Mr. Paher begins his description of Gold Hitt talking about the Indian Queen mine, several miles away. He then says:
The Indian Queen resumed production during the statewide boom early in this century, and the camp of Gold Hitt emerged. A town was laid out in October 1905, lot sales commenced, and during the next month 200 people were in the district. The miners organized a union, and a daily stage connected the camp with Basalt station, six miles away on the Nevada &r California Railway. In 1906 the new camp contained saloons, a livery stable, meat market, store and restaurant; the district post office was Oneota, open from June 1906 until February of the next year. But the mines were not of the quality to sustain the camp and Gold Hitt was knocked out of the list of active camps when the Indian Queen ceased production later in the year. A revival in 1915 reopened mines and two mills were built, but about 1919 that activity ceased. Little has been heard of the district since then.
Mr. Tingley has another view:
The earliest activity in the Fish Lake Valley District was at the Tip Top, or Gold Hitt gold mine south of Sugarloaf Peak. Paher (1970) describes activity at Gold Hitt in 1905 but he has the area confused with Queen Canyon to the west. The Tip Top was known to be active by 1915, however, and a production of $130,000 is credited to the mine by 1918. The Mount Montgomery or Wild Rose mercury mine produced during World War I. The mercury deposits around the B & B were discovered in 1927 (Baily and Phoenix, 1944) and were active in the 1930's and 1940's. Currently, interest in the district is high and gold exploration programs are underway near most of the old mercury and gold properties. In the summer of 1982, no properties were beyond the exploration stage, however.
-Fish Lake Valley District, Tingley, (FROM NBMG OPEN FILE REPORT 83-11)
I'm not quite sure why Mr. Paher thinks the Indian Queen mine has anything to do with Gold Hitt, as that mine is much easier accessed from Queen Valley from Queen Canyon, and there doesn't even seem to be anything in the way of roads or even a goat path from that mine to Gold Hitt, over three and half miles to the northeast, on the other side of Mustang Mountain.
However, upon further contemplation, I believe that he means renewed interest in the nearby Indian Queen spurred exploration in other parts of the district.
BUENA VISTA
The New Camp Near Summit Is Having A Healthy Growth
The new camp on the Nevada and California railroad, near Summit, known as Buena Vista, is becoming quite thickly populated. At present there are about two hundred people calling it their home. Where the main town of the district will be is attracting a good deal of attention from residents. Four sites are in the prospect, including the original one at Buena Vista, one named Gold Hitt, after Bert Hitt, one of the owners of the Ticker mine, one at Basalt, and one at Queen Station. The Gold Hitt site is owned by Lee Foster, Wm. Lowman, A. Barnhart, T. C. Lewis, Bert Hitt, J. M. Langrell, Matt Murphy, and J. W. Fapp. It was laid out last week by J. S. Evans, late of Reclamation Service. Lots were priced at $250 for 35-foot fronts on Main Street corners, and $150 for 30-foot inside frontages. Two blocks of Main street frontage were sold the evening they were first offered. The owners have completed arrangements with the Candelaria Water Company for a water supply, and are understood to have already tapped the pipeline running a short distance from the camp. Gold Hitt is south of and near the center of a belt of mines, 6 1/2 miles from Basalt by the present road, and about five miles from Buena Vista by trail. Work is under way which will shorten the Basalt road to five miles. A choice lot has been set aside in Gold Hitt for a Miner's Union hall.
-Tonopah Bonanza, November 4, 1905
We're rolling now!
The townsite plats of Gold Hitt and Basalt were examined and approved.
-Walker Lake Bulletin, November 24, 1905
Looks like Gold Hitt has pulled ahead of the competition!
BUENA VISTA.
This New Mining District Has a Bright. Future.
The new Buena ,Vista mining district continues to attract great attention. While the district was originally known as Buena Vista, the correct and official name is Oneata. It is situated on the Nevada and California railroad, about eighty miles southwest of Tonopah and forty-five miles south of Sodaville. The largest town in the district is Gold Hitt, which is four miles by trail and eight miles by wagon road from Buena Vista. The main properties of the camp are the Queen, Tip Top, Browny, Buena Vista, Summit, Lily, and Ticker. 1 The Queen mine is reported sold to a company headed by Gov. Pardee of California. The consideration is $50,000 cash.
-Tonopah Bonanza, November 25, 1905
M.L. Johnson and son, Clyde, of this place, have opened a general merchandise store at Goldhit, a new mining camp about six miles northwest of Basalt, on the line of the Nev. & Cal. railroad in southern Nevada.
-Lyon County Times, December 23, 1905
Actually, about five miles south of Basalt. And it's "Gold Hitt," two "t's," named after one of the founders, Bert Hitt. Details, details.
Looks like either the population has dropped a bit, or reporting has become more accurate.
GOLDHITT
A. Barnhart, a pioneer Tonopahan, who is now heavily interested in Goldhitt, the Oneota district, was a visitor in Tonopah last Monday. In speaking of the camp Mr. Barnhart said: "Goldhitt is in a gold belt five miles long and good pannings can be secured from the surface for that distance. We have a camp with a future. Ogden people are arranging to install a 60-ton mill at once, the plant being on the road.
A daily stage line has just been established between Basalt and Goldhitt, a distance of 6 miles, and a telephone line from Summit is also under way. At present we have one general store, a butcher shop, restaurant, lodging house, feed corral and three saloons. There are many leasers at work and they all have a good surface showing. The Tiptop is the best property. It is owned by Fred Brower and Scheffnitt and Weber and Ish. They have a big body of ore and have 80 sacks ready for shipment that will go over $200 to t the ton. Altogether the camp is looking fine and between Goldhitt and Buena Vista there are about 100 people in the district.
-Tonopah Bonanza, January 27, 1906
At present there are about 50 men in the immediate vicinity of Buena Vista and about double that number in or closer to Gold Hitt. Basalt and Queen seem to have fallen back in the race for public favor. A small experimental mill has been erected. It is expected that a 60 ton stamp mill will soon be built at or near Gold Hitt.
-Nevada State Journal, February 14, 1906
Here is some sappy sweet prose that might be slightly exaggerated.
Depending upon the actual merit of its mineral resources, Goldhitt has made no clamor for passing favor, but silently as "ships that pass in the night," the camp has dug and dug again, day and night, in quest of the golden fleece determined to make no appeal to public notice until discovery and development should suffice to fortify every extreme measure and win more than half hearted success. Well. the hour has struck, treasures are uncovered and exposed that all the world may come and see, and the prophecy of future greatness is so plainly written that even he who runs may read. It was the summer of 1905 that a party of prospectors, following the trail of two others who had gone ahead from Goldfield, entered the rock-ribbed gulches and canyons of this range. These "old-timers," Hitt, Lowman, Foster, McElroy, Barnhart and Cummings. being men of a thoroughly practical and persistent class, soon after reaching here found values which afterward led to the discovery and location of mines that place Goldhitt on the list of Nevada bonanzas. Goldfield, now a household word.,had its birth in the values found in a single prospect, the Combination: all the world knows what Goldfield is today. Here at Goldhitt are a score of properties which far over-reach in value and volume any and all preliminary discoveries made in any camp in the southwest, with the probable exception of Tonopah, which at best is but a suburb of Goldhitt. These mines, the Tip Top, May, Brownie. Ticker„ Buckhorn, Dixie, Camp Bird, Buena Vista, Pinto, Lilly, First Shot and Joe Brown mines are a few of the developing properties that have encountered ore bodies that invite the most searching investigation by persons or companies, mining and milling, looking for a chance for profitable, permanent investment, while numerous "prospects," offering splendid opportunities to the investor the Seneca, Cayuga, Gracie Lee and scores of others covering a radius of four miles in every direction from the camp expose ore bodies that certainly enthuse the most exacting observer. Apart from the unusual favor of fuel and water and gold, Goldhitt enjoys many other advantages. The camp is beautifully located, the winters are mild, only an occasional fall of snow, cool summers, only five miles over an excellent road to Basalt station on the C and C. railroad, from which a good rapid stage line runs to Goldhitt, and but a few miles southwest opens a fine farming country that supplies every fresh article needed in a growing camp. This town, or camp, is growing. Every line of trade and business is represented—among them the Union Mercantile company, with its immense .stock of groceries, miners supplies. hardware. etc., the Horton Supply company, hay, grain, meats and staple produce, and others along similar lines supplying every need that a mining community demands. Real estate is largely represented by the firm of Barnhart and Lowman. Now, while the saw and hammers are heard throughout the land, houses building for every purpose, an inrush of mining men from Colorado. Utah, Arizona and British Columbia seeking property. leases, etc., mill men from Utah and Denver negotiating for terms, examining ore bodies, business men from other camps looking up business opportunities, not an idle man in the district, amid all this there is nothing that suggests a "townsite boom." Clean cut and clear, every hand is swinging pick and shovel: digging deep down into rocky vaults to find the treasure that makes life happy. They are finding it. It is here, and all the world may come and see and be convinced.
-Nevada State Journal, April 4, 1906
While the camp of Gold Hitt may have folded, mine development and exploration in the area continued on for quite a while.
The Tip Top mine is about 7 miles south of Mt. Montgomery station, which was on the narrow gauge railroad between Mina, Nevada and Keeler, California. This mine was worked from 1913 to 1915 by the Atkins-Kroll Co. of San Francisco, which equipped the property with a 10-stamp cyanide mill of 50-ton capacity. About $100,000 in gold and silver is reported to have been produced. The Brownie mine or IXL group is said to have been located by S. T. McElroy, a mining engineer, in 1905. Most of the development work was done by him over a long term of years, and a small tonnage of gold re was milled in a 2-stamp mill. The gross production was small, however. In 1938 the two groups of claims were taken over by C. E. Wood and J. C. Horten who control the property at the present time. At that time the mine could only be reached by a trail, but they made a satisfactory road over the rugged mountains to the lower tunnel and mill site. In 1939 they installed a 40-ton ball mill with leaching tanks for cyaniding later added four flotation machines. Neither process gave satisfactory recovery, the ore liming too much for leaching and not being well adapted to the flotation process. This mill was installed just below the upper tunnel at an elevation of 8,300 feet, where climatic conditions are unfavorable. In winter both living and working conditions are very severe except for underground working. The power plant is at an elevation 1800 feet below the mill and a mill site has been selected alongside the power plant, it being intended to connect the mine and mill with an 8,000 foot tramway.
-Report on Properties of Red Top Mining Company, B. M. Snyder, 1940
There doesn't seem to be a trace left of this very short-lived mining camp. I do have a townsite plat filed back in 1905, though.