There's Gold, Silver and Oil in those Crittenden County Hills or Is There?
Here's some interesting information found in the archives of the Crittenden Press and two articles from the Evansville Courier-Journal archives, on some early mineral findings in our county. But nothing much ever came of all the excitement of these findings. In the end just our zinc and fluorspar deposits stood the test of time for many years.
These two interesting items showed up in the Evansville Courier.
Feb. 19, 1867 – Gold Discovery. The precious metal found in Marion, Kentucky. We yesterday received the following letter from a friend in Marion, KY, dated February 6, 1867 , the truth of which can be relied upon:
Editor Evansville Courier: Dear Sir: There has been a gold mine discovered in Crittenden county, one and a half miles from Marion, the county seat, which has created quite an excitement. Some specimens of the ore have been tested with acids, which had no effect on them.
The gold was found on Mr. John Wilborn's farm. There are six hands at work at this time. They have put up notices forbidding any one working on the land. They have laid off lots twenty feet square, for which they ask $20,000.
While digging for gold the hands discovered a hammer, a saw, and a shovel, very rusty, giving evidence of having been there for centuries. One of the men now at work has spent three years in California, and he says that the prospects here are as good as he ever saw in that country.
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Feb. 16, 1898
What's the use of going to the Klondike? Why run the risk of freezing to death in Chilkoot pass when you can cross over into Crittenden County, Kentucky, and find gold bearing quartz?
Colonel G. W. Johnson of Silver Ridge, Crittenden County, claims to have discovered rocks on his farm that have in them flakes of the precious yellow metal. There is a big hill on Colonel Johnson's farm. Nearly every farm in Crittenden County has a hill on it. Some have nothing else but hills.
The other day Johnson climbed to the top of his big hill. He began idly to examine the rocks that he found there. In one that he picked up he saw what he took to be a minute tracing of gold threads. He descended the hill and reclimbed it a few minutes later with a sledge hammer. With this he cracked open some of the big boulders. Some bore unmistakable signs of being possessed of gold.
Johnson decided that he had found the outcroppings of a wonderful gold lead. He gathered up a sackful of the most promising pieces of the quartz and came to Evansville. He hunted up W. J. Hatfield, an old acquaintance, and spread his sackful of specimens out on a counter in Mr. Hatfield's store. There was more than a peck of them. After the specimens had been carefully examined Johnson replaced them in the sack and securely tied the mouth with about ten yards of card.
W. J. Hatfield thinks the quartz exhibited by Johnson is sufficiently gold bearing to warrant a thorough investigation. If the hill has gold in it, he said, there is no telling what Crittenden County may become, for there are enough hills in it. (thanks to Brenda Joyce Jerome for sharing these two articles from the Evansville paper)
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Crittenden Press, March 1899. Tolu has a real sensation in a mineral find. Gold bearing rock on the farm of J. W. Guess. Gold has been discovered on the farm of J. W. Guess, within one-half mile of Tolu. It was discovered by Rev. Robert Johnson who in company with Mr. Guess was passing through the farm when Johnson, who has made mineralogy a study, and who has large eyes which he keeps wide open noticed a peculiar looking substance lying on the surface which he picked up and very soon decided that it contained gold, a piece of which he sent to Cripple Creek, Col., and had it assayed and it proved to contain $5.80 gold and near $2.00 silver per ton. Specimens of this ore is on exhibition at the store of J. W. Guess which has been examined by many people who claim to have the same ore on their lands, and if so, they might do well to have Rev. Johnson call and make a thorough examination.
The reports of the finding of gold at Tolu has set about half of the people of the county to “wondering if there isn't some of the yellow metal on my land,” and there has been something of a superficial inspection going on wherever there has been mineral deposits and that is pretty much everywhere in Crittenden.
Among those who have taken a lively interest in the matter is Mr. W. D. Wallingford. He has a farm a mile east of Marion and for the past two or three years he has been prospecting for something valuable beneath the surface of his green fields.
He sent some of his “rocks” to the assayers at Cripple Creek, Col., and a few day ago, he received a certificate from Varney & MacArthur, assayers and chemists, certifying that the two specimens sent contained $2.80 and $2.20 worth of gold respectively to the ton; while the third specimen contained $1.20 worth of silver to the ton. This is not very rich, but it has encouraged our amateur miner and he hopes to get below the surface a little and find “pay dirt.”
In the meantime he is not harboring any idea of closing up his livery staple and becoming a recluse knight of the pick with a monastery a mile east of town, but at the same time there is just enough buoyancy in his day dreams to drive away the specters of hard times and lay foundations for a few castles that, let us hope, may not always be in the air.
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Jan. 1912
The Pigmy Mining co., of Louisville have struck silver on their property near Mexico in the southern part of this county.
This company bought the W. B. Myers property and have been operating it since early in the spring, and have been getting a fine quality of spar rich in lead and containing silver ore. The company work a large crew of hands and have every facility for mining on a large scale. Their mine is located on the I. C. railroad and they are putting in a branch and will load their ore on the cars direct from the mine. They have built a large washer to wash their gravel spar and will soon begin the erection of a crusher to separate the different minerals.
This is supposed to be the same vein of silver that was worked before the Civil War, when a lot of it made into money and passed.
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Drilling for Oil
May 6, 1921 – The oil drilling machine arrived in Marion and was set up last week on the farm of Dr. O. C. Cook, just south of Crayne. Drilling operations have already begun.
J. M. Caldwell, of Sturgis, who owns the drill and is an experienced oil man, thinks the prospects are very flattering. He expects to find oil in paying quantities at a depth of about 500 feet.
Several of the influential citizens of Marion are interested in the development of the oil fields in Crittenden County and have formed several companies and bought up leases.
This is the first drill to be set up and more drilling is expected to begin in the near future. If oil should be found in this county in paying quantities it would mean quite a boom for Marion.
Nov. 1922 - Oil Found Near Tolu. The oil prospects at Tolu has, it is learned from reliable sources, become an ascertained fact. Contractor Sam Hall and Driller A. G. Henson report that they have struck oil at a depth of a little less than 900 feet in the oil well being drilled near Tolu.
There is no doubt, they assert, of the product being pure crude oil, but the quantity can not as yet be ascertained. The water will have to be pumped out and casing put into the well before the quantity can be known.
If the quantity comes up to expectations this discovery will be a big thing for Tolu and Crittenden county. For several years persons who profess to understand such things have as their opinion that there was oil beneath the surface of Crittenden county, but it takes nerve and money to go after it.
For or five years ago Geologist Smith of Indianapolis, going down the Ohio river noted the similarity of the geologic formation of the earth around Tolu and that of the fields of Illinois.
So impressed was he by this fact that some time later, he stopped off there to make a closer examination. It was then that he located the spot where this well is being drilled. He told the people that there was oil there and that all they had to do to get it was to go after it.
The well is located on the old Crider farm, now owned by W. E. Dowell, and is about one-fourth mile from Tolu and a mile from the Ohio River.
In the Sheridan community Geologist J. F. Wolff, representing the R. H. Bellman Company of New Kensington, Pa., have leased 1000 acres in the Sheridan section and will soon start the prospect for oil.
Down in the Fords Ferry area of the county Squire J. L. Rankin reported that the parties holding a lease on his farm for oil and gas are arranging to start sinking a test well on his farm near Fords Ferry and that work will begin soon.
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Seems like the prospects of finding paying quantities of oil in Crittenden County have been going on now for nearly a hundred years. It starts out big but finally just dwindles off to nothing and you don't hear anything more about it it for a while – but it will probably come back in the future to get people’s hopes up once again. The last time was in 2005 when the Audubon Oil and Gas was buying up leases for mineral rights in Crittenden County.