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YOGO  GULCH

  
 

 

  
     
     
     

YOGO  SAPPHIRES:   MINE  UPDATE

 
 

      Yogo Gulch, Montana was, in the early 20th Century, Americas premier gemstone locality, internationally regarded for its small but gemologically superb "cornflower blue" sapphires.   Unfortunately, virtually all ventures on the property have shut down, leaving one "mom and pop" underground operation and a few "Sapphire Villagers" to extract stones from hand-dug dike material.   

     Photos above:  The crystal on the left is a 6.16 carat doubly terminated gem, considered to be one of the finest the mine ever produced.  It was found in the early 1980's by Vortex Mining.  Cut stones over one carat are relatively uncommon, but in the right photo the pentagon in the pendant is 3.20 carats and the pear is 3.60 carats.  The pentagon was found by Paul Davis, who had it cut and mounted in Great Falls.  Randy Gneiting (one of the Villagers) found and cut the pear.  These three are in our collection, and currently the pear and the crystal are on display at the Montana Tech Mineral Museum in Butte.  They will remain there at least until the National AFMS Gem and Mineral Show, July, 2009.
     A small percentage of the stones are purple to violet; but these are almost always small, or fragments.  My two favorite exceptions are depicted here.  The "triangulated" crystal on the left (about 3.4 carats) came from Vortex Mining, and the one on the right was found by Vortex Mining's reincarnation, Yogo Creek Mining.  Fortunately, neither was cut before we got our mitts on them!   These are in Butte also.
       (Right)  I am indebted to Amos Knapstad, long-time friend and owner of the only other collection of Yogo sapphires that I would kill for.  It was he who arranged the deal for the second violet stone.  As a Villager and later beankeeper for Yogo Creek Mining, he assembled his own outstanding collection.   After the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, Amos donated the crystal on the right to our collection, so I guess he is in less danger now.  

     (Left)  A few years ago, we washed some "waste rock" from an access drift, but to our surprise it turned out pretty hot.  That's me, holding two gem crystals over 6 carats each, found in the top riffle of the jig!

    
    There are two properties ("Roncor" and "Vortex") which include just about all of the known mineralization, and there is an effort underway to unify them and put the mine back into commercial production.  It will not be easy, even if unification takes place, as the surface reserves are pretty well depleted and the underground ore body (mostly dike material) is not very thick (see images to the left).  
    Update after Tucson, February, 2007:  Discussions requested with Roncor did not take place, and it is not clear there is any interest with them in either selling or redeveloping their mine.  Therefore, we have at least temporarily abandoned any attempt at resurrecting commercial operations there.  I don't know of any others of significance, so the mines will probably lie more or less fallow (supporting only "mom-and-pop" operations) until capital, knowledge of the ground, and vision can meet in Yogo Gulch once again. 
    In August, 2008, meetings were held at Sapphire Village with Mike Roberts (Roberts Yogo Company), who had recently acquired and consolidated virtually all of the unpatented claim interests (the Vortex claims).  He is very knowledgeable (with extensive experience mining gold in northern Alaska) and is successfully extracting stones from deep ore reserves.  Check here for more information and photos soon.   It is unclear what if any plans Roncor has for its Yogo property.