Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 202, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1911 — Long Lost Wealth is Found [ARTICLE]

Long Lost Wealth is Found

Persistent Mountaineer Rediscovers ‘ Gold Ledge After Twenty-Three Gave Up. Spokane, Wash.— A search of 2ft years for what may prove to be a rich deposit of gold has at last been brought to a successful conclusion by a persistent prospector, F. A. Schnicke. He has come out of one of the wildest parts of the wild Cascade mountains with specimens of gold bearing ore that promise a fortune when-the ledge from which he took them Is developed. He has a chart of the route that will lead him back when he has formed the party to help him. It was in the summer of 1888 that Amos White, a mountaineer and prospector, came staggering out of the Cascades in the vicinity of Mount Adams and showed ore like that which his successor is now showing. He got backing and tried to take a party in to hew a way to his ledge. Deep snows the following winter stopped him, and when he tried to go in the summer forest fires raged and prevented him from carrying out his plans. This illluck followed him for two years, and then exposure brought on illness that killed him. Just before he died White gave a crude map of the location of the gold ledge to John Snyder, a close friend. This showed the ledge to be near the shore of a small lake .somewhere on the western slope of the Cascades and under the shadow of Mount Adams. Snyder found that forest fires had wiped out some of the signs by which he was to be guided and he could not locate the lake. He pursued the quest for 13 years and then gave the oha*t to Marion Locke, a friend. Locke went out to find White’s ledge and spent a long time in the search. He was equally baffled, but fortune was kind to him, for in his wanderings he dianovered the McCoy Creek mines,

which have since made* him wealthy. It was two years ago when the final effort was begun. Five men, including Schnicke, who called themselves “The Lucky Five,” went into the wilderness. One by one all abandoned the search except Schnicke. Curiously he made the discovery at a place visited before by himself and others Interested in the search but not recognized. It was a small body of water called Badger lake. He came upon it from a new angle and something about it struck him as being in accord with the chart. He searched for an old camp that White had marked and after some heavy work discovered it. He then had little difficulty in locating the ledge and finding the specimens of ore. He has filed his mining claims on all the outcroppings he could find and expects to go back and begin work before the summer is over.