Time Machine: Gazette editor among Cedar Rapids investors in South Dakota venture

The story of Cedar Rapids' connection to a gold mine in Keystone, S.D., begins with two people: Dr. Charles F. Harrington, a clairvoyant physician from Madison, Wis., and Fred W. Faulkes, co-owner and editor of the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette.

A friendship between the two men began around 1875, when the 20-year-old Faulkes contracted pneumonia - often fatal in those times. Harrington took Faulkes into his own home and cared for him. Faulkes unabashedly would say Harrington 'saved my life.”

Faulkes also wholeheartedly believed Harrington had a special gift. He noted Harrington's father was a seventh son and Harrington also was a seventh son, 'to whom it is claimed a great gift is always given in the way of healing power or some boon to humanity.”

In addition to his healing powers, Harringon often gave business advice - including some to Faulkes about a gold mine in South Dakota.

In a tribute to Harrington after the doctor's death in 1900, Faulkes credited Harrington with locating the Tykoon gold mine in South Dakota three years earlier. 'He described everything, and it has all come true thus far.”

Faulkes also confessed to being superstitious, believing in the 'efficacy of the rabbit's foot” and being 'always pleased to see the new moon over his right shoulder.” He said he had a charm box with lucky pieces, including a rattle from a rattlesnake 'killed just before entering a tunnel on the mining property” he had bought. He considered that one an especially lucky piece.

Buying a gold mine

When Faulkes and his group of gold mine investors began developing their 50-acre property in 1899, the nearby Holy Terror Mine had already produced $900,000 worth of ore. That was good news for the Cedar Rapids investors who included bankers James L. Bever and John T. Hamilton, as well as Clarence Miller, Faulkes' brother-in-law and business partner at The Gazette.

The main shaft of the Tykoon mine had been sunk 150 feet and showed the same characteristics as the Holy Terror.

'The Tykoon Mining Company will be organized in a few days, the stock books and paper having been prepared,” The Evening Gazette reported on Feb. 21, 1900. The original stock was sold at 50 cents per share. The price went to $1 a share.

Mine expert George Bertschy Jr., of Keystone, S.D., installed a steam hoist at the Tykoon in March and predicted the shaft would soon hit the 200-foot level, when crosscutting (horizontal passages), drifting (following rock formations) and laying out orebodies (minerals deemed commercially viable) would begin.

The remarkable thing about the Tykoon was that the shaft had permanent walls. There was little need to shore up anything with lumber.

Adding land

Within a year, the Tykoon group amassed more property, adding the Clark, Gate City, Prospect and Fuller claims, totaling about 125 acres. Faulkes applied for a patent on the mine. Bertschy and E.B. Jones, another mining expert, went to Chicago to buy more machinery. The Burlington & Missouri Railway Co., which had extended its line from Hill City to Keystone, began laying track that would come within 200 feet of the Tykoon mill.

A former South Dakota legislator, James M. Baldwin, stopped to see Faulkes in Cedar Rapids in October 1901. Baldwin had made the original survey of the Tykoon and prepared papers for the patent. He thought the veins in the Tykoon were extensions of the great Homestake mine at Lead, S.D., less than 50 miles north. With $12 million to $15 million in gold taken out of the Black Hills annually, he was sure the Tykoon would be profitable.

Big boilers

In 1902, the Tykoon Mining Co. grew to more than 200 acres with the acquisition of six more properties. The company also bought the nearby Gracie 10-stamp mill to crush the rock and make the ore more accessible. The top of the mill was 247 feet below the mouth of the tunnel. The mill needed new boilers and new machinery, all of which were bought and installed as quickly as possible. Plans were made to operate a 100-stamp mill.

In March 1902, Faulkes hosted an expedition from Cedar Rapids to the Black Hills for investors to examine the mine. Photographer T. Will Runkle accompanied the party, which investigated every feature of the mine and mill. On the last Friday of the month, fires were finally lit beneath the huge boilers and the 60-foot stack was raised. On April 2, steam powered the new air compressor, and the next day, air was forced up the mountain to the two large air drills. One drill leveled the floor of the 325-foot tunnel for track, the other bored eastward.

Ten days later, Bertschy started the 10-stamp mill. After adjustments, the mill was ready to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Shutdowns were just long enough to clean gold off the amalgamating plates.

Back to C.R.

The group's return trip to Cedar Rapids included an extra passenger. A 7-month-old fawn bought by the travelers was named 'Miss Tykoon” and turned over to Bever Park. A silver collar bore the names of the donors and a brief history of her purchase.

Ludy & Taylor Jewelers displayed Runkle's 20 photos from the trip in its store in May. Most were views of the beautiful Black Hills scenery, but several were of the mine operations. The photos were included in souvenir books bound in Russian leather for each member of the expedition. The borders of the books were embellished in watercolors by Cyrus Fosmire, The Gazette's chief artist. Ludy & Taylor also had 100 horseshoe pins made in New York with gold from the mill test, each stamped with the word 'Tykoon.”

Faulkes' death

Several shafts had been sunk in the mine by the summer of 1903, and in 1904, the Tykoon mill was contracted to run ore from the adjoining Lucky Boy mine.

The mine's last chapter began with the death of Fred Faulkes on March 21, 1905, at Excelsior Springs, Mo., just a month shy of his 50th birthday. The cause of death was given as 'heart disease.” Within two years, the mine was leased and then sold.

It's hard to know if the mine proved profitable, but librarians in the area assume it wasn't, given that its name doesn't surface 100 years later.

But why did Faulkes, who was already wealthy, invest in a gold mine in the first place?

It's possible he'd caught the gold fever from Cedar Rapids businessmen who'd pursued a gold mine in the Dakota Territory in 1883. Plus, the mine apparently was a good deal, with one website reporting a federal law allowed Faulkes to buy public lands for less than $10 an acre.

Faulkes himself told a reporter from the South Dakota Lead Daily Call that if the mine panned out, he planned to use the money to build an endowed hospital in Cedar Rapids to treat poor, crippled and homeless children from anywhere in the United States. He had already secured agreements from railroad owners to provide the children with free transportation.

His untimely death ended that dream.

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