The United Eastern Mine set off Oatman's 1915 gold rush with an ore body that never reached the surface. In March 1913 a prospector, J. L. McIver, took an option on ground at the north end of Oatman where no vein showed at all; he had noticed that the rock on either side of the suspected line of a vein was slightly different, and guessed at a hidden fault. With his partner George W. Long he incorporated the United Eastern Mining Company that November and began a shaft in March 1914, but the money ran out at 40 feet. A local backer, W. K. Ridenour, bought stock at 25 cents a share, the Los Angeles engineers Seeley W. Mudd and Philip Wiseman came in with Frank A. Keith, and in March 1915 a crosscut 465 feet down went through 25 feet of ore assaying $22.93 a ton.
News of a rich mine with no outcrop set off a boom in early 1915, and scores of shafts were sunk across the district on the theory that ore lay 300 to 500 feet down; most stood abandoned by 1921. The United Eastern had $6 million in gold blocked out by the end of 1916, ran a mill of 200 and then 300 tons a day, and paid $3,952,700 in dividends by the end of 1921. In 1917 it bought the adjoining Big Jim, and won the apex lawsuit the Tom Reed company filed over that ore, decided at Kingman on 28 March 1921.
The company, the town's main employer, shut down for good in 1924 after producing about $13.6 million in gold.
Getting there
35.0295, -114.3847
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
