Digging for a Fortune: Silver Mining in the Early Twentieth Century Death Valley Region
Frank George Thisse: 1856-1950
Jessie Day Thisse: 1866-1929
Several of
my ancestors have sought their fortunes by mining for precious metals. My
second cousin three times removed, Jessie Day Thisse, and her husband Frank
George Thisse probably came closest to making a fortune, searching for veins of
silver ore in the Death Valley region of California. While they aren’t closely
related to me, I wanted to write about their experiences as they illuminate an
interesting period of American and California history.
Jessie Day
was born in Ogdenburg New York on March 25, 1866. Following her mother’s death
in 1892, she moved west to California, joining her brother, Eugene Day. Eugene
was already involved in mining by that time, living in the Tuolumne area of
California.
Frank
Thisse was born in Springfield, Illinois on March 26, 1856, and moved west in
the 1880s. He first worked as a chef for the railroads, initially in
Sacramento, and then at Humboldt House, a rest stop on the Central Pacific
Railroad about thirty miles north of Lovelock, Nevada. He reported that he was
told to give the passengers “45 or 50 cents’ worth of grub for their dollar”.
Many of those passengers were probably prospectors hoping to hit it rich, and
at some point, Thisse decided to follow them to the gold and silver fields.
He headed west to Tuolumne County,
California, where he must have become acquainted with Eugene and Jessie Day. I
have been unable to find Frank and Jessie’s marriage record, but they appear to
have been married a year or so prior to 1900. The couple invested in mining property
with Eugene Day, including the John Royal Quartz Mine near Columbia,
California. Thisse also owned a placer mining property in Experimental Gulch
near Columbia, selling it in August of 1906.
Frank and Jessie sold more property
in June 1906, including the Los Angeleno quartz mine, the Baxter claim, the
Marble and Monday Morning quartz claims, and their share of Eugene’s ranch. They
seem to have decided to abandon the search for gold and move further south
where silver ore was being uncovered near Death Valley.
Death
Valley had always been at the fringe of the mining industry’s boom and bust
fevers in California. The harsh desert conditions and lack of roads made mining
financially impractical for all but the most mineral-rich ore. But around the
turn of the twentieth century, as gold and silver prices rose, there was
renewed interest in exploring the area. Big silver finds around Skidoo and
Rhyolite led to the growth of boom towns and a flood of men searching for a
find that would make their fortune.
Frank and
Jessie settled in Skidoo, becoming valuable members of the community. By 1908,
Frank was Judge Thisse--he was not a lawyer or a regular court judge. He was serving
as a Justice of the Peace. However, in remote areas like Skidoo, justices
basically performed the duties of actual judges, as an article that discusses a
1908 murder case in Skidoo demonstrates. Frank was out prospecting, and had to
be recalled to town to preside over the murder trial, and also examine the body
since he also served as the county coroner for Inyo County.
Later that year, while traveling through the desert near Wild Rose in the Panamint Mountains, Frank apparently came across a vein of silver ore in the Nemo Canyon area of what is now Death Valley National Park.
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| Nemo Canyon floor--shows how rugged area was when Frank was prospecting there... |
The National Park Service compiled a
history of mining in Death Valley National Park, and they had a section on
Thisse and the Nemo Mine:
“Mining activity in
the Nemo Canyon area was contemporary with mineral development at Skidoo and
Harrisburg. The only claims in this area of which specific mention was found
are the Eureka Nos. 1, 2, and 3, located 10 April 1908 by Judge Frank G. Thisse
of Skidoo and situated in Nemo Canyon about 1,500 feet east of the Skidoo
pipeline. [78] Judge Thisse returned to Skidoo in April 1908 to have samples of
his ore assayed; the results were so encouraging that a small rush ensued to
the discovery site. James Arnold, general manager of the Skidoo Trading
Company, was in partnership with Thisse, and proceeded with a wagonload of
supplies to the area with intentions of setting up a camp. Because of its
proximity to the pipeline and its location within one-half mile of the wagon
road, it was assumed that the mine would be easy and cheap to work and
profitable to develop. With visions of the birth of a new bonanza camp, many
people descended on the area within a short time from Harrisburg and other
surrounding communities. The extent of development activity at other mines in
the canyon is unknown, although there were notices of more strikes in the
ensuing months. [79]
Frank Thisse's original find evidently later became known as
the Nemo Mine and was referred to in August 1908 as a profitable gold- and
silver-producing venture whose silver samples were assaying over 2,000 ozs. of
silver and 1 oz. of gold per ton. Although still owned by Thisse and associates
of Skidoo, the property was under lease to S.E. Ball and partners (later
connected with the Tucki Mine) who were extracting and shipping ore averaging
around $300 per ton. [80] Another large strike was reported in Nemo Canyon
during the winter of 1908, with assays yielding over $200 in gold and 86 ozs.
of silver per ton. The area was at this time evidently judged to have some
promising production potential, because word was soon being spread by none
other than Shorty Harris that a ten-stamp mill was to be erected. [81]”
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| Shaft at Nemo Mine 1 with Pinyon Pine logs--National Park Service photo by William Tweed |
It is unclear how long Frank and
Jessie continued to prospect and buy and sell mining claims. In the 1910
census, Frank lists his occupation as “prospector”. The mines were still
producing valuable ore in February of 1911, as a news article reports the
Thisse and Forg ore “sampled at $450 per ton” and Mason & Thisse also sold
some ore at $3.50 a pound.
At some point, Frank and Jessie sold off their Nemo Canyon mines, including the Christmas Gift mine property pictured below.
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| Ruin of cabin at Christmas Tree mine once owned by Frank Thisse |
By 1920, the couple had relocated to Lovelock, Nevada, where
Frank was working as a salesman for a local store. He had other business
interests, as he and Jessie would occasionally travel to San Francisco to
handle. By the 1930 census, he was widowed and was working as a manager for a
honey company in Lovelock. He died in 1950 at age 93, and is buried in Lovelock
with Jessie.
While the Nemo Canyon mines paid off
for Frank and Jessie, it is unlikely that they managed to amass a fortune.
After all, by 1930 Frank was in his seventies and yet still held a full time
job—hardly the choice of a wealthy man. The Thisses probably discovered, like
so many Gold Rush prospectors had discovered decades earlier, that only a rare
few prospectors ever truly struck it rich.
Sources:
https://zh.mindat.org/loc-258716.html
Nemo Mine (Eureka Nos. 1; 2 & 3 claims), Wildrose District (Wild Rose District), Panamint Mts (Panamint Range), Inyo Co., California, USA
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/deva/section3b2e.htm
Death Valley Historic Resource Study: A History of Mining. Inventory of Historical Resources the West Side, Wild Rose Mining District, Christmas Gift Mine. Photos of Christmas Gift mine shaft stope by William Tweed, 1975.
http://dvexplore.blogspot.com/2014/06/nemo-canyon-and-christmas-gift-mine.html
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70966601/los-angeles-herald/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71210702/thisse-ore-gets-high-prices-feb-5-1911/
https://www.deathvalley.com/index.php/stories/death-valley-gold/93-by-david-wright?showall=&start=6
https://archive.org/stream/Desert-Magazine-1958-04/Desert-Magazine-1958-04_djvu.txt
Evalyn Gist, "Skidoo — Ghost Camp in the Lonely Panamints, April 1958 edition of Desert Magazine
Roster:
California State, County, City and Township Officials, State Officials of the
United States,
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