Finding Greenwater
The mineral deposits at Greenwater became quite generally known among prospectors about three years ago. Tonopah was then a thriving mining camp and Goldfield had been found. Men began to look farther south for new mineral lodes, and some knowing of the existence of the copper ore in the Funeral mountains came down to locate ground. Greenwater had then taken its name from the spring which supplied a meagre amount of water daily to those who had ventured across the Amargosa desert. But the bold men who did dare to brave the hardships of the desert found to their chagrin that it was one thing to find a mineral deposit and quite another to secure capital for exploitation. Copper experts who were employed by the large copper mine owners declined to come to the Funeral mountains to expert the deposits said to lie there. Prospectors became discouraged and claims that had been staked were permitted to lapse again into the ownership of the government. It did not pay the prospectors' to do the annual assessment work on ground that is now selling at fabulous prices.
Conditions at Greenwater remained in this state until Arthur Kunze became interested. He, too, was a prospector, and he, too, tramped over the Nevada desert from Tonopah to Greenwater, a distance of two hundred miles. Bullfrog had just been found when he came into the Funeral range for the first time, "and he was compelled to go through the new sensational gold camp. But the lure o' gold was not in him. The wealth of a copper mine beckoned him and he stayed in Bullfrog only long enough to secure provisions for the trip to Greenwater. Kunze followed where the trail of other prospectors led. He, too, staked out a group of claims, and in time returned to Tonopah to sell his find. The same difficulties confronted him which others had been unable to surmount.
Copper experts declined to make the journey or brave the hardships. Again it seemed that the work of 'the prospector should go for naught, but where others had given up in despair Kunze simply fell back upon his resources, which consisted entirely of a few friends, who were not copper experts, but trusted him, and upon a faith and an enthusiam in the possibilities of his discovery.
In time this faith and enthusiasm became contagious. Money was forthcoming to 'hold the claims already staked and to increase these holdings. Experts began to inquire about the ore and the assays and were astonished at the richness and ,the quantity of the copper-bearing oxides' Options for the claims were taken and fortunes offered if the reports made by Kunze were true. And they were. His faith and enthusiasm had won out. Last July was formed the first large company,. The Greenwater Death Valley Mining Company, capitalized at three million dollars, and headed by Charles Schwab, whose manager, Donald B. Gillies, had selected the best claims in the Greenwater district. In a day the news of the organization of this company became known in the other mining camps, and the rush into Greenwater was on. Greenwater, the greatest copper field in the world, had become known to the world at last.
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A town without an officer of the law can also be a town without a criminal. Witness Greenwater.
