The St. Charles County “Gold Rush” of 1897

by Bob Brail

“A LITTLE KLONDIKE, Discovered by a St. Louis attorney in St. Charles County” read the headline on page one of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 2, 1897. Only a year after gold had been discovered in Alaska in August 1896 and thousands of people had journeyed to Alaska in the hopes of “striking it rich,” this discovery in St. Charles County apparently meant that fortunes could be found very much closer to home for area residents.

The individual who announced his find was a St. Louis lawyer named Edward L. Carter, born in Virginia in 1840 and eventually moved to St. Charles County. Carter had married Annie Pitman Glanville of St. Charles County in 1880; previous to his discovery of gold, his wife (and therefore he) had inherited a 188 acres tract of land from her deceased Pitman relative. This land was immediately to the west of 165 acres still owned by a Pitman in 1897. The north/south line dividing their properties would have been located just west of the recently restored John Pitman Cemetery on the north side of Highway 364 west of Cottleville.

It is not known how the newspaper was informed of the discovery of gold, but since Carter's law office was in the Chamber of Commerce building in downtown St. Louis, the reporter from the Post-Dispatch did not need to go far to find him. Carter told the reporter that he had not wanted the news to be known until later, but that since the story was out, he would go ahead and give the details.

He told the reporter that he and his wife had a farm in St. Charles County adjacent to a farm owned by David Pitman, a relative of his wife. Carter explained that he had gone out to his farm to observe threshing, but upon his arrival was informed that the thresher would not be there until the next day. So Carter and some neighborhood farmers who had stopped by decided to walk the short distance to David Pitman's farm.

Carter told the reporter, “I had spent many years in the gold district in California and thought I had never seen a place better adapted for mining.” In particular, he mentioned the stream of clear water, Dardenne Creek. North of the creek some men were digging the ground in order to make a level area for the thresher engine. According to his account, Carter simply walked over and picked up come quartz containing gold. “I recognized the fact that the quartz was rich with gold,” he told the reporter. Soon another man found another piece of quartz with gold. Both specimens were “remarkably rich” with gold, according to Carter. Carter stated that he had already had one piece of the newly discovered gold “tested by an expert” who had confirmed that it was gold. Carter also stated that he and David Pitman, his wife's uncle, had tentatively agreed to work the land together, if anything came of it. “I had intended going to Klondike,” Carter told the reporter, “but I think there is plenty of gold here in Missouri.” According to Carter, he had already been “besieged” with partnership offers, but had refused them all.

The next day, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a second article about the discovery of gold, but then the incident was never again mentioned by the newspaper (or any other that this author could find). What had happened? How could such a discovery never again have newspaper coverage?

It might be easiest to conclude that, when it came to gold, Edward Carter did not know what he was talking about. However, facts speak otherwise. Carter had gone to the gold fields of California as a young man, along with family members. The 1870 federal population census for Sacramento, California, lists Edward Carter, a nineteen year-old miner, living with two other mining Carters, and several other miners, in one dwelling. It seems reasonable that Carter would have acquired at least some knowledge of gold mining when in California, and should have known what gold looked like. It is possible that this was a practical joke played on Carter, the experienced miner, by an individual who hid a rock containing a few flakes of gold on the Pitman land, making sure that Carter would find it. Carter had told the newspaper reporter that some of his friends who had been miners “pronounced the nuggets gold sure enough.” Could one of his miner friends have been the culprit?

Another possibility to be considered is that Carter himself planted the gold on or near land he wanted to sell for as high a price as possible. His 188 acre parcel abutted the area where the discovery had been made, including a section of Dardenne Creek. However, a thorough search of records at the St. Charles County Recorder of Deeds office yields no evidence that this was the case. Neither Carter or his Pitman neighbor sold any land in this area in the years following the announcement of the discovery. Within four months of the discovery, Carter did borrow $3000 from Albert Runge of St. Charles, using the 188 acre tract as collateral on the loan. Carter repaid the loan and kept the land.

One dictionary defines a mystery as “something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain.” It would certainly be more satisfying if every question this author researched had yielded an answer, but that has not been the case. The discovery of gold in St. Charles County in 1897 is another example of such a search. It remains a mystery, impossible to understand or explain.

Sources: Federal Population Censuses; Findagrave.com; “A Little Klondike,” August 2, 1897, and “Carter's Gold Mine,” August 3, 1897, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (ProQuest Historical Newspapers, St. Charles City-County Library); Land records, Recorder of Deeds, St. Charles County, Missouri.