The earliest clipping in the collection. A crushing mill is unloaded at Monte Vista for the Champion mine, a mile and a half above Jasper.
The earliest clipping the museum holds. Under the heading Jasper Coming to the Front, subtitled A Promising Gold Mining Camp 20 Miles From Monte Vista, the paper reports that a Barclay Monitor crushing mill with engine and machinery had been unloaded at Monte Vista for the Champion mine, situated a mile and a half above Jasper.
The mill was put in by a company of capitalists from Red Cloud, Nebraska, with J. P. Joslyn of Central City in charge of the machinery and Kenyon Skein as general superintendent. It was expected to reduce twenty tons of ore a day, and the paper set the bar for success plainly: if it will run $10 per ton it will be a bonanza, as the ore is in immense bodies, and is mined very cheaply.
No figure for gold recovered appears. The ten dollars a ton is a threshold the ore would have to meet, not a report of what it yielded, so nothing from this clipping enters the ledger. Skein is quoted as reticent, saying the testing would proceed cautiously and economically. The piece closes on General Sickles' predictions and the hope that Jasper is to be a lively camp.