Aurora Claim
Custer County, South Dakota
Gold
LODE, 20.66 acres
$9,000
History
The Aurora vein was discovered on May 11, 1899 by brothers Lee and Charlie Carr while out searching for lost cattle on Lightning Creek southwest of Custer, South Dakota. Lee Carr first saw a large iron-stained quartz boulder at the base of a cliff, which was found to contain many specks of visible gold, including a few masses as large as corn kernels. The following day, they found a spectacular outcrop of visible gold in quartz uphill of the boulder. Three ounces of gold specimens were taken out in the first ten minutes and Lee Carr took some of the quartz from the outcrop, crushed it and panned four ounces of gold! The men dug out many incredible specimens of native gold. One piece of rock shown by the Carr family the size of a dinner plate was filled with gold crystals as large as lima beans and was estimated to contain five ounces of gold. Another the size of a man’s hand had a vein of nearly solid gold 1 cm thick running completely through the rock, protruding from both sides.
From May 12 to May 24, the Carr’s exposed the Aurora vein for a length of 35 feet to a depth of a few feet, producing several hundred ounces of gold by crushing the collected ore in a small mortar. During this early work, many specimens of free gold were given away to friends and members of the press that came to visit the discovery. The family camped out on the vein at night to guard their discovery from nighthawkers.
Lee and Charlie’s father, C.F. Carr, had previously placered along Lightning Creek in the 1880’s and found excellent placer gravels at the mouth of the small gulch containing the Aurora vein. This was renamed Nugget Gulch after he found a $43 nugget of gold (2.1 ounces), which was one of the largest gold nuggets found in the Black Hills. This nugget was very rough and indicated a rich vein only a short distance upstream, which is undoubtedly the Aurora vein.
The Aurora was bonded to the Wabash Mining and Milling Company for $150,000 for a period of 60 days beginning May 26, 1899, just 15 days after the vein was discovered. This is equivalent to $5.2 million USD today! The vein was stripped on the surface over a length of 200 feet to a depth of six feet and all of the material was sacked and shipped. In the first week, $7,000 or 350 ounces of gold, was recovered from a section of the vein just 60 feet long, including specimens as large as hickory nuts. Over the course of the summer, a little over 5,000 ounces of gold was recovered and many shipments commonly contained between 65 and 90 oz/ton. Some individual sacks of ore from this work contained over 3,000 oz/ton! The largest individual mass of gold recovered weighed two ounces.
From the surface to a depth of six feet the vein was found to widen from just a few inches to more than several feet. A shaft was sunk to a depth of 20 feet near the original discovery outcrop and the vein was found to widen to four feet. A crosscut tunnel was started beneath the hill from creek level to cut the vein at a depth of 100 feet.
Although the first several payments were made by the Wabash Mining Company, the recovered gold failed to pay the working expenses and the enormous $150,000 bond owed to the Carr family and the sale dissolved.
In early 1900, a new company composed of Custer men extended the discovery shaft to the tunnel level and drifted on the vein for 75 feet. Sections of the vein contained up to 5 oz/ton gold. A second shaft was sunk four hundred feet west across Nugget Gulch to a depth of 50 feet to prove the continuity of the vein.
Geology and Potential
No activity has occurred at the Aurora Claim since 1938. The mine workings were accessible and sampled by State Mine Inspector A.I. Johnson in the 1940’s and the vein on the 100-ft level was found to contain very high values of 2.1, 2.4, 3.2 and 3.4 oz/ton. A sample from a narrow stringer vein splitting off the Aurora produced an incredible assay of 224 oz/ton and must have contained significant visible gold.
The site of the original Aurora discovery outcrop has been remediated and the vein is no longer exposed at the shaft or in the old area that was stripped by the Carr’s and Wabash Company. However a few test pans of dirt from around the original shaft yield common gold.
Several samples of quartz with visible gold were also found by Outwest geologists, including one excellent museum-quality sample estimated to contain approximately 7% native gold based on specific gravity tests. The possibility for gold nuggets around the original vein is high, as it was famous for specimen gold masses as large as hickory nuts and parts of the vein yielded ounces of free gold in hand specimens.
The two shafts and tunnel on the vein are open (but gated) and could be permitted for renewed exploration underground. During examination of the property, numerous other quartz veins were discovered that remain unprospected. The original Aurora vein was just 4 inches wide at the surface but spectacularly rich. How many other such veins remain hidden beneath the pine needles nearby?
