RICHARD "DICK" HERZER, Bio, Granite Co., MT Indexed and contributed for use in USGenWeb Project by: Wendy Garner USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. © 1998 by Wendy Garner. This file may be freely copied for non- profit purposes. All other rights reserved. RICHARD "DICK" HERZER Born: Place: Died: Place: Occupation: he was a miner in the Garnet Area in the early 1930's. Married: Children: He was described as a roly-poly man, with arms and legs like tree trunks. His unvarying garb was black rubber gum boots, wool pants, suspenders, checked shirt and billed cap. Every day he would rise and ride up to the First Chance diggings in John Brown's Model A Ford pickup. His method of mining was with a high pressure hose (hydraulic mining). The dirt and water would come roaring into sluice boxes where the gold would stick and the light material would rush out the end. He had a cabin in Cave Gulch near Garnet, Montana. All his life he roamed the western states, spent twenty years in Alaska, always searching for the big gold strike. He always sold his interest and went on prospecting. One day while near his cabin in Cave Gulch he dug behind a rock and found a 4 ounce gold nugget. One day he visited his friends John Brown and Chuck Cook who had not seen a human being for four months. After what seemed a long time trying to decide where to put the stove and stove pipe hole in this new cabin Dick became impatient. All of a sudden Dick pulled out his pistol and fired a bullet into the ceiling. As he shoved the pistol back into it's holster, he said, "Put the goddam thing right there". Chuck broke the silence, "Jeez, Dick. Now I gotta patch the roof". Chuck then got up and wound the phonograph, changed the record from "Ivan" to "Clover", and muttered something about foolish arguments. John Brown went to bed while Chuck went out to patch the roof. In 1934 his "diggins" consisted of a hole sunk in and untimbered shaft down about twelve feet. Water from melting snow was cascading down the sides. Across the top of the shaft was as windlass and a rope. The rope was tied to a bucket. Chuck would lower the bucket to the bottom, then he would climb down a ladder to the bottom of the shaft, fill the bucket full of dirt, climb backup the ladder, windlass the loaded bucket to the surface, and dump the load into a wheelbarrow. He repeated this process six times. After the sixth bucketful, he had a wheelbarrow loaded with dirt, he would then trundle the wheelbarrow down to the sluice boxes and dump his load. At this rate, he could wash only about two thirds of a cubic yard per day. Using this method his friend Chuck Cook processed about $1200.00 in gold in the winter of 1932-33 when gold was $20.00 per ounce. Bibliography: