Historic Pearl (Hatchet) Gold Mine and Camp
20 Acre Lode Claim – Sylvanite District
Hidalgo County, New MexicoContact Gold Rush Expeditions
Use code JRM1003 for a 10% discount.
www.goldrushexpeditions.com
Ph: 385-218-2138
Email: goldrush@goldrushexpeditions.com

Gold Rush Expeditions, Inc. is proud to present the Historic Pearl (also known as the Hatchet) Gold Mining Claim for sale. This is a 20 acre lode mining claim for sale exclusively through Gold Rush Expeditions, Inc. The claim is located just outside of Lordsburg, New Mexico and has been properly staked and marked at all corners. All Gold Rush Expeditions, Inc. claims have been meticulously surveyed, mapped and researched. Field work is completed by our own experienced, well versed Mine Survey Team.

The Pearl Mine is one of the original Gold producing mines in the New Mexico region and one of only a handful noted for its “telluride” type of native gold deposits. As noted by geologists, it is one of the few mines that actually produces native or free milling gold. “Tetradymite-native gold veins, represented chiefly by the Gold Hill, Little Mildred, Wake-up-Charlie, Pearl, and some of the Handcar workings.” The mine shipped ores in the early 1900s that assayed out to 5.25 ounces of gold per ton.

The Pearl is in a remote area of New Mexico that is rarely visited due to its proximity to the Mexican border. This has kept most all miners and prospectors working further north. Our surveyors had no issues surveying the claim, however, they were warned by Border Patrol agents to be out before dark.

There are good roads suitable for 2WD vehicles, within a few hundred feet of the claim. A washout below the mine has made the road accessible by 4WD only. There are good staging and camping flats near the old miners cabin which is on the claim.

Some miners trash was found in the area, no garbage or evidence of illegal alien passage was reported. The surveyors noted more than a few outcrops of the tetradymite veins inside the mine.

These are indicative of the gold deposits and should be chipped open and examined. This mine dates back to the 1860s and is a noted producer.

George Callicoat of Lordsburg, NM is the son of Noah Callicoat who owned the mine from 1947-1982. He reported the following:

Dad got the mine from my grandpa who started working the mine after the war. He always told my dad that the Pearl was his piggy bank. He could go out for a few days work and return with enough gold to sell to cover his bills for the next few months. Dad and Grandpa went out to that mine a lot, they always came back with something good. When Grandpa died in ’67, Dad renamed it the Monte Cristo, said that was what it used to be. He thought people might be trying to follow him to the mine and said that the name change would throw people off. Around 1970 Dad had his first heart attack. He didnt make it to the mine more than one or two times after that but he always kept up the claims. In 1981 he leased the mine to some people from Arizona, they paid him something crazy like $5000 a month on a contract for a year. They only paid this for a few months and then they offered a lump sum payment for complete ownership. Dad asked me if I wanted to work it, I had no desire to get underground, it freaks me out. I told him no way was I going to work the mine and he should sell it. He did, and thats mostly the last I heard. I assume them folks still own the mine since they paid a lot of money for it. The road washed out in 1989 and its been a bear to even get up that canyon anymore.

Records show that the claims on the mine lapsed in 1999. The mine has not been addressed since that time. The workings show very little work but the soft, powdery sulfite-like material that is an indicator of the native gold is present in many places inside the main mine and inside some of the prospects.

History of the Mines
p. 98-99 – The Pearl or Monte Cristo mine (No. 14 on pL 12) is one of the prospects upon which a little work was done about the time of my visits. It is in the first arroyo east of Stone Cabin Gulch and a little over three-fourths of a mile south of the Gold Hill mine.
It can be reached readily by a road branching from the Gold Hill road 2 miles beyond the Corbett Ranch and heading up the bed of the arroyo.
The property is said to have been located in March, 1908. Eight tons of ore containing 42.16 ounces of gold and 27 ounces of silver was shipped in 1909 by the Monte Cristo Mining Co. of Uvalde, Tex.

The workings are in the Howells Ridge formation beyond the main part of the metamorphic zone, though some beds are faintly marmorized and silicated.
On the east side of the arroyo an adit 60 feet deep follows a steeply dipping quartz stringer that strikes N.85°W. through blue and brown limestone. The stringer is mostly less than an inch thick, and near and at the face of the tunnel the vein consists only of 10 inches of crushed and iron-stained rock. Halfway up the slope another tunnel, 90 feet deep and in green and brown limy shale and dirty limestone, follows a quartz stringer that is 3 inches wide at the portal but tightens to a mere joint at the face.
The vein is trenched for 100 feet from just above the portal of this tunnel nearly to the top of the ridge, but it cannot be traced farther. The trench reaches a depth of 10 feet or more, and the high-grade ore that was shipped came from there, but it is reported that the vein is almost barren at the bottom of the trench. Hill 1() reported that the Pearl vein is as much as 8 feet in width, and the wide part presumably was the portion mined out at the open cut.
On the east side of the ridge is a third tunnel 80 feet deep and having a 10-foot winze at a depth of 20 feet and a second 10-foot winze at 60 feet. The vein at that tunnel is a partly oxidized quartz-calcite stringer that strikes N.85°W. through black shale. It is 8 inches or less wide as now exposed, but the excavated portion is said to have been as much as 18 inches wide. Therein matter is in part drusy and contains fragments and slivers of the wall rock; “beautiful specimens of free gold” are said to have been found in it. A thin sill of monzonite 2 to 10 feet thick crops out on the slope above the tunnel. The stringers prospected by the different workings cannot be traced into one another and may or may not be parts of the same vein.[1]

Reference:
1. Geology and Ore Deposits of the Little Hatchet Mountains, Samuel G Lasky, 1947

Asking Price: $20,000
Contact: Gold Rush Expeditions
Use code JRM1003 for a 10% discount.
www.goldrushexpeditions.com
Ph: 385-218-2138
Email: goldrush@goldrushexpeditions.com