My uncle needed to invest in a Tax shelter when Gold went from 32 dollars an ounce set by FDR in the 1930s to about 300 dollars per ounce over night so we started by getting mining claims when I became a working partners with my father and a friend in this business then in 1974 in the Fall and winter of that year after I returned with my wife and baby son. In 1974 I would have been 26 years old that year and newly married earlier that year and we had moved to Hawaii so I returned to the Mainland when I got this offer of becoming a working partner in this business.
My father Brought his 1946 trailer south from Seattle that was a Spartan 28 foot trailer around this time and also a Jeep Truck and an Old Dodge power wagon truck to help in this business. He parked the Spartan Aluminum Trailer (which looked similar to an Airstream Trailer today) on his 2 1/2 acres of land we were building his retirement home on starting in 1968. However, now it was fall of 1974 and my son was about 6 months old then approximately. So, during the week my wife and I and a friend from college lived at my father's retirement house (he retired there in 1980 with my mother) during the week (monday through Friday and then returned to San Diego on Weekends then.
So, my Architect Friend and I worked on re-engineering a mining mill in 29 palms then. It had a huge ball mill for processing ore down to powder. what we needed was a jaw crusher to crush mining ore rocks down from 1 to 2 foot diameter pieces down to about 1 inch pieces which then would travel down the conveyor belt to the ball mill which looked like a really huge cement mixer about 10 feet across in diameter which contained 8 to 12 inch stainless steel balls in it. These huge stainless steel balls would crush rocks down from 1 inch in diameter or less down to powder. then the powder could be run across a shaker table with water and concentrate the metals in the ore down to black sand and from the black sand you then could process further down to gold and silver and other metals from there.
However, then we needed a jaw Crusher and found one at Van Tassel's place near Giant Rock Airport that he owned then. It had been sitting outside as a decoration in his front yard and was likely made in the 1930s or 1940s but because it was the desert it hadn't rusted away and was a formidable thing. It was heavy though so we had to employ winches to get it onto a trailer to take to the Mining Mill we were refubishing in 29 Palms then.
However, when we installed the Jaw crusher it was sort of dangerous because when you turned it on it would throw 1 to 3 inch rocks into the air up to 100 feet in all directions as it crushed these rocks. So, in order to not be injured or killed seriously we had to install a long cord to turn it on so we could get back far enough from it not to die when we turned it on attached to a 50 horsepower electric motor then.
However, I had been trained as an electrician from age 10 or 12 by my father and he was also an Electrical Contractor in Los Angeles while I was growing up. So, it was in many ways a fun part of my life being a part of this mining business.
However, at a certain point my father and I wanted to be bought out of this business because we could see that "At least for us" this wasn't practical enough for us to stay in this business. So, other partners bought us out and I bought a motorcycle with this money for cash and bought my wife a Viking Sewing Machine because she was very talented making things with it and was an artist and liked to do this.
However, this was one of my interesting adventures then from 1974 to 1976 or 77 in my life then.
My life generally has been pretty adventurous always simply because the men in my family have always been pretty adventurous in our life choices. So, all our lives have been pretty interesting.
We also rented a New Holland I think Skip loader tractor that was taken to the Virginia Dale mining district for mining. We could have gone down hundred of feet into vertical mines which my father went down on a rope when we winched him down and up one time into but we realized this was too dangerous to work in a mine like this that likely was built in the 1800s or early 1900s and had been abandoned so we worked a horizontal shaft Gold mine with that loader and bought or rented a Dump truck to carry the Ming ore to the mill in 29 Palms then.
I can remember driving this dump truck filled with ore and the shifter handle broke off as I drove up this dirt road hill which was really dangerous so had to reach down and grab the 3 inches remaining to try to shift down before I rolled the dump truck down that hill and was injured or died. I was pretty upset about the main shifter on this dump truck we had breaking like this at the time especially because I had a new wife and baby to take care of.
However, somehow we all survived to tell the tale regarding all this mining craziness and we learned a lot about ourselves and the mining business in the process of doing all this. So, most of my memories of this business are good ones.
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