Inspiration (ca58846b-f0a0-4af7-baf0-efaae491e25d)

AMONG the fellow prospectors of Black Jack Newman, locator of the claims that became the Miami mine, were J. D. Coplen and Bud Woodson. Woodson was in the district when the Bloody Tanks Indian massacre occurred, near the present town of Miami. He was a prospector long before Jack Newman worked in a mine, and for years he had done assessment work on some of the claims that Coplen acquired for his Inspiration company. Woodson recalls that a Scotch geologist from Morenci once visited his claims; and that the geologist tried to get the Phelps Dodge company interested in the property, but without success. Coplen interested some people in Kansas City in his claims that lay west of Newman's. He induced them to organize the Inspiration Mining Co., and by 1908 this company controlled 23 claims, which had been prospected in desultory fashion by a series of adits. One of these, near the Keystone property, encountered some lean copper-bearing rock, but later development failed to disclose any substantial quantity of ore at this particular point. Coplen, as general manager, in September, 1908, was negotiating with several exploration companies which at the time were on the lookout for low-grade copper properties. As a matter of fact, when J. Parke Channing visited Globe, in December, 1906, F. C. Alsdorf showed him the Inspiration claims as well as Newman's. Channing evinced little interest in an option on Inspiration because he could get so much better terms from Newman. He decided to concentrate his work on the Newman claims, with the idea that if he were successful in developing ore, he could later get Inspiration on terms at least equally good. Subsequently, the United States Smelting & Refining Co., which has since added "Mining" to its corporate name, took an option on Inspiration.