NAMING SILVER REEF
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NAMING SILVER REEF By Mark A. Pendleton When William Tecumseh Barbee, in the spring of 1876 announced to the public through the Salt Lake Tribune, that he had discovered rich silver ore in a sandstone reef that he called Tecumseh Hill, he caused a great rush to Southern Utah. Pioche, Nevada, now on the decline owing to litigation between rival mining companies, received the news with wild enthusiasm. Over the road through Diamond Valley, Utah, dashed carriages and buckboards drawn by fast horses, heavy wagons lumbered along drawn by mules; drawn by nondescript horses, ancient carts and carriages piled high with bedding and supplies, went their uncertain way wheels winding in and out; burros trudged along almost hidden by various supplies. Many men were afoot, some carrying rolls of bedding on their backs. Other treasure seekers came by way of Ash Creek Canyon. Busy days followed for the recorder of Harrisburg mining district, for the country for miles around was "staked out." Most of the claims, however, were worthless. Judge Barbee had erected some buildings on a flat east of his famous Tecumseh claim and had named the camp "Bonanza City, the metropolis to be of Southern Utah." But the name was fated to be supplanted by a name that was new and descriptive, and that appealed to the imagination. And the greater part of the camp was to be built not on Bonanza Flat, but on the ridge to the north. Hyman Jacobs of the firm of the Jacobs & Sultan was the first Pioche merchant to arrive on the scene of the new eldorado. It was his shrewd eye that saw that the boulder strewn ridge to the north was the central location for a townsite. Observing the geological formation of the country, Hyman Jacobs had a happy thought. To the south were the. Buckeye and Middle reef, to the right the White reef, to the left the East reef. All these sandstone reefs contained silver ores. Silver Reef proposed by Mr. Jacobs was chosen as the name of the West's newest mining camp, a name that added not a little romance to the world's most unique eldorado.
