From Fallon,Take Highway 50 east out of Fallon, left on Stillwater Road. From downtown Stillwater drive 7.4 miles, take marked intersection 11.4 miles. La Plata is either 12.7 miles or 4.1 miles, depending on , road conditions, your vehicle capabilities, and level of bravery.
Springs in the area made Mountain Well an important water source, both
for the Pony Express and for later Overland freight traffic between Fallon,
Stillwater, La Plata, and later outlying areas like Wonder and Fairview, and still later as an early route of the Lincoln Highway. The Mountain Wells mining istrict included La Plata, at one time the county seat of Churchill county.
This route was used as early as the 1860's to bypass with worst of the muddy flats to the sourth.
Discoveries near Tonopah and Goldfield
made everyone mineral crazy, and they imagined they were stumbling over all sorts of deposits.
INDICATIONS OF COAL DEPOSIT NEAR FALLON
J. A. Tate, a coal expert who was raised and spent much of his life among the rich fields of the east and middle west. came into Reno today with a handkerchief full of small rock specimens which he says point most strongly to a good coal deposit. The samples are from tour claims adjoining Sheriff Ferrel's oil land. It is located near the station of Mountain Wells, thirty miles east of Fallon and -sixteen miles southwest of Stillwater.
-Reno Evening Gazette, September 2, 1907
People began examining the area in detail.
J.V. Whipp was at Mountain Wells camp last week. He informed us that L.G. Gerdine chief inspector of the U.S.G.S., who has been attending to officiaal duties in camp, left for Sacramento Thursday.
-Churchill County Standard, September 24, 1908
MOve along people, nothing to see here...
Reported Strike A Fake
Some little excitement was caused in Fallon Sunday and Monday by the report of a rich strike at Mountain Well about 25 miles east by a little south of Fallon. The report was brought in by Jesse Connely; a party left early Sunday morning by auto for the scene. A 16-foot ledge was struck at a depth of 55ft. The fomration was perfect and all indications pointed to a regular mint. An assay was made Monday and turned to be of no consequence. The mineral deposits consist largley of white iron. However the formation indicate that valuable deposits are somewhere near. The man that strikes a pay streak in that vicinity may take his rank among the "Rockyfellars" of Nevada.
-Churchill County Standard, March 18, 1909
Or is there?
MOUNTAIN WELL STRIKE GOOD
The strike recently made at Mountain Well east of Fallon about 28 miles and which was reported as having only a trace of gold by the first assays made at Fairview and Reno may yet prove to be a bonanza. Many miningmen were certain the rock was good but the assay seemed to prove otherwise. Mike Gragan of the Northern sent samples for Wm. Burg to H. E. Burton, an assayor at Leadville, Colo., the returns from which are as follows: Gold - $49.29 Silver - $160. It sounds almost too goof to be true and other samples have been sent to Salt Lake and Duna. The location is of easy access and water is within a half mile of the strike. Local parties have secured a townsite right and all is in readiness for fast development should the other assays make good.
-Churchill County Standard April 1, 1909
Enough people came out this way to look that ol' Jessie made a map. I wonder if this is actually Jessie Connel, though.
Jessie Connors has prepared a map of the Mountain Wells mining district which indicates marked skill on the part of the draftsman. Mr. Connors placed his map in the Northern where anyone who has the desire may study it. It shows more locating in the Mountain Wells country than was generally supposed.
-Chrchill County Standard, June 17, 1909
People probably called Mountain Wells home while they engaged in the cattle business, the mining business, and the transportation business.
Stillwater Items.
Thomas Shimmer of Mountain Wells, was a Stillwater visitor Monday. Tom Burchell made the feathers fly while on his Stillwater duck hunt last Wednesday.
-Churchill County Standard, September 23, 1909
The road get used a lot and at times needed a little fixing But, hey! Let's not go crazy with the money eh?
Chas. Cirac was authorized to expend $100 in improving the Mountain Wells road and upon the Mountain Wells and Desert Wells watering places.
-Churchill County Standard October 6, 1910
There were other things in the mountains besides cows and gold.
RABID STEER RUNS AMUCK NEAR MOUNTAIN WELLS First Authentic Case of Rabies Among Range Cattle In Churchill County.
The first authentic case of rabies among range cattle in Churchill county occurred last Thursday near Mountain Wells. about fourteen miles east of Stillwater, when a yearling steer In the herd of Chas E. Kent, which in ranging in that section, ran amuck. The animal developed the usual characteristics of the malady, including a disposition to gore everything that came in its way. Mr. Kent has a man employed at digging a well on the range and the crazed steer chased him into the pump home where a gasoline engine used to pump water from a spring for the use of the cattle. The animal died Thursday night with all the symptoms of rabies present and the carcass was burned to prevent possible infection. Mr. Kent was in town Thursday purchasing a supply of guns and ammunition and henceforth the men in charge of his stock will keep a keen lookout form coyotes which it now appears have reached the eastern end of the county in the Silver range and are gradually spreading southward.
-Churchill County Standard, April 26, 1916
It's obvious that the route through Mountain Wells is the only choice for the Lincoln Highway!
H. C. Osterman, Field Secretary for the Lincoln Highway Association accompanied by William Easton of Austin, passed through Fallon last Saturday on route to San Francisco. With respect to the local dlfferences of opinion that exist as to the feasibility of the Mountain Wells route, via Stillwater, as opposed to the Sand Springs route, Mr. Osterman said that he still stood by his decision made last fall In favor of the former. "The eight and fourmile flats,” says Osterman, “present a problem that is too large for Churchill county or even the State of Nevada, and is really a National problem, and can only be made practical as a military road by being crossed on a causeway. On the other hand, so far as I can see, the Mountain Wells route, represents no engineering difficulties or cost of maintenance in the future. In this, as in many other instances, I am guided in my decisions solely by the idea of selecting the route presenting the least natural obstacles to travel, which lnclueds mileage, cost of construction and maintenance and I believe that, all of these factors considered, the Mountain Wells route is preferable."
-Churchill County Standard, September 19, 1917
Apparently, opinions differed.
MOUNTAIN WELLS ROUTE ON LINCOLN HIGHWAY A MENACE
Misleading Sign at Chalk Mountain Should BE Removed To Protect Innocent Traveler.
F A Sweet, it prominent coal dealer of Salt Lake had a rather uncomfortable experience last week, while coming over the Lincoln highway, bound west. Misled by the large sign at Chalk Mountain. some eight miles east of the Frenchman's Station, he took the Mountain Wells route, which has been mistakenly signed as the highway. He was driving a big Stearns car and was accompanied by his wife and little children, On leaving Austin they had confidently expected to reach the Frenchman's about noon. but taking the wrong road resulted in their being compelled to travel until eleven o'clock at night without refreshment. To make matters worse. they had no adequate supply of drinking water and upon arriving at Mountain Welts found the supply there polluted with dead snakes and gophers. The children suffered from their long fast and from thirst and were about collapsed when they arrived at Stillwater. Mr Sweet states that the road conditions are simply indescribable. Although he has a powerful car he could scarcely make ten miles an hour over the best of the stretches and it was one continual succession of chuckholes and gutters. He broke a spring and considers himself fortunate that he still has a car. Mr Sweet Is desirous that no other traveler he led Into the same error and offers to pay for the painting of a sign at the forks of the road near Chalk Mountain if some good Samaritan will erect it. He says that the route Is absolutely a menace and could easily result in the death of ignorant travelers who depend upon the signs as their only guides in a strange country Should a party run out of gas or water on the route there would be no salvation for them, save to wander around In search of these essentials in a country in which they are entire strangers. and possibly perish before they found assistance. as there is no travel over the route and no habitation for miles. It is useless to discuss the mIstaken policy which induced the Lincoln Highway official to perpetrate this blunder on an innocent and confiding traveling public. The fact remains that It was done over the protest of those best informed on road conditions. The Lincoln Highway Association has an undoubted right to place signs on the road as its selection of the best route but where a mistake has been made that may result seriously, it becomes the duty of the public to step in and protect innocent travelers. To this end the Standard would suggest that the Commissioner either have the tnisleaditig signs removed at the point of deflection or to place another sign warning travelers ands confirmed by their official signatures As transcontinental travel will begin very shortly no time should he lost, and before the community is shocked Into action by a tale ofserious privation if not actual death on the desert
-Churchill County Standard, June 19, 1918
This is Nevada. Excitement over a mine will probably never die.
BELIEVE THEIR FIND IS OLD SPANISH MINE JESS CONNELL AND OTHERS VISIT OLD MINE DISCOVERED SOME TWELVE YEARS AGO After a period of about sixty years of idleness, what is supposed to be the old lost Spanish mine is about to become one of the richest gold and silver properties in the state. Years ago, before the old LaPlatte mining boom, two Spaniards, it is said, made regular trips through "Jim Town" which is now Fallon with high-grade ore and gold dust packed on burros, which they shipped to San Francisco. These Spaniards seemed to enjoy great prosperity, and there was much gossip and conjecture as to the source of their supply. but as all of their movements and workings were carried on in secret all that was known regarding their mine was that they came from the Silver Range. These trips were made twice each year, The last that was known of the Spaniards was that on one of their trips they stated that they were going to Spain. and that they would be! gone two years. They never returned. and they and their mine passed almost into oblivion with the passage of the years. Only a very few persons; remember anything about them today, but the discovery of an old mine in the Sliver Range, whose Identity was previously unknown and which was evidently hidden as cunningly as possible, has led to a revival of stories of these old Spaniards and to the conjecture that this was their old mine. In 1909 Jess Connell and a companion were searching through the hills east of Mountain Wells for oil locations, this being the time of the first oil excitement in this community, indication of oil having been discovered in the way of shales, sandstone and asphaltum, and they accidentally came upon an old mine. The old dump was leveled off to look like the natural surface, and the shaft was filled with stumps of trees, sage brush, rocks and dirt, Connell proceeded to remove the impediments and got down as far as the water level, where he discovered a drift leading in a westerly direction and filled with similar debris as that found in the shaft. Connell was not at that time overly endowed with the necessary capital for developing his find, and having a partner who was not a prospector and who failed to see the possibilities in their find, he l was forced to abandon it. Before doing so, however, he crawled back Into the drift oh his stomach and proceeded to explore it by the light of a candle. His investigation showed him that the drift was filled by someone, as the roof was in first class shape. According to his estimation, he succeeded in getting hack about sixty feet into the drift. Here the air was very bad. and the candle threatened to go out, but he managed to secure a sample from the roof of the drift, which was porphyritic quartz of a honeycomb texture and which assayed $68 in gold. Connell suspected all along that this must be some old mine that had been purposely covered up, for a party could walk within fifty feet of the old shaft, owing to the natural formation of: the surrounding country, and never discover anything unusual. It lays in a natural basin and cannot be seen from the surrounding mountains. On the surface there is an out-cropping nearly a blind lead or vein about four feet across, which pans free gold and Is full of bromides and chlorides of silver. This is a fine porphyry-quartz vein and is very rich in gold and silver, they say. On looking over the ground, prospecting, it was discovered that this vein cropped at intervals and at intervals was almost hidden, being on the same level as the natural contour of the country thereabouts for over a mile. showing that It is a large fissure vein extending easterly and westerly through the country. As stated above, Mr. Connell was forced to abandon this find, and in doing so did not tell any one of its location. He left this community shortly afterwards and when war was declared, answered his country's call. When he was discharged recently, he returned to Fallon, and last Sunday, in company with W. F. Shaw, I. B. Marsh, Mr. Gregory and Mr. Hinkley, went out to the Mountain Wells country again in search of oil locations. Having fulfilled the object of their trip, Mr. Connell told his companions about the old mine he had discovered when on a former trip twelve years ago. and the party being interested, he proceeded to conduct them to it. Although he had not been to the old mine for twelve years. its location was still fresh In his memory, and proceeding on a direct line from the old La Platte wagon road, they came to the old workings. Samples of quartz containing free gold and bromide of silver were picked up on the dump. and they became so enthused over the prospect that they at once set out to trace the trend of the vein and make locations. Steps are already under way for the cleaning out of the old mine and putting it In working order, and it is expected that this property will again be working in the future and that it will develop into one of the richest mines in this country. Tools. grub, and a pump have been taken out to the property and work Is under way. Within one month the new company expects to be shipping out high-grade ore in quantities. Mr. Connell is interested in other properties situated in the Silver Range, among them being a copper property which a New York company is about to take over. He has lately been discharged from the U. S. army. He says that all of these (years he has kept the secret of this lost mine "under his hat." waiting for the time to come when he could go ahead with its development most advantageously. It Is to be hoped that the find will prove, upon development, to measure tip to the expectations of its locators and the promise of present indications.
-Churchill County Standard, August 27, 1919
None
Some corrals, wells, and a burned out trailer or two- probably not too far from its historic roots, when you get right down to it. The road between La Plata and Mountain Well- when we traveled on it- was so smooth it was scary.