January 2018 8 CHECK OUR FACEBOOK ABOUT RANCH SORTING AND LESSONS! ALL GIRLS TIMED EVENT CHALLENGE JANUARY 14TH & 28TH Breakaway roping, goat tying, Barrel racing OPEN BULL AND STEER RIDING every Saturday and Sunday Vulture Closes, Smith Returns Within three years, Smith was back in Wickenburg. He planned to erect a furnace near the mill to smelt the Vulture gold. On one trip to Prescott for needed supplies in 1873, Smith spent $6,000 in gold with the town’s merchants. By 1872, Wickenburg’s Vulture was running into difficulties and was closed down for several years. In 1875, a report from the U.S. Commissioner of Mining Statistics said that work required by Congress to keep the claim on the property had not been done and the property was put up for relocation. Dr. W.W. Jones and some associates moved in and relocated the claim. They said they planned to take out masses of low-grade ore near the mine. Smith Keeps Mill Running Smith’s mill, however, seemed unaffected. Ore was still pouring in from Smith’s own claims on the Vulture lode and from other claims in the area. The mill, described as the only one operating in Yavapai County in 1875, was returning a profit even with the Vulture closed. In 1878, Smith’s mill was still grinding ore from the Vulture lode and had been since the mine closed in 1872. Vulture Sells to California Buyers A San Francisco interest was interested in acquiring the Vulture. On March 8, 1878, Wickenburg rancher Fritz Brill reported to parties in Prescott that the Vulture had indeed been sold and that Dr. W.W. Jones and Bill Smith had gone to Phoenix to close the deal and get their money. P.W. Smith, Dr. Jones, and Abraham Peeples deeded the Vulture to John Howard, Alameda County, California. Howard paid $202,000 for the mine, machinery and ore on hand, as well as the two Smith claims. Peeples, who had only a small interest in the Vulture, was given $2500 for his share. Jones and P.W. Smith received $100,000 each from the sale. Into Business in Tucson Bill Smith went to Tucson after selling his share of the Vulture. There he went into the general merchandise business at the corner of Allen and 4th Streets. By 1889, P.W. Smith had retired and was living in Dos Cabezas. Mine surveyor John Rockefeller, who was surveying Dos Cabezas mines that year, became acquainted with Smith and the two spent long evenings talking at Tom Chatterman’s store there. Smith met and married Maria Jesus Bustamente in Dos Cabezas in 1884. Rockefeller disputed the popular belief that Smith was an Englishman. He said Smith told him that he was born in Kentucky about 1828. Smith told the surveyor that as a child, it became apparent to relatives that he would when of age, inherit quite a fortune. He said Smith was sent to Switzerland and put into school. He grew up in Switzerland. When he reached manhood, he returned to the United States and Kentucky in 1849, where he was naturalized as an American citizen, since no record of his birth had been made in Kentucky. Smith said when he returned to the United States to lay claim to his fortune, he found that designing relatives had sent him to Switzerland as a child to get him out of the way and they had spent all of the money he was to have inherited. Smith had a distinctive accent all of his life and that prompted people to assume he was from England. Whatever his origins, his intelligence, and education resulted in him being a kingpin in the development of the Vulture gold mine and its successes during the first nine years of its existence as one of the premier gold mines in Arizona. continued from page 6 Left: Vulture Gold Mine Right: Headframe with exposed quartz vein