Hat Creek Dateline: 1880/03/15
Reports of gold brings miners to Hat Creek, Running Water areas
by Ed Cook, Contributing Writer
Many wagons full of miners have been rumbling to Hat Creek this spring. They are not going to the Black Hills, they are coming from the Hills and headed for the Running Water, Rawhide, or Fort Laramie areas, just to the south of here.
There are 15 lodes staked out along the Running Water. The claims extend for 22,500 feet(about four and a half miles). Fred Schwartze has staked out several of these claims and put a crew of men to work on them. He is the well-known stage station owner and rancher of Pole Creek about 18 miles north of Cheyenne, Prospectors have been swarming over the country from the North Platte River to Running Water for the last several weeks.
The discovery of a new "Eldorado" has been bringing miners into the area from all directions, much to the delight of Cheyenne businessmen and the Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage Line. The Cheyenne Carriage works with its 10 first-class mechanics, has been busy turning out equipment for prospecting parties.
Reports of prospectors in the area, who have been staking out claims, include gold-bearing rock in the hills six miles northwest of Fort Laramie; a fine gold- bearing ledge six miles farther north; a lode of silver-bearing quartz three miles west of Muskrat Canyon; fine showings of silver and gold-bearing ledges in the Rawhide Buttes vicinity and outcroppings of a similar nature all the way from the Buttes north to the Running Water. An immense ledge of silver-bearing rock has been located four miles west of Demmon's ranch at Silver Springs.
Mill sites have been filed on and new town sites of Brackett City and Maysville have been laid out. Lumber is in great demand in these areas. Brackett City is located in Rawhide Canyon and was named in honor of General Brackett, one of the locators of the mines. Maysville was named because of its proximity of Ed May's blacksmith shop. This is about three miles above the Rawhide Station and adjoins the Victorian lode.
The chief topic of conversation in the hotel lobbies and over the bars in Cheyenne is the new mines between Fort Laramie and Running Water. In the meanwhile, surveying crews are out with their transits and levels trying to locate a short route for a railway from Cheyenne to Chugwater.
(Information source: "The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Routes" by Agnes Wright Spring).