A history of Boulder City continued: Schnatterly's legacy

The story behind the Idaho Gold and Ruby Mine can be seen as a magnificent failure, or it can be seen as a groundbreaking triumph against all odds. In a sense, it is both. From a pragmatic, economical perspective, it was a complete flop. But from an idealistic viewpoint, it’s difficult not to admire the project, as well as the man who made it all happen: the enigmatic J.M. Schnatterly.

When Schnatterly first came from Pittsburgh to visit the Boulder Creek drainage in 1906, he had a lot in common with the rest of the schemers and daydreamers who flocked to the American West during the turn of the century. He too had heard the tales of golden nuggets, sapphires and rubies tumbling along every creek bottom in the Rockies, and like many of the prospectors that came out this way, he was convinced that the American dream was hiding somewhere in the panhandle of Idaho, the gem state, just waiting to be extracted with a pickaxe.

Schnatterly started the Spokane-based Idaho Radium and Gold Company soon after that first visit in 1906. In 1910, he announced the discovery of a massive radium deposit in the Boulder Creek gorge and began laying plans to build the largest placer mining operation in the world. He spent the next decade achieving that goal, defying naysayers and bucking conventional engineering theories at every turn.

Accomplishing this took a whole lot of money, which was no trouble for him. Fleecing investors was one of Schnatterly’s more remarkable talents.

The charismatic salesman would travel to the major markets of Chicago and New York, where he would spin yarns of riches beyond their wildest dreams awaiting them in the mountains of the last frontier. He would return with these wide-eyed investors via train to Bonners Ferry, where his private launch was waiting to take them up the Kootenai river to Leonia. From there, it was a horse-and-buggy ride on a steep road that everyone said he couldn’t build to Boulder City, where approximately 150 men were working on a grandiose mining project that everyone said he wouldn’t complete.

By 1922, the construction phase of the Boulder Creek mines was more or less finished. There were giant flumes and ditches that channelized miles of creek bed. There was a steam-powered aerial tramway stretching over the creek, a bevy of hoses equipped with high-pressure nozzles that scoured the gravel off its steep banks, and a massive concentrator made of milled lumber that was designed to separate the precious minerals from the gravel.

By that time, Schnatterly had been involved in three gunfights and countless lawsuits. His company had changed its name to the Idaho Gold and Ruby Mining Co., and its primary mining claim at Boulder City had grown into a small town with roughly 60 buildings, including a schoolhouse and a machine shop.

So in May of that year, he invited everyone out to Boulder City to witness the grand unveiling of the “Blue Hole”, a giant hole in the bedrock approximately thirty feet deep and twenty feet across where, theoretically, all of the precious minerals were supposed to end up. For over ten years the hole had remained closed off. During that time, Schnatterly’s investors imagined the gems piling up, their money doubling, tripling, quadrupling all the while.

Nearly two thousand people showed up to the extravagant affair. Pennilless miners stood shoulder to shoulder with affluent businessmen from the east coast, and all of them saw the same thing when they peered into the deep blue hole: a meager $150 worth of gold dust.

Instead of forming a lynch mob, the crowd followed Schnatterly inside one of the buildings, where he made a speech. “I have failed,” he told them. “It is time for you stockholders to choose a new president, one that can handle the affairs of this mine and show a profit. Nominations for a new president are now in order.”

A man in the crowd stood up and shouted, “Schnatterly,” and the whole crowd joined in, chanting, “Schnatterly! Schnatterly!” The people had spoken, and no matter how disappointing the results of that day were, J.M. Schnatterly was still their man.

Terry Howe, who works as a field researcher for the Boundary County Historical Society, explains how this charismatic man inspired such loyalty among his supporters. “But they had been so excited,” he says, reffering to that day at the Blue Hole in 1922. “I mean the only thing to invest in was mining stock. Everybody was so poor, and then he came along, and ‘we’re all gonna be rich’, they thought. It was their only chance for a dream in life…and they’d rather go on living the dream than try to get their money back.”

Howe says that for the miners, Schnatterly also represented a sort of temporary social security. The men that worked for him were given free room and board. Few people starved in Boulder City — many even brought their families along. So as long as this dream of Schnatterly’s lived on, they too were able to lead productive lives, even if they weren’t producing any gold or rubies.

Ken Keller, in an article published in the Kootenai Valley Times in 1990, puts it this way: “In the process of indulging his own fantasies, Schnatterly nourished the fantasies of many others. Although none of them ever got rich, they were participants in a truly monumental project.”

It was a monumental project indeed — something that people, including Schnatterly himself, were proud to be a part of.

He has been painted by many as a confidence man, perhaps justifiably so, but if the mine was a total scam, why would he pour so much money over a period of so many years into such a challenging project? Schnatterly could have easily lined his pockets and then run away to some exotic locale, but he didn’t.

He did, however, indulge himself with some of the money he acquired from investors. The year before the Blue Hole fiaco, he commisioned a luxurious 45-foot cabin cruiser to be built. Christened the “J.M. Schnatterly”, the boat had sink-proof air chambers, a 60 hosepower gasoline engine with 1000 gallons of fuel capacity, accomodations for 14 guests, and a galley with a six-burner range and one of the first Frigidaire refrigerators ever made. The floors and walls of the boat were made of the finest oak. There was even a piano onboard, which turned out to be a factor in his death two years later when, on April 11 of 1923, the boat exploded into flames on the north bank of the Kootenai River not far from the county bridge.

According to an article published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on April 12, 1923, “Mr. Ferbrache, who was in the kitchen preparing dinner, [stated] that all of the sudden there was a flash of flames in the kitchen and over the lighted range. He leaped outside the kitchen and a moment later there was an explosion that racked the cruiser from one end to the other…The explosion was heard at many points in Bonners Ferry and on the Northside, particularly, it shook nearby houses and rattled the windows.”

During the explosion, Schnatterly was allegedly knocked senseless by the flying piano and trapped underneath a pile of heavy furniture, where he burned to death. His associates C.L. Kelly, William “Billy” Ferbrache and Dewey J. Brewer jumped overboard, but not before they were burned severly attempting to save him.

Conspiracy theories arised soon after his death as many locals saw the explosion as a well-timed and elaborate cover-up.

Billy Ferbrache, the cook who claimed to have witnessed Schnatterly’s death on the burning boat, said in an interview that took place 15 years after the explosion: “I’ve had my friends say, ‘How much were you paid, Bill, to say that Schnatterly died in that boat?’ Well, I guess I know that he died.”

Schnatterly continued to make headlines after his death as his wife and mistress fought over his estate. He was buried in Spokane in an airtight, waterproof vault made of reinforced concrete.

The Gold and Ruby Mining Co. continued to struggle on without him, and there is no official date for when the Gold and Ruby Mine officially shut down. Like Schnatterly, the memory of it just faded away as new mining claims were staked and people found new larger-than-life figures to invest their hopes and dreams in.