Gold Hunting in

Centropolis Area.

Centropolis Blacksmith Buys the Tools

He Also has an Instrument With Gadgets Which He Claims

Will Locate Mineral Veins.

["Ottawa Herald," August 6, 1934, page 1]

Real farm relief in the form of gold and silver ore can be found by J. T. (Jim) Hatcher, blacksmith who moved to Centropolis last October, he claims. Last week he bought picks and shovels in an Ottawa hardware store to begin work on ten enormous veins he says he has found in prospecting near Centropolis.

"Why, the farmers walk, plow and cultivate corn over metal," he told a Herald representative. "They laugh and talk now about my finding gold so I'm going to get to the middle of the veins before I say any more about it."

Hatcher claims to have an instrument made in the "old country," defined as Germany, which has four gadgets which turn down when one walks over gold or silver and then turn back when the vein is passed. "Some of the veins are 70 feet wide, some 60 feet wide," he said. "I've found 10 veins. One is 3 ½ miles long, one 1 ½ mile long. Most of it is silver although there is some gold in it. Part of it is in rocks which must be crushed before the metal can be taken out.

"I'm digging first on the shallowest veins. You have to go from 8 to 80 feet down to the middle of them. I've got to lease mineral rights to what I've found before I tell about it to the public. I guess I'll sell stock later."

In 11 places in the east, he claims to have found ore but "you can't get a right to it in eastern country. And I won't tell where it is to anyone else. I worked five or six years in Virginia before I came here. My instruments always work. No, I've studied no geology. I've learned in the school of self-experience. I know what I'm doing. I'll pay the costs anytime you can't find metal where I tell you."

Much of his prospecting is said to be on the Shadle farm just northwest of Centropolis. The ground is rough and rocky.