{"id":56442,"date":"2013-10-28T23:46:14","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T05:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/red-arrow-roared-during-great-depression\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T15:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T15:54:07","slug":"red-arrow-roared-during-great-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/red-arrow-roared-during-great-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Arrow roared during Great Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Red
Red Arrow Gold Mine founder Ray Starr, second to the right, displays a few hours\u2019 take in hand-picked gold in this photo taken during 1930s.<\/span>Courtesy of True Magazine<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Mancos Valley offered up \u201cchunks\u201d of golden rewards for Raymond Starr, founder of the Red Arrow Gold Mine, during the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

The Earth was \u201charder\u2019n the hinges of hell,\u201d Starr described at the time, but million-dollar jackpots were being reaped nearby. He reportedly dug his first hole \u2014 about 4 feet deep \u2014 in the La Plata Mountains outside of Mancos in June 1933.<\/p>\n

That November, The Denver Post reported \u201cassays taken of the ore showed values running to $2,000 per ton.\u201d Even more surprising, reports said geologists were amazed to discover the ore was nestled in layers of sandstone \u201ciron-riddled with native gold.\u201d Gold from the Red Arrow Mine was reportedly so pure it was shipped directly to the Denver Mint.<\/p>\n

From 1933 to 1937, the Red Arrow mining operations netted $150,000. Needless to say, everybody in Southwestern Colorado eventually came to hear about the mine. In a 1965 True Magazine article, one Mancos resident described the pocket of boon in one word: \u201cfabulous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMister, it was rich,\u201d the magazine reported. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how rich, but I seen \u2018em carry rock outta there that looked like half gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born to Pennsylvania carpenter Charley Starr, Ray and the family migrated west in hopes of better days before eventually settling in Mancos. There they heard stories of fortunes coming out of the mountains in Telluride and Silverton. The fever quickly set in, and soon the Starr men, including brothers Howard and James, set out to strike it rich. Neither was a geologist.<\/p>\n

Up a stream branching off Mancos Creek, the miners from Pennsylvania were able to find traces of gold flashes in their pans, but it was \u201cslim pickens,\u201d Ray Starr said in 1965. Then he followed the stream up another 300 feet. That\u2019s where he reportedly uncovered a perfect arrowhead, chipped from a red stone, buried beneath some grass roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I scratched a little deeper, I found a rock with a chunk of gold sticking to it,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe rock hadn\u2019t come down from the hillside. It was in place. Then I knew I\u2019d struck the lode. I called it the Red Arrow Mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Starr clan traced the vein for two weeks, staking out 16 claims to the mine. They reportedly unearthed \u201cchunks of gold\u201d from the mine \u201clike plums from pudding,\u201d raking in more than $6,000 on a single day. One nugget was reportedly 5 inches by 5 inches and shaped like the United States. It weighed close to 50 ounces. The largest nugget they found reportedly weighed more than 5 pounds.<\/p>\n

Soon after, the spoils started to spoil. Crackpots, shysters and good-looking women reportedly sought out the Starr boys, begging, threatening and even demanding marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey drove me nuts,\u201d Ray reportedly said. \u201cI never carried a gun before in my life, but I started packing one then.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family was eventually forced to move out of Mancos for fear of reprisals when demands were refused. Many of the townspeople also reportedly suffered, taken in and sapped of their savings, as they gambled the luck from the mine would spread, True Magazine reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed Arrow brought a lot of misery to a lot of people,\u201d a Mancos merchant told the magazine.<\/p>\n

For the Starr family, legal bills quickly racked up as they filed lawsuit after lawsuit against multiple claim jumpers. They also didn\u2019t have an economic adviser, and reportedly refused a $1 million offer from the United States Smelting and Refining Company to purchase the mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe dug day and night \u2013 like it would last forever,\u201d Ray Starr said. \u201cAnd spent it as fast as we dug it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unable to get blasting powder or other supplies during the world war, the mine was forced to close and quickly fell in disrepair. It was sold sometime afterwards to a man named Lukenheimer, a brass valve manufacturer from Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

As for the red arrowhead, it too vanished. Starr said he showed it to everyone who wanted to see it, then someone slipped it into their pocket when he wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n

The Red Arrow mine, the most recent discovery of commercial importance in the La Plata district, is on the west side of Gold Run, 800 feet northwest of its junction with the East Mancos River and at an altitude of about 9,350 feet on the western flank of Parrott Peak.<\/p>\n

The La Plata Mountains have produced more than 200,000 ounces of gold and silver since 1873.<\/p>\n

tbaker@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original prospector stakes 16 claims near Mancos Creek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,398,198,239,2346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-56442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gold-and-precious-material","tag-history","tag-mining","tag-people-profiles"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56442"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62600,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56442\/revisions\/62600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56442"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=56442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}