The Magnificent Portland
Mine
A Story of Great Wealth,
Great Men and Broken Dreams
by Mike Hurtt
Every mining camp has its stories of defying the odds, rags to riches, friends to enemies, and scratching a fortune out of the ground. Few stories embody all those elements, encompass so much history, and influence so many different lives in so many different ways. This is the story of Colorado's richest gold mine, the Portland.
Jimmy Burns and Jimmy Doyle were both firemen on Hook and Ladder Company #1 in Colorado Springs. Both had worked in various capacities for the city. Both were tough, rowdy, street smart, hard-driving, fun-loving, Irishmen who had come west from Portland, Maine. They were, in short, made from the same mold. Naturally, they were also the best of friends.
As 1891 drew to a close, Burns and Doyle became concerned about the future. Colorado Springs had enjoyed much prosperity over the past few years, but business was showing signs of a slowdown. Against this backdrop, these ambitious young men had heard stories and rumors of the gold to be found on the far side of Pike's Peak. Those stories and rumors tugged at their ambition and thirst for excitement. So it came to pass that in the fall of 1891, Jimmy Burns and Jimmy Doyle ventured to Cripple Creek and climbed Battle Mountain to seek their fortune.
Everyone knew that Battle Mountain was the place to be. Winfield Scott Stratton was there developing his Independence Mine. Sam Strong was there working his Strong Mine. Many other rich claims, such as the Black Diamond, Anna Lee and Captain were going full tilt. The Jimmies knew they had to be on Battle Mountain too. The only question was where. It seemed the whole mountain had already been claimed. Were they too late after all?
This is the view
Burns and Doyle looked down upon during their early days on Battle Mountain.
In the foreground is the Ajax Mine. The budding town of
Victor lies below.
Somewhere, there just had to be a piece left. The newcomers poured over crude claim maps, measured distances between claim stakes, and picked at every square inch of Battle Mountain. And then they found it. In the midst of the crazy patchwork quilt of mining claims was a tiny, unmarked triangle nestled between three other claims. It was only 1/10th of an acre, but after a quick trip to the courthouse, it was theirs. In honor of their old hometown, the boys named their claim the Portland. They were thrilled.
By October, the Jimmies were no longer thrilled. They were broke, tired, cold and disgusted. All they had to show for their efforts was a 30-foot hole and an ugly pile of rocks. Others were finding gold all around them. Where was theirs? Granted, the kind of gold ore found in Cripple Creek was not easy to spot. These young tenderfeet needed some expert advice. That advice came in the person of Stratton employee John Harnan.
This is sylvanite, one type of gold ore found
in Cripple Creek.
It is difficult for the untrained eye to detect.
Burns and Doyle asked Harnan to take a look at their prospect hole. A quick glance at their dump pile told him there was telluride of gold right there in plain sight. With what must surely have been his best poker face, Harnan asked the Jimmies what they would give him if he found a vein. They agreed to cut him in for a third interest in the claim, whereupon Harnan climbed into their prospect hole, scratched around a bit and showed them a rich vein of sylvanite about halfway down.
Hard as it might be to find a gold mine, the real trick was holding onto it. Colorado apex law said that the true owner of an ore vein was the person on whose claim it surfaced. In theory, if a vein surfaced on a prospector's claim, he had rights to the entire vein, no matter whose property lines it might cross. In practice, once a vein was uncovered, everyone with a claim even remotely close to the vein would hire a lawyer and sue for apex rights.
Burns, Doyle and their new partner Harnan, were in real trouble. As soon as the Portland's neighbors found out about their discovery, every lawyer in Colorado would file an apex suit to take it away. They decided their only hope was to get all the gold they could out of the Portland and stockpile the money to fight the inevitable lawsuits. Working at night, under cover of darkness, they removed sack after sack of gold ore and carried it down the mountain. Before long, they had $70,000 in the bank, but they knew it would not be enough to defend the Portland. It was only a matter of time before their secret was discovered. They needed a miracle.
Winfield Scott Stratton had discovered a fortune in his Independence Mine, just down the hill, and was on his way to becoming Cripple Creek's first millionaire. He had a reputation for being fair and shrewd. He had the money it would take to wage war in the courts. He also had a good chance of apexing the Portland if he had a mind to. Burns, Doyle and Harnan decided that Stratton would be a powerful ally.
Stratton had liked the young Jimmies from the start. When they offered him one third of the Portland in exchange for legal assistance, he saw the wisdom in what they proposed. Stratton had been prospecting for 17-odd years. He knew the corporations would come along and push out the prospectors unless someone stopped them. Now that he had struck it rich, nobody messed with Stratton. Then again, the corporations might just try to push him out too, if he did not stop them now. He agreed to help.
The apex suits came soon enough. Not just ordinary apex suits, but also injunctions, restraining orders, contempt charges, writs, ad infinitum. Before it was all over, 47 separate lawsuits were filed against the Portland. Everybody wanted a piece of the action. Stratton's attorneys, Gunnell and Hamlin, handled most of this work, but as time went on, the Portland came under increasing pressures from men like Eben Smith of the Battle Mountain Consolidated Gold Mining Company. Smith was no small force in Colorado business and politics. Now an even bigger legal gun would be needed to combat him.
The brains behind the Portland legal
machine, Verner Zevola Reed.
Enter another character into the growing Portland saga, an extraordinary figure named Verner Z. Reed. Reed was the closest thing Cripple Creek knew to a Renaissance Man. He was an attorney, real estate broker, stock broker, promoter, mine owner and even a novelist. Reed had a sharp mind and a knack for untwisting complicated legal knots with brilliant skill and strategy. He went to work on the Portland problem with vigor.
First, the Eben Smith problem had to be solved. Reed arranged for the Portland to buy out Battle Mountain Consolidated and all its properties for $265,000. One down, 46 to go. Then Reed took the tiny Portland on the attack. The basic strategy was, "You're going to apex us? Not a chance. We've got Stratton behind us. We're going to apex you. Your legal bills will be enormous. See you in court." One by one, the apex suits were settled and more properties were acquired by the Portland.
There was one combatant who was not such an easy pushover, however. Frank Peck ran the very desirable Black Diamond claim adjacent to the Portland. He and partner J.R. McKinnie were not about to be bullied off Battle Mountain. They held out while the Portland legal machine swallowed their competitors. While Reed worked the courts, Stratton applied pressure by buying up 1/4 of Black Diamond's stock. Still, Peck held firm. When the time was right, Peck went to Reed with a proposal. He and McKinnie would sell out for $373,000 cash and a whopping 752,000 shares of Portland stock. Jimmie Burns praised the transaction at the time. If he had only known the heartache it would cause him later.
This map shows the patchwork of claims that
comprised the Portland property.
The small black triangle (left, middle) is the original Portland claim
staked by Burns and Doyle.
It took until January of 1896 for the bulk of the legal battles to wind down. The tiny Portland had grown from one claim on 1/10th of an acre to more than 30 claims on 135 acres. Instead of being the smallest, weakest mine in Cripple Creek, it was now the biggest and strongest. But that was only the beginning of the Portland story.....
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