December 12, 1925

Will Kruse died. Kruse had sought gold ore deposits in Rogers (Benton County) on his father’s eighty-acre farm, a hunt triggered neither by scientific nor geological verification but rather inspired by psychic revelations he combined with automatic writings pointing him to a precise site where he believed wholeheartedly that he would find enough gold to end world misery. To this end, he established Kruse Gold Mines, which proved an abysmal failure. Kruse was working with the laboratories of the Clark Mining Company of Butte, Montana, “on a process for handling the mineral found on his farm” when he died. His death finally ended the intervals of on-and-off work at the mines, which for all practical purposes had stalled around 1912.