead, carefully plating them with gold leaf. The assayers then distributed them to the miners in a fifty-fifty split, if they would pass them off to the saloon keeper.

It wasn’t until the greedy boniface tried to cash in on 2,000 ounces of phony buttons and bars that he decided to withdraw from the assay business.

It was in these waning days that the final blow was struck to the highgraders. A federal law was passed with stiff penalities for those infracting it, and Secret Service men were assigned to enforce it. This was bad enough, but one of the assayers closed up his shop in disgust after he was approached by a Paiute Indian displaying some handsome pieces of ore.

"Wantum ore?" the Paiute asked.

The assayer looked it over carefully, full knowing it was rich. "Might, " he answered cagily. "Might want this, if I could find out where it came from. You tell me?"

The Paiute nodded that he could and would show where it came from . . . for a price. "Heap more," he added, pointing to the ore.

After some haggling the price of a couple of blankets and some white shirts was agreed on for this new find. With the transaction complete, the assayer quietly followed the Paiute out of town and up the side of a mountain. As their mounts nosed over the hill, they were faced with the piles of ore ready for shipment from one of the biggest Nevada mines.

Pointing to the great heaps of ore, the Piaute said:

"Me ketchum there. You see, heap plenty more, all the same. Injun heap good, he no lie."

What the assayer said in reply is not recorded as he left town immediately, along with many of his thieving brethren.

SOURCE: REAL WEST magazine, Volume VII, Number 33, January, 1964. By: Robert Lee

Return To The Top

Return Back To The Stories