Hat Creek Dateline: 1877/02/15

Stage owners visit Hat Creek
by Ed Cook, Contributing Writer

Monroe Salisbury and Jack Gilmer, two of the owners of the Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Company, were on the down (southbound) coach today. They had gone north on the line a couple of weeks ago with superintendent Luke Voorhees on his inspection tour of the stage line stations, roads, and equipment. Salisbury and Gilmer had at that time remained in Deadwood to examine various mining properties with a view to investment. While there they bought three claims: numbers 11, 12 and three-fourths interest of No. 13, considered to be among the "best in the locality" by mining experts.

Salisbury had been engaged in various mining enterprises in Nevada, Utah, and Montana. Gilmore had previously been connected with mining interests in California. Luke Voorhees also had a great deal of mining experience. He had followed the Pikes Peak gold rush in 1859, going to Clear Creek and mining in Colorado until the spring of 1863. From there he went to Alder Gulch, Mont., and on into Saskatchewan, British Columbia, where he discovered the Kootenai diggings. Later he returned to Virginia City, Mont., and from there followed the mining activities into Utah and Nevada. They are now working day and night shifts in No. 12 below "Discovery."

While his partners have been investing in the Deadwood mines, Col. Matt T. Patric went to Washington, D.C. to perfect mail contracts. On the same trip he purchased a number of new stagecoaches from Abbott and Downing Concord, N.H., and a supply of new harness made by Hill. On his return trip to Cheyenne, Patrick also negotiated for two carloads of fine stage horses in St. Louis, Mo. These purchases were all made to help the stage company prepare for the anticipated huge increase in travel to the Black Hills with the coming of spring.

(Information source: "The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Routes," by Agnes Wright Spring.)

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