‡Ref.: Schrader, F.C. & J.M. Hill (1915), Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, USGS Bull. 582: 229-230.
Weed, W.H. (1918) The Mines Handbook, Vol. XIII: 498.
Galbraith, F.W. (1947), Minerals of Arizona, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 153: 21.
Galbraith, F.W. & Brennan (1959), Minerals of Arizona: 50.
Rohrbacker, R.T. (1964) Geology of the Temporal Gulch-Mansfield Canyon area, Santa Cruz County, Arizona: Tucson, University of Arizona, M.S. thesis, 81 p.: 69-70.
Drewes, H.D. (1971) Geologic map of the Mount Wrightson quadrangle, southeast of Tucson, Santa Cruz and Pima Counties, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Geologic Investigations Map I-614, 1 sheet, scale 1:48,000.
Drewes, H.D., 1972, Structural geology of the Santa Rita Mountains, southeast of Tucson, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 748, 35 p., scale 1:12,000, 4 sheets: 14-15.
Keith, Stanton B. (1975), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 191, Index of Mining Properties in Santa Cruz County Arizona: 88 (Table 4).
Anthony, J.W., et al (1995), Mineralogy of Arizona, 3rd.ed.: 393.
U.S. Bureau of Mines - Arizona Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology production file data.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management Mining District Sheet 687.
U.S. Bureau of Mines file data-cluster #118, American Boy Mine.
Arizona Bureau of Mines file data.
MRDS database Dep. ID file #10046336, MRDS ID #241322.
A former small underground Pb-Ag-Cu-Zn-Au (Ba) mine located in SW¼NW¼ sec. 9, T.21S., R.15E., on 6 claims, 3.2 miles NE of Salero Mountain, 2/3 of a mile NW of the Black Cap Mine on the N side of Piper Gulch, a northern tributary entering Mansfield Gulch about 1,500 feet above the Sweet Mine, on private (patented) land. The property comprises 9 patented claims: (American Boy, Great American, Deep Down 1, Deep Down 2, Rhode Island, New York, Lost Horse, Albert Gross, and Fraction). It is on the north slope at an elevation of about 5,400 feet, or 20 feet above the gulch. Discovered in 1906 by George Clark. Produced 1912-1951. Owned at times, or in part, by Clark (1915); Clark and Peterson (1916-1918); Clark, Peterson & David (1912); and the Gross Mining & Investment Co.
Mineralization is mainly of crushed and altered country rock, some of it altered to the gouge or kaolin stage. The croppings, which are not prominent, consist of quartz and silicified, altered, and weathered country rock containing and stained with yellowish-brown and black iron and manganese. The lead carbonate croppings almost invariably indicate the presence of copper underneath. The stringers and sheets, which in the surface ore contain principally lead carbonates and galena, in the unoxidized zone become mainly copper sulphides carrying silver and gold. Also present are argentiferous galena, massive pyrite and other sulfides and sulfosalts in quartz, calcite, and some bladed barite gangue. The deposit is oxidized near the surface with enrichment in argentiferous cerussite. In the lode the ore occurs in seams, stringers, and shoots, some of which are several feet in width. Ore concentration was near-surface oxidation with enrichment in argentiferous cerussite. Some kaolin alteration. Tectonic elements include the Mt. Wrightson Fault Block.
The deposits are contained mainly in a 25 foot wide lode which dips 80ºN. into the hill. Clark & Peterson report having traced the lode for about 5 miles westward into the Salero and Josephine Canyon country. On the American Boy ground the lode has several spur veins or feeders ranging in width from 8 inches to 3 feet.
The wall rock is fine-grained Triassic quartz monzonite (Piper Gulch Monzonite), which weathers reddish and dark and is sheeted in directions trending N.20ºW. and N.40ºE., intruded by Jurassic quartz monzonite and aplitic bodies. An associated rock unit is the Squaw Gulch Granite.
Workings total about 7,000 feet (2133 meters) of tunnels and drifts, including a 350 foot tunnel and accompanying drifts, crosscuts, and stopes to a depth of about 150 feet (45.72 meters). Worked from about 1906 through 1918 and sporadically through 1951. Porduction was some 200 tons of ore averaging about 4.5% Pb, 8 oz. Ag/T, 4% Cu and 0.1 oz. Au/T.
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Map Reference: 31°37'27"N , 110°49'18"W
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