Luthena Caston doesn't look
like a hard rock miner. With her soft-white hair, bright blue eyes and
polite conversation, Lu takes it easy in an overstuffed rocking chair at
her Nevada City home. Who'd think this elegant lady has spent more than
half her life as an underground miner? One would expect the independent
owner-operator of the San Francisco Mine near Washington to be a
whiskey-soaked, unshaven, rough-talking Cornish powder man, who likely
lives on the claim and brews seven percent beer for himself and his
dogs.
But Lu's life has been that of a lady....albeit a
high class lady in a hardhat. Since before World War II, Lue's fame
around the Sierra mines has been well-known. "I've worked the mines
with the best of them," Lu boasts. And so she has. It was her
enthusiasm for the underground treasure of Alleghany's Seven Acres mine
that got her dubbed Alleghany Lu.
A Montana native and a once-upon-a-time
talent/beauty starlet, Lu (at right) has little but rusty machinery,
rotting timbers, and title to 2 acres of God's beautiful mountains to
show for her glittering past. Somehow, the gold never came. In 1968 she
dumped everything she had into buying the San Francisco claim. With
rough-cut Ray Bush as her work partner, the two of them hacked, blasted
and shoveled their way a hundred yards into the pristine mariposite ore
over the next eight years. All they got was plenty of pyrite. The money
gave out often enough, but never Lu's determination. Finally, however,
her health brought the quest to a standstill. Now, 72 years old,
Alleghany Lu rarely gets to her claim more than once a month. Bush lives
on the property overlooking the Sierra hamlet of Washington. It's been
three years since he entered the San Francisco's tunnel. "This is a
mighty tough game," says Lu. "When you've got a strike,
everybody's your friend. Nobody will throw money in a hole." Lu has.
Upwards of half a million dollars have gone into her unfulfilled life's
dream. Hundreds of tons of hardrock debris litters the landscape. The
tunnel entrance is partially caved in. An abandoned mill, never used,
with rusty skeletons, stands as a silent sentry to Lu's unfound riches.
The mine is for sale. There's a seven-foot wide
quartz vein following the same fault as the 16-to-1 mine in Alleghany, a
couple of miles away over the hill. Some $35 million in gold came out of
that one, says Lu. "If anybody's got a million bucks they can have
mine," she states.
Lu's life in the mines came in a roundabout way.
She was born in Montana on an "old Army cot on the banks of the
Yellowstone River." Lu's parents were homesteaders at the turn of
the century. "I got out of there as soon as I could get a pair of
shoes," she says. "It was the Depression and I got a job as a
waitress in Reno." While in Reno, Lu won a talent/beauty contest,
sponsored by the Reno Gazette. She was selected to be a movie discovery
(Ann Sheridan was discovered the same way, says Lu), but when officials
found out she was married, Lu was disqualified.
Lu soon found herself as a waitress in the
National Hotel in Nevada City. "I met a lot of down and out miners
then, and there was this old fellow who told me about the Alleghany
district." Those were happy days. Full of dance and fun, says Lu.
"We used to come down to Grass Valley for Saturday night dances. I met
this Polish man (later to become her husband), who was a good dancer.
He'd say, 'Come on Lu, show 'em your pretty legs.' And he'd swoop me up
on his shoulder and I'd get a little embarrassed, you know." Then
came the war, and the mines started closing. Lu's last big stake was the
San Francisco. She's still convinced of the hidden wealth. "I believe
in that vein. If it were mined to a depth of 1,000 feet from the town of
Washington to the 16-to-1, it would pay off the national debt." But
Lu's grubstake has petered out. She knows it. Bush knows it. Her quest
has attracted publicity throughout the state. Ten years ago a Los
Angeles Times Journalist wrote..."Alleghany Lu won't give up. Gold's in
her blood, but she can't find the vein."
"It's really too bad," says Bush,
"because Lu's got a heart of gold."
II
Looking at Bob Crabb's map of the town of
Washington indicates the proximity of Alleghany Lu's San Francisco Gold
mine near the Washington Hotel. Los Angeles Times journalist Charles
Hillinger wrote about her in his story:
Widow Works Gold Mine - Hopes to
Strike it Rich
"Ever eat a lilac, Lu?" shouted Ray Bush
over the deafening clatter of the jackhammer. Alleghany Lu brushed the
smudge from her face, yelled to Bush that she couldn't recollect she
ever had. "You ain't missed nuttin'," Bush shouted. "Lilacs
taste terrible."
Alleghany Lu, 62 year old lifelong gold miner, and Bush, 48, her hired
hand, were engaged in small talk as they worked in Lu's diggin's at the
San Francisco Mine on the south face of a hill overlooking the tiny
hamlet of Washington in Nevada County. Miners have called Luthena Caston
Alleghany Lu since the late '30s when she operated the Seven Aces
in Alleghany, a gold mine a few miles north of her present location.
Lu had a string of luck in earlier years. But no
one's making money on gold since difficulties have beset the industry
the last quarter century. How long she'll last is anybody's guess. But
the days of Alleghany Lu's mining career seem numbered. Lu Caston
admittedly sank over $200,000 of her own money and money she's promoted
from others...her partners...into the San Francisco. She's carved a wide
swath of mountain, moving thousands of tons of dirt looking for that
elusive rich vein. She's built a mill, spent money on bulldozers and
expensive equipment. "I know there's at least a million in cold cash
somewhere in here. I can't stop now. I got 10 years and my life savings
at stake," she said. Lu sees all the indications of a high grade
vein. "Solid gold right behind the mariposite," she said. "See
that white rock up there? I'm getting close...getting so close I can
smell it. This is one of the richest spots in the state. Several
giologists have looked at this thing. They agree. Formations here are
identical to those at the Sixteen-to-One just over the hill. You know
the Sixteen-to-One...$35 million in gold taken from it...Come on up
here. Let me show you something," Lu said as she grabbed a small
pick and pan.
Bush laid aside the jackhammer as he finished the last of a series of
holes he and Lu drilled for blasting, and reached into a portable cooler
for a beer. Lu hoisted herself up the steep mountainside, and chipped
away at a rock to demonstrate a show of color. "This is pocket
country. A big outfit could hack it. I had hopes I could. I'm not giving
up yet..." she said. Watching, Bush gulped his beer and commented,
"She hasn't paid me in weeks. Not a dime. But I'm hangin' on for a
little while. I've lost most of my friends." Lu added..."They
think I'm crazy"......
Another article in the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian (Sunday,
February 29, 1976) wrote: Nevada City, Calif. (AP)..."It's right
here, just a few feet away," said 67 year old Alleghany Lu,
uncorking a great whack at the mine rockwall with her rusty pick, still
hunting the elusive El Dorado after 40 years. The woman's eyes lit up in
the shower of sparks that briefly brightened the gloomy tunnel. She sat
down in the dust to study a chunk of yellow rock, shrugged, and tossed
it away...just another yellow rock. Alleghany Lu's been working around
the mines on the northern edge of the Mother Lode since she first came
to California from Montana in the 1930s, hunting more of the $600
million in gold dug out by the '49ers. "I'm going to hold on until
they come up and hang me." Lu vowed recently. The years have
whitened her hair but failed to cool the gold fever that hit her so long
ago, and her faith is as strong as ever. "The pitiful thing is just
when I'm close to hittin' a big pocket of gold, I don't have the money
to go on," she sighed. Bob Clinch, who sells mining supplies and has
known her for 30 years, said, "Lu's quite a lady. She used to be
quite a looker in her day. She would come back from San Francisco
wearing white gloves and all the trimmings of a San Francisco lady.
She's got a kind of Diamond Lil complex, you know."
History author Bob Wyckoff recalled, "she drove a luxury car and was
well-spoken. Sorta auburn hair. I think she had gold mining interests in
Sierra County." (Pete Scribner asked me on Facebook "to not
forget 'Alleghany Lou' . I did quite a bit of survey work for her 'way
back when.") I was glad he reminded me, because I remember seeing
her photo and reading about her...probably in the 1970s. She was even
attractive wearing work boots.
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