Dad has wanted to go back up to the old Calcite Mine in Treasureton, Idaho for several years. He has a theory about the calcite that he wanted to investigate further and he also knew where there was an outcropping of sugar quartz. Usually where there is sugar quartz, there is gold. So after several weeks of talking about it, dad and I took the Tracker and headed up into the mountains west of Treasureton, Idaho.
All the years that I was growing up in Soda Springs, Idaho, my dad’s father (my grandfather Smith) lived in a small trailer in Treasureton, Idaho and ran a calcite mining and crushing operation. Calcite rock when crushed up into fine gravel is excellent chicken feed because of the high calcium content. The bags of calcite from the Treasure Canyon Calcite Company had as their catch phrase “Builds strong bones and shells”. Grandmother, on the other hand, lived about twenty miles south in Preston, Idaho. Grandfather would come into Preston to shop and whenever there was a family function. Otherwise, he lived at the calcite operation.
For a while my dad was also associated with this business, owning about a third of the company. There was a plan to run the calcite through a kiln making quick lime which would then be sold to the phosphorus plants in the area to clean the off-gasses from their process. The plan didn’t come to fruition as family politics intervened and eventually all the partners in the business sold their shares to dad’s kid brother. Uncle Ross later moved the business about ten miles north into Cleveland, Idaho, opened a new limestone mine and abandoned the old calcite mine completely.
Treasureton and Cleveland only exist in a few people’s heads anymore. There is a Treasureton Reservoir, but that’s about all. The old LDS ward house where I attended church during the summers from ages 12 through 14 when I was working on a farm in Treasureton was sold many years ago and is now a private home. All the other small buildings in Treasureton are gone. Even more interesting to me is that most of the farms in the area are no longer working farms. The two farms below the calcite mine are now owned by a man in Preston who has all the farmland enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program and lets the government pay him to not farm. That’s a program I simply don’t understand! Cleveland has suffered the same fate, although most of the farms in that area are still working farms. The old store is gone, the hot springs are lost from view. The Cleveland Ward building burned to the ground about forty years ago and has since been bulldozed over. The farm that grandfather Smith owned in Cleveland and where my dad grew up was sold to a cousin many years ago. The farmhouse burned down when I was about four years old — one of the few memories I have of that time. The school that stood across the street from the farm and church building has been demolished and no traces are evident. I’m sure that the people who built a home in that area have little idea of what was there fifty-six years ago.
Today was the day we had picked to drive up to the old mine and over the top of the hill to where dad remembered the sugar quartz to be. Yesterday he picked up the key to the gates from the present landowner in Preston so we could get through the three gates — one at the road, the second at the end of the first farm and the beginning of the second farm, and the third at the end of the second farm and the beginning of government (Bureau of Land Management — BLM) land. We took my Tracker because it had a little more ground clearance and four-wheel drive. The road once we got on to the BLM land was overgrown and in some cases difficult to find. A couple of times we had to get out and go looking for where the road went. But, we made it past the place where dad nearly lost the truck (and almost his life) when the truck, loaded with eight tons of rock, slipped out of gear and the engine died. We drove past the place where the old worn-out trucks and equipment from the mine had been abandoned and then arrived at the mine. It’s quite overgrown but still very evident as a mine. We drove up over the top of the mine and down the dirt track leading to the Bear River. Dad recognized the outcropping of sugar quartz and we took several samples of rock. We turned back around and went to the top of the hill where I took several more pictures. Then we drove back down the mountain, out the gates, and back to Soda Springs. Our day of prospecting was complete. Dad will send some samples of the sugar quartz in for assay work. We’ll see what the report says. I had a good day and would like to go back up there again Real Soon. I’ve put some pictures from the day in the pictures! album.
