Robert Whitcomb

Robert Lenon

Bob Lenon came from Nebraska to Yuma, in 1914, just two years after Arizona had become the 48th state. He remembers seeing the Colorado River when it had no highway bridges and traveling on a plank road across dunes where an Interstate Highway now runs. Because Bob grew up listening to neighbors' tales of gold in the hills, it was natural for him to make mining his life-as a prospector and as a mining engineer. He became an intrinsic part of the process by which copper, gold, and other metals were extracted from Arizona rock. In more than 90 years as an Arizonan, he has witnessed many changes, and, in fact, as a surveyor, he mapped a lot of them! In this second of two volumes, Bob describes his university years and his work for big mining companies in Bisbee and then as a smalltime entrepreneur in a region where mining had fallen upon hard times. He also recalls his service in World War II, after which, for 50 years, he was a mining consultant and owner of a surveying firm in Patagonia. In addition, he recounts tales told by a few of the historic maps in his vast collection.

It Seems Like Only Yesterday: Bisbee and Patagonia

Otis E. Young, Jr.

Otis Young

Here, for the first time, is a clear account in words and pictures of the methods by which gold and silver were extracted and processed in the Old West. The author describes the early days of Spanish and Indian mining and the wild era inaugurated by the American prospector who rushed west to get rich quick, ending with the year 1893, when repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act virtually closed the mining frontier. The account gives in laymen’s language the techniques employed in prospecting, placering, lode mining, and milling, particularly those employed by the Spaniards, Indians, and Cornishmen, and shows how the ever-practical Americans adapted and improved them. Special attention is given to the methods employed in the California and Montana gold fields, Colorado and the Comstock Lode, the Black Hills, and Tombstone, Arizona. In these pages the reader also meets some of the unforgettable personalities whose lives enriched (and sometimes impoverished) the mining camps.

Robert Lenon

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