History
The town is named for the Comet Mine, which was developed in 1883 by the Helena and Livingston Smelting and Reduction Company, based on a discovery made in 1874. Ore was transported to another mine in Wickes for processing. This operation shut down in 1897. Operations were revived in 1900 under the Montana Consolidated Copper Company; in 1927, the Basin Montana Tunnel Company took over the property and built a processing plant on the site for both this mine and the nearby Gray Eagle mine. The company was the largest producer of base metals in the state, outside of Butte, due to production at this mine. They employed 100 men. [2] The operations of BMTC continued until 1941, when the mine was exhausted and operations were permanently halted.
The Comet mine was richest mine in the district, producing $20 million in ore; ten times more than the Gray Eagle mine, which produced over $2 million. Ores produced included lead, zinc, copper, silver, and gold. [3]
Basin is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, Montana, United States. It lies approximately 10 miles (16 km) southeast of the Continental Divide in a high narrow canyon along Interstate 15 about halfway between Butte and Helena. Basin Creek flows roughly north to south through Basin and enters the Boulder River on the settlement's south side. The population was 212 at the 2010 census, down from 255 at the 2000 census.
The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company between 1899 and 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mining companies in the world for much of the 20th century.
Mercur is a historical hard rock mining ghost town in Tooele County, Utah, United States. In 1891, it became the site of the first successful use of the cyanide process of gold extraction in the United States, the dominant metallurgy today. Its elevation above sea level is approximately 2,042 m. The nearby Mercur Gold Mine was re-opened by Barrick Gold in 1985, with mining operations again coming to an end in 1997. The reclamation and restoration project was set to continue up to 2010.
The Eagle Mine is a small, high-grade nickel mining and copper mining project owned by Lundin Mining. The mine is located on the Yellow Dog Plains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States. Eagle is the only primary nickel mine in the United States. The mine began production in fall 2014 and is expected to produce 440 million pounds of nickel, 429 million pounds of copper and small amounts of other metals over its estimated mine life (2014-2027).
In Michigan, copper mining became an important industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its rise marked the start of copper mining as a major industry in the United States.
In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, in situ. In situ leach works by artificially dissolving minerals occurring naturally in a solid state. For recovery of material occurring naturally in solution, see: Brine mining.
The Burra Burra Mine is a copper mine located in Ducktown, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Named for the famous mine in Australia, the Burra Burra Mine is located in the Copper Basin geological region, and extracted over 15 million tons of copper ore during its 60 years of operation between 1899 and 1959. The mine's remaining structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Burra Burra Mine Historic District. The site is also home to the Ducktown Basin Museum, and the museum and mine are a Tennessee State Historic Site operated in partnership with the Tennessee Historical Commission.
The Climax mine, located in Climax, Colorado, United States, is a major molybdenum mine in Lake and Summit counties, Colorado. Shipments from the mine began in 1915. At its highest output, the Climax mine was the largest molybdenum mine in the world, and for many years it supplied three quarters of the world's supply of molybdenum.
Hecla Mining is a gold, silver and other precious metals mining company based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Founded in 1891, is the second-largest mining company that produces silver in the country. This area is known as the Silver Valley (Idaho). In 1983, this entire area was designated as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, because of land, water, and air contamination resulting from a century of mostly unregulated silver and gold mining.
Aldridge is a ghost town in Park County, Montana, United States. According to the book Ghost Towns of the Montana Prairie, the town was incorporated as Aldridge in 1906 but was earlier named Horr, and later Electric. Aldridge is a mining town that supplied coke and coal to the smelters for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Aldridge is located two miles north of the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park.
Confederate Gulch is a steeply incised gulch or valley on the west-facing slopes of the Big Belt Mountains in the U.S. state of Montana. Its small stream drains westward into Canyon Ferry Lake, on the upper Missouri River near present-day Townsend, Montana. In 1864, Confederate soldiers on parole during the American Civil War made a minor gold discovery in the gulch, but the discovery of the sensationally rich Montana Bar the following year—one of the richest placer strikes per acre ever made—led to other rich gold strikes up and down the gulch, and touched off a frantic boom period of placer gold mining in the area that extended through 1869. From 1866 to 1869, the gulch equaled or outstripped all other mining camps in the Montana Territory in gold production, producing an estimated $19–30 million worth of gold. For a time, Confederate Gulch was the largest community in Montana. In 1866, Montana had a total population of 28,000, and of these, about 10,000 (35%) were working in Confederate Gulch.
The Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company was a mining, smelting, and refining company which operated primarily in the state of Montana in the United States. It was established in 1887 and merged with the Amalgamated Copper Company in 1901. The Amalgamated Copper Company changed its name to Anaconda Copper in 1910, and became one of America's largest corporations. Historian Michael P. Malone has written, "Well financed and well managed, the Boston and Montana came to rank among the world's greatest copper companies."
Rimini, is a ghost town in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, United States. It is one of the oldest mining districts in the state. It was established when silver lodes were discovered in 1864. Other names for the town were Lewis and Clark, Tenmile, Vaughn, Colorado, and Bear Gulch. It was the site of Camp Rimini.
Flatiron, formerly known as Yellow Creek or Flat Iron City, is a ghost town in Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. It was known for its highly successful gold mining.
Maitland, originally called Garden City and sometimes misspelled Midland, is a ghost town in Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. It was a mining community that boomed during the Black Hills Gold Rush, but was abandoned by about 1915.
Silver Bow Creek is a 26-mile-long (42 km) headwater stream of the Clark Fork (river) originating within the city limits of Butte, Montana, from the confluence of Little Basin and Blacktail Creeks. A former northern tributary, Yankee Doodle Creek, no longer flows directly into Silver Bow Creek as it is now captured by the Berkeley Pit. Silver Bow Creek flows northwest and north through a high mountain valley, passing east of Anaconda, Montana, where it becomes the Clark Fork at the confluence with Warm Springs Creek.
The PolyMet Mine or NorthMet Mining Project is a proposed mining and processing operation in the NorthMet Deposit in northeastern Minnesota, United States, six miles (10 km) south of Babbitt, Minnesota. The project is controversial with potential environment effects being a major concern.
According to a survey completed by the Colorado Geological Survey between 1991 and 1999, the number of abandoned mines in Colorado is 18,382. The Arkansas Headwaters, Las Animas River, Rio Grande Headwaters, Alamosa, and Uncompahgre were the priority watersheds studied in this survey. In the survey, analysis was completed with Environmental Degradation Measures ranging from none to extreme. Results showed 26 abandoned mines with extreme degradation and mineral hazards, 219 with significant degradation, and 672 potentially significant hazards.
The International Smelting and Refining Company was a subsidiary of Anaconda Copper that operated primarily out of the International Smelter near Tooele, Utah. The International Smelter began operation in 1910 as a copper producer handling ores from Bingham Canyon and was expanded into a lead smelting operation in 1912. Copper smelting finished at International in 1946, and the lead smelter shut down in January 1972. The closure of the smelter would lead to the associated Tooele Valley Railway to be shut down ten years later in 1982. The company also handled several other Anaconda owned interests. After the shut down of several of the International Smelting sites, environmental reclamation has been performed by Anaconda Copper's successor company ARCO and the EPA Superfund program.
