I never heard any more details about the Alaska tale - to date I haven't found anything to substantiate this.
The tale about Arkansas contained a few more details. One was that he was the bookkeeper at the Red Cloud Mine, the other was that he was the Mayor of the town there called Rush.
I do have a picture of him at Red Cloud dated June 26, 1915.
C.T. Hill in center of photo |
from "Mountain Echo" November 19, 1915 |
from "Mountain Echo" October 27, 1916 |
Selfie at the turnoff to Rush |
There was a very nice interpretive trail that discussed the boom and bust era of zinc mining and described some of the structures.
While visiting the site, I tried to imagine great-grandpa living in one of these houses,
conducting business in the general store,
or traveling down the path that paralleled Rush Creek to get to the mine. The path itself becomes impassable during periods of heavy rain, but things were hot and dry when we were there.
Sadly, Red Cloud Mine is gone, but we did see some remains of Morning Star mine along the trail.
The people of Marion County Arkansas are very proud of their mining history. Everyone we talked to seemed to have a connection to the mine - someone in their family worked on a mine, lived in Rush, etc. From the owners of the Silver Run Cabins where we stayed (highly recommended), the Park Rangers at Buffalo Point, the librarian at the county library, the staff in the County Clerk's office at the Courthouse, and the staff at the Yellville Chamber of Commerce (largest town near Rush and county seat) - they were all friendly and willing to share their stories and photos. It was a wonderful experience mining for information about my Great-grandfather and his life and times.
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