Barb: What about the Black Diamond? Where was that mine?
Berle: The Black Diamond mine was on Cutter (?) Canyon—Urraca Crick.
BH: Did you ever mine these two?
Berle: I never. I had 'em, but I was too lazy to work 'em.
Barb: The copper mine—he brought gunny sacks of the copper stone. Raw copper is a beautiful turquoise color, and the, uh, the cabin. . . the house we had up on the mountain, when we owned that, he built the whole fireplace out of that copper.
BH: Oh, I'll bet that was beautiful!
Berle: Yeah, we had that green rock. The sun would hit that plate glass window and reflect back on that copper. It was the prettiest thing you ever saw!
BH: I'll bet!
Barb: Yeah, the whole fireplace, from the floor to the ceiling—he brought the copper down from the mine, and made the fireplace out of the copper.
Berle: I come down—I had my park coat on, the one night, after (?), and I had the sack of ore on it, and I come down Mosca Crick, and this couple, says, Oh, there's a big prospector. We gotta have your picture.
I said—Nah, I work for the Park Service. Nah—you got a sack of ore, and a sack of (?), and we want your picture. I said—(unintelligible). So I looked this way, and that way. . . I bet they took 50 pictures. Said an honest to goodness prospector.
BH: Who worked that mine before you had it?
Berle: Well, it was dug out in 1904, and the guy's name was on the boards up there, but I don't remember what the names on it was. But when I got it, it had a door over it, and you could stay there—course the packrats—you had to live with them. But you could stay in there, and shut the door, and get in out of the weather. But. . . as time went on. . . why people just tore things down. Course they had to slide down. . . They took a rock out of the mine, and dropped it over the bank. . . that's where I picked the copper up. . . off of that side. And I took the dust—the (?) and carry it out. Had to carry 'em out a mile. Fifty pounds of rock got pretty heavy.
BH: Yeah, I imagine. Do you know anything about who had the Black Diamond mine before you had it?
Berle: Well, Old Lady Palmer—she owned it. And she mined it.
Barb: What was her first name?
Berle; She found the. . . she found the grease of pure rock that she'd cut glass with—so she called it the Black Diamond. She got a lot of that.
Barb: What was her first name?
Berle: The only thing I ever heard her called was Old Lady Palmer.
BH: Do you know about when that was that she mined it?
Berle: That was in the twenties.
BH: Did she have a mule? How'd she get up there? Did she walk or did she ride a. . . Berle: Horse. Yeah.
BH: And did she ever sell. . . did she sell the gold or the black diamonds?
Berle: I didn't hear that.
Barb: What'd she do with the gold that she got out of it?
Berle: I don't know if she ever got any gold out of the mine. I doubt if she got any gold.
BH: But she worked it for. . .