Grant H. Smith The History of the Comstock Lode 1850-1920, Geology and Mining Series No. 37, University of Nevada Bulletin: Reno, Nevada, vol. XXXVII. 1 July 1943, no. 3, (revised 1966), Ninth printing, 1980. 305 pp., 1869, 1860s
[p. 122] Chapter XIV 1869 A Discouraging Year-The Yellow Jacket Fire-Sharon Builds the V. and T. Railroad
[p. 122] "The year 1869 . . . many of the lesser mines had closed down, and the leaders, with the exception of the few that had ore, were operating with reduced forces. Only the Savage, Chollar-Potosi, Yellow Jacket, Crown Point, and the Kentuck were paying dividends, and the limits of their ore bodies were known. The Sierra Nevada also was paying a trifling sum from very low grade ore. It was a memorable year for Sutro, for he was enabled after four years of disappointments to start work on his tunnel. The great hope of the year was the construction of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad from Gold Hill to the Carson River mills and to Carson City, which would reduce the cost of hauling ore and lumber and firewood by wagons and encourage the extraction of low-grade ores.
[p. 122] ". . . April . . . the Yellow Jacket fire, in which thirty-seven men were trapped underground and lost their lives. [Another fire in the Yellow Jacket on September 30, 1873, on the 1,200-foot level, took the lives of six men.] Three adjoining mines (the Crown Point, the Kentuck, and the Yellow Jacket) were working on the same east ore bodies from the 600- to the 900-foot level and their extensive stopes were a maze of large resinous pine timbers. The fire, of unknown origin, started on the 800-foot level of the Yellow Jacket and had been burning for several hours without knowledge owing to heavy doors in the drifts . . . when the men on the morning shift were lowered down the shafts a mass of charred timbers in the stopes broke under the weight of the roof, sending a blast of deadly gas and smoke through the workings of the three mines. A few were hoisted back, many were suffocated, and others burned . . . three days . . . heroic efforts were made to reach the remaining men. When it became clear that all below were dead and that not even their bodies could be recovered at that time, the shafts were sealed . . .
[p. 123] "The last descent into the Crown Point prior to the second sealing of the shaft was made on April 12 (the fire occurred on the 7th) by Superintendent Jones and a young man who tried to connect a pipe with the blower tube. Foul air drove them out after fifteen minutes without making the connection. After the shafts were sealed large volumes of steam were forced into the workings to check the fire. Those mines, which had been among the most productive on the Lode, were practically ruined. The caved stopes smouldered for months and yielded but little good ore afterward. Instead of paying dividends all three mines began to levy assessments.
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