Entertainment Magazine: Iron Door Mine: Flint Carter: Videos

Video: History in the Hills
Buffalo Bill Cody and Campo Bonito

Explore the back parts of the Santa Catalina Mountains, north of Tucson with Saddlebrook Channel 2. Oracle, Arizona resident, Flint Carter shares the history and location of "Buffalo Bill" Cody's mining enterprise, Cody Camp or Campo Bonito.

Steve Friesen, curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, came to Tucson, AZ to research the archives and tour the mining area owned by Cody, north of Tucson.

In the early 1900's, more than 200 people worked the mines in and around Campo Bonito, south of the town of Oracle, Arizona. Visit the historic High Jinks Ranch, which sits on a property onced owned by Buffalo Bill's gold mine and built by his grandson Johnny Baker. Video courtesy Gary Hammond, Sights'n Sounds and Saddlebrook TV.

From the Director of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave

By Steve Friesen (Scout's Dispatch, Fall 2010)

I just came back from a very interesting trip to Buffalo Bill's mines in Oracle, Arizona. Bill Carle, who runs the Pahaska Tepee gift shop, and I have been talking for years about such a trip.

I finally decided we had waited long enough and we high-tailed it for southern Arizona. It was a great time. Flint Carter, Buffalo Bill's biggest fan in Arizona and a one-man dynamo, took us on rough dirt roads up to the Campo Bonito and High Jinks mine sites.

History in the Hills Video

We saw wonderful specimens of what Flint calls Cody stone, chunks of quartz veined with gold and silver m:g, from Buffalo-Bill's mines. And we got copies of several hundred archival materials, including correspondence from Cody, relating to the mines' operation.

One thing that became very clear during our visit was the strong connection between Oracle and Johnny Baker, the founder of our museum. Not only was Baker one of the largest investors in Cody's mining ventures; he spent many winters in Oracle. Nearly every fall after the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum closed for the winter, Baker and his wife Olive headed south to Oracle.

There, in an impressive stone house perched on a ridge at the High Jinks mine, the Bakers enjoyed a view of the Santa Catalina Mountains with the San Pedro river valley at their feet (not unlike the Museum's view of the Rockies with Clear Creek canyon below). After Johnny died in 1931, Olive continued to winter at the High Jinks until around 1945.

Why did the Bakers keep returning to Oracle? And just what did Buffalo Bill find in his Arizona mines? There is a lot more information about Buffalo Bill's connections to Arizona waiting to be uncovered.

Once I plow through all of the archival material we gathered I hope to know whether Buffalo Bill lost his shirt in Arizona, as most historians have believed, or made a small fortune that was lost in ventures elsewhere, as Flint believes. Now that's my kind of mining; let the hunt begin!

Cody StoneCody Stone is from Southern Arizona, USA and designed as jewelry grade gold and silver in quartz.

The Mine with the Iron Door: A Romance (1936)

Movie Poster from the 1936 film The Mine with the Iron Door - Movie Poster - 11 x 17 Poster for the Mine with the Iron Door movie. Stars Richard Arlen, Ceclia Parker and Henry B. Walthall. Poster measures approx. 11 x 17. Rolled and shipped in a sturdy tube. This poster is from The Mine with the Iron Door (1936).

Printed Edition of The Mine with the Iron Door. (The Collected Works of Harold Bell Wright - 18 Volumes) (Library Binding) Library Binding: 338 pages. Publisher: Classic Publishers, Language: English. ISBN: 158201891X.

Digital CD Edition of Mine with the Iron Door: A Romance, The (CD-ROM Edition). The CD-ROM contains 338 pages. Publisher: Classic Books; 1923 edition (December 15, 2007).