January 2018 6 Used Tractors: Kubota, John Deere, New Holland, etc. New Tractors: Kioti 25, 35, 40, 45 & 50 Horsepower, we also carry the Backhoe Attachments for them. ...from UTV’S to Car Hauler’s, Landscape and Dump Trailers, Special Orders also available on New Trailers. Box Scrapers, Straight Blades, Rock Rakes, Chain Harrows, Arena Groomers, Brush Hogs, Post Hole Diggers, Post Drivers and More. TRACTOR We Service & Repair Tractors, Trailers & UTV’s. BILL SMITH, THE MAN WHOSE MILL MADE the Vulture Prosperous Enter Bill Smith Philip William Smith became involved with Wickenburg in the Vulture in 1864, shortly after its discovery. Smith found answers to both of the Vulture problems, although it took him a couple of years. One of the best-educated men around Vulture City, the mining camp that grew up near the Vulture discovery, Smith built a mill and tried to dig wells near the Hassayampa sink, the area near today’s Wickenburg where the river flows deep underground. Smith had no success with the wells, five of them, up to 180 feet deep. He soon abandoned that idea. Instead, Smith built a wooden flume from the Hassayampa Canyon to the north where the river flowed steadily above ground. The wooden flume was nine inches square and five miles long. It carried river water to Smith’s ten- stamp mill for the use in processing the gold from the ore the mill crushed. Around this mill, Mill City or Seymour developed. Moving quartz from the Vulture by wagon, to where the river flowed above ground, had been a long distance away. Now, the haul to Smith’s mill was five miles shorter and greatly facilitated the processing of Vulture ore. Once Smith’s mill and water flume were in place production from the Vulture increased rapidly. Between 110 and 150 tons of ore were being crushed every week by the new mill set up by 1873, ten years after the Vulture discovery. Ranch Near San Diego One reason it took so long for the new mill and flume to hit top production was that Bill Smith, as he was called, had another interest. Smith had a ranch near San Diego in California. In 1869, he dissolved his partnership with Wickenburg and announced that he planned to leave the Territory and settle down on his ranch in California. Bill Smith paid off all of the debts of the partnership as part of the dissolution deal with Wickenburg. Smith had a manager at the mill named Reese, who took charge of the daily operations in 1869. With a manager in place, Smith felt secure leaving to tend his San Diego ranch. Smith had two claims on the Vulture lode, the Chief of Arizona and the Resurrection of Gold quartz claims. continued on page 8 When Henry Wickenburg discovered the famed gold lode called The Vulture in 1863, he had a problem. In fact, a couple of them. The fact was that Henry was a prospector and not a miner and he had no idea how to grind his ore and process the gold from the Vulture. The second was that the Vulture was in an area without water, several miles from the Hassayampa River and a few more miles to where the river flowed above ground. Vulture City