Excerpt from Underground Gold Miners Museum’s Nov. 2015 Newsletter

Reprinted with permission undergroundgold.org

HL Johnson's grand house when it was new

Alleghany’s first water system was installed by HL Johnson in 1910. It consisted of two 20,000 gallon redwood tanks that were fed by the Cumberland Spring and the Ram Spring (named for HL’s ram pumps). This water system was used by the town for over 60 years.

A schoolteacher from Ohio, Henderson Lafayette Johnson came west to try his hand at gold mining in the late 1800s. In 1893 he married Alleghany’s schoolteacher Katherine Murta (aka Kate Kibbe). After a stint at the Gaston Mine in Nevada County, he partnered with Col. Mather (of the Plumbago Mine) along with Mather’s son-in-law, Frank Hill and formed the Oriental Gold Mining Co. in 1898. HL did extensive work at the Oriental through 1903.

The bad luck of a man named Jim McCormick turned out to be the key to HL Johnson’s phenomenal mining success. Jim McCormick was one of the original residents of Alleghany and is credited with giving Alleghany its name. He worked underground in the Knickerbocker and Alleghany Tunnels in the glory days of placer mining (1850s – 1880s). Jim never forgot that the Knickerbocker crossed a quartz vein about 600 feet in. In 1892, thirty-five years after seeing that vein, Jim talked five friends into reopening the Knickerbocker tunnel with him. They located two lode (hardrock) claims on the vein, the Contract and the Contract Extension. The partners drifted north on the vein and sunk a winze, but the vein “tightened” to nothing. The townsfolk razzed the miners by calling the mine the “Tightner”. With the resources of the six partners used up, the mine sat idle.

HL Johnson with his twin daughters, early 1900s

In 1904 HL Johnson bought out one of the six partners of the Tightner and took out a lease with option-to-buy from the remaining five. He decided to go south on the vein. His very first round produced $20 in gold (approximately one ounce). The vein produced steadily that year with one pocket bringing in approximately 1,750 ounces ($35,000). By December of that year, HL had paid off the remaining five partners and was full owner of the mine. In 1905 the mine produced $90,000. HL made a deal with a party from San Francisco, executing a one-year lease with option-to-buy for $250,000. The group from San Francisco decided the mine was “too pockety” and backed out before the year was up. (Possibly the San Francisco earthquake played a role?). Later, in December of that same year (1906) the mine produced $100,000.

HL built a grand Victorian home next to the home of his wife’s adopted parents the Murtas. (Both houses still stand side-by-side today). His twin daughters were born in the house. In 1911 he sold the mine for $550,000 to JM O’Brien and AD Foote. (It is now part of the 16 to 1 Mine). HL died of complications from “miner’s lung” (silicosis) on January 5, 1918.

(Most of this information on HL Johnson is paraphrased from the writings of the late historian Bill Fuller who is sorely missed.)