The Nome Nugget

Merced County Wants Share Of Fabulous Mine

MERCED, Calif., (AP) - Merced County wants a share of an Alaskan mining claim an Air Force Sergeant says was left to him by a prospector's widow.

Kenneth Riggs, county administrator, filed a petition Friday asking that the property of the late Mrs. Cora Dinsmore be surrendered to the Department of Welfare. He said Mrs. Dinsmore and her husband, James, received more than $20,000 in old age assistance benefits between 1939 and 1958.

T/Sgt. Thomas Howlett, a jet bomber tail gunner at nearby Castle Air Force Base, had estimated the claim to a cinnabar (mercury) deposit as being worth potentially 40 million dollars. He said that when she died Mrs. Dinsmore had left it to him and his wife.

The Sergeant said he went to the area, near Cold Bay, Alaska, to restake the claim in May and that he plans to return to recheck it. He had told newsmen that geologists, whom he did not name, had estimated its worth at the figure he gave.

Riggs contended it's up to a court to determine whether the claim "constitutes property." He added that state law entitles the Welfare Department to recover benefits paid if a recipient's estate includes any assets.

Riggs said the Sergeant was not actually willed the mining claim. Further, he said, the Dinsmores have a son, Orin, who until recently resided in the Hawaiian Islands and a daughter, Mrs. Marine Mines, of Fresno, Calif.

Howlett said he and his wife befriended the widow, who resided in a trailer at nearby Livingston.