Hungry for discovery, they went straight to the Brigham Young University library. Cho proved to be a highly educated and eager assistant right from the start.
Prospecting for information was nothing new to Sonny. He'd researched hundreds of old mines and depleted areas in his day. It was valuable to know who found what and how they found it, as well as how long it lasted and what extraction methods were last used. A vein that “ran dry” in 1914 could be reworked with leaching or strip-mine techniques made possible by modern technology. If you found one of these veins, bought up the worthless property and then sold it to a mining company, you stood to make a tidy profit. Time and time again Sonny had scooped the young prospectors. Their fancy equipment often overlooked the obvious — it's much easier to find an old mine than to discover a new vein.
In researching his mountain, he started with the computer indexes, everything from books to periodicals. He didn't find diddly. There was probably more written about the boys-gymnasium shitter than that area of Utah. It was almost as if the peak didn't exist to the general public. It didn't even have a name. Tourists didn't visit. There was no water; nothing but rocks, sand, and devilish terrain. Only experienced campers ventured into the hills.
When the infernal machines known as computers proved useless, Sonny led Cho to the library's real mother lode of information — bound volumes of long-dead ghost-town newspapers. Many towns popped up during the booming days of Nevada's Comstock Lode in the 1860s. Those towns depended on the surrounding mines. When the mines dried up, so did the towns.
In any American small town, one can usually find leather-bound tomes containing old issues that often date as far back as a century or more. For ghost towns, it wasn't so easy. Many of the dead papers’ back issues were bound, but you had to track them down. The irreplaceable historical volumes could wind up just about anywhere (Sonny had once found vital issues of the Sand Spring Recorder, a paper from a dead town in central Utah, in a private library in Laramie, Wyoming).
History faded away, and no one — not even those born and raised in the area — knew anything about the majority of the mines that had once dotted the desolate landscape. Much of the information sat lonely and waiting in those ghost-town newspapers. A newspaper was a big part of mining town life in those days. If a new mine returned anything, readers wanted to know. They also wanted to know what areas were hot; “rushes” to a new site were as common as the sunrise.
Sonny's first guess for any mining news concerning the Wah Wah site was the Silver Reef Gazette. Silver Reef was a famous ghost town about eighty miles south of where he'd discovered the platinum dust. Eighty miles through the rocky desert flats constituted at least a two-day ride, and that was if a single rider really pushed a healthy horse. Any kind of wagon could count on a three- or four-day ride. The Gazette carried local stock exchange information and news regarding the hundreds of mining corporations that sprang up in Southwest Utah, Northwest Arizona, and even into Nevada.
After six hours of squinting at yellowed and faded old newsprint, Sonny finally found something useful from May 10, 1865.
Jessup stakes claim in Wah Wah area
By Stosh Wittendon
Jebadaiah Jessup, who produced very successful claims in Nevada and in the Wasatch Mountains, has staked a claim in the remote Wah Wah range.
We see claims staked everywhere these days, but this reporter was surprised to see a claim in the northern Wah Wah Mountains. There have been only two or three decent prospecting excursions to that area, and nothing has ever turned up. Many think that Jessup may be onto something. The town holds its breath waiting for him to return with the first cartloads of ore. Some motivated prospectors have already headed out to that area, hoping they can get a jump on the competition should Jessup's hunch prove right.
If Jessup discovers anything of substance, it might require construction of a new town. Jessup's claim is 87 miles north of Silver Reef, too far for transportation of ore when there are no trails or decent areas on which to build them.
The story surprised Sonny. Eighty-seven miles north of Silver Reef would have put Jessup within a mile of where Sonny discovered the spring. In fact, less than a mile. Platinum was almost unheard of in those days. It often occurred alongside gold deposits, but many miners threw away the platinum because they didn't know what it was and only wanted the gold. Before 1900 or so, most recovery processes lost up to 99 percent of the ore's value, and often lost all the platinum group metals.
The more he thought about it, however, the more it made sense. If the spring Sonny discovered was bigger back in 1865, there would have been a good-sized stream to pan. Jessup may have found that very same spring — or one similar to it — and staked a claim.
Sonny found the next entry regarding the mine on August 24, 1865. Jessup had apparently returned to Silver Reef with a bag of dust, only to find his treasure-trove wasn't as it seemed.
Wah Wah site full of “fool's silver"
Jessup claim a wash
Will continue to dig the area
by Stosh Wittendon
All the speculation surrounding the mysterious Wah Wah site staked by Jebadaiah Jessup has come to an end. Jessup arrived in town yesterday with 10 pounds of dust, which he took to local chemist Elron Wyrick for analysis. Wyrick told a disappointed Jessup that the dust was not silver, as Jessup had thought, but platinum. Wyrick commented that it's rare to find such high quantities of platinum.
Jessup declined to comment on the development, which is no surprise, considering that he wants to keep his site secret. Jessup has worked his claim for three months, and rumor has it he has killed two men defending it. Mining parties are already forming, bent on probing the Wah Wah Mountains for similar platinum deposits.
Wyrick is sending a cable east to find a buyer for the platinum. Such a large amount will bring a tidy sum, but, unlike gold, demand for platinum exists only in the metropolitan centers of the East. Wyrick advanced Jessup money to buy mining equipment, dynamite and lumber for square-set supports of a future underground mine. Jessup also hired a crew of ten men to work the site.
Sonny's mouth went dry.
"A ten-pound bag?” Cho said. “How much would that be worth today?"
"About a hundred and thirty thousand big ones."
Cho let out a long whistle. Sonny flipped through the pages. Like a soap-opera junkie left hanging at the end of a Friday episode, Sonny couldn't wait to read of Jessup's fortune. He wanted to get back to the spring and do some panning himself. Maybe pull out a few more pounds of dust, especially before Connell got his paws on the site.
Sonny's excitement chilled when he read the next entry, dated November 30, 1865. The story of the Jessup mine suddenly changed from minor coverage to front-page news with thick, black, screaming headlines.
Murder at Jessup mine
Two dead, eight missing, victims of madness
Jessup to hang tomorrow morning
by Stosh Wittendon
It seems that mining madness ran amok last week, claiming more than its usual share of victims. Jebadaiah Jessup butchered at least two of his own men. Eight more men are missing and presumed dead.
Chuck Wierenski of Chuck's Feed & Grain was on his normal supply run to the Jessup mine. Wierenski found Jessup wandering in the desert, about three miles from the mine.
"Jessup was ranting on and on about monsters,” Wierenski said. “He said these demons killed his crew. He had a pretty bad cut on his arm and was bleeding all over the place. He was clutching this strange knife in his hand."