Silver mining in Arizona was a powerful stimulus for exploration and prospecting in early Arizona. Cumulative silver production through 1981 totaled 490 million troy ounces (15 million kg). [1] However, only about 10% of Arizona's silver production came from silver mining. More than 80% of the state's silver was a byproduct of copper mining; other silver came as a byproduct of lead, zinc, and gold mining. [1]
Silver ore was first discovered in west-central Arizona in 1583 by Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo, but no mining resulted. Again in 1598, Juan de Oñate led another expedition searching for Espejo’s silver; many claims were staked, but the expeditioners returned to Santa Fe without mining any silver, and the deposits remained unexploited. Espejo’s silver discovery is thought to be at the site of present-day Jerome, which later became a major copper-mining district. [2]
Father Eusebio Kino, in charge of the Spanish missions in southern Arizona from 1687 to 1711, noted a number of “minas” in the mountains bordering the Santa Cruz valley (present Santa Cruz County, Arizona), but the Spanish word “mina” can mean either a mine or an unexploited mineral deposit. A noted silver discovery in 1736 at Planchas de Plata, Sonora, just south of the present Arizona/Sonora border drew attention to the silver potential of the area. Later Spanish documents record mining in the 1770s in Quijotoa, Arabic, and Arivaca, in southernmost Arizona. Mining was held back because Arizona was the northern fringe of the Spanish frontier, and plagued by guerilla war with the Apaches. [3]
When southern Arizona became a United States possession by virtue of the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, American prospectors and investment started mining silver deposits previously known to the Spanish and Mexicans in present Santa Cruz and Pima counties. The Santa Rita mine in the Santa Rita Mountains and the Heintzelman mine in the Cerro Colorado Mountains both started in 1856, the Mowry mine in the Patagonia Mountains started in 1857, and the Salero mine in 1858.
American prospecting and silver mining in the Santa Rita Mountains on the east side of the Santa Cruz Valley led to conflicts with the Apaches, known as the Apache Wars. One Apache raid killed all but one employee of the Santa Rita mine.
Silver was discovered at Globe in 1873, and within three years numerous other silver mines were operating near Globe, Pinal, and McMillenville, in Gila and Pinal counties.
A soldier named Sullivan discovered native silver while building a military road in central Arizona. Sullivan returned to the area after he left the army, but could not relocate the outcrop. However, Sullivan told his story to rancher named Mason, who with four others found Sullivan’s lost silver lode 3 miles (4.8 km) north of present-day Superior, and started the Silver King Mine in 1875. The Silver King mine operated from 1875 to 1889, and again 1918 to 1928, producing 6.2 million troy ounces (190 metric tons) of silver. [4]
The success of the Silver King drew other prospectors, who discovered the Silver Queen mine nearby. The Silver Queen shut down around 1893. Investors bought the property in 1910, renamed the Silver Queen the Magma mine, and started mining the rich copper ores that the silver miners had ignored. The Magma copper mine became one of the most productive copper mines in Arizona, and through 1964, produced more than 25 million troy ounces (780 metric tons) of silver as a byproduct of copper mining. [4]
Miners exhausted the best silver ores in the area by the mid-1880s, most of the mines closed, and most of the towns were deserted. But attention turned to copper veins, and the former “Arizona silver belt” became the rich Globe-Miami and Superior copper districts. [5]
The first big silver strike in the Bradshaw Mountains was at Tiger, Arizona, Yavapai County, in 1871. The Peck mine at Alexandra was discovered in 1875. That same year silver was discovered at Tip Top. [1]
In 1876, a soldier and an army scout staked mining claims over silver mineralization at Bisbee. Bisbee later produced more silver than any other district in Arizona, 102 million troy ounces, but mostly as a byproduct to copper mining. [2] Bisbee is historically the 10th-largest silver producing district in the US. [6] : 4
Silver was discovered in the Cochise County mountains as early as 1858, but ongoing conflict with the native Indians prevented development. [7] In 1858, Frederick Brunckow, a Prussian-born mining engineer, built a cabin near the San Pedro River after finding a small silver deposit nearby. He hired three other white men and about a dozen Mexican miners. In September 1860, two of the white men were robbed and murdered at the cabin and Brunckow was found dead in the mine with a rock drill through him. The German cook blamed the Mexican workers for the murders. [8] [9] The cabin was the site of 22 murders during the frontier days.
After briefly serving as a scout for the United States Army during 1877, Ed Schieffelin began prospecting for silver in the hills east of the San Pedro River. He used Brunckow's San Pedro mine as a base for operations to prospect among the rocky outcroppings northeast of the cabin. The area was only about 12 miles (19 km) from the hostile Chiricahua Apache Indians led by Cochise, Geronimo and Victorio. The soldiers at the fort told him, "The only stone you will find out there will be your own tombstone". He decided to stay put and explore the hills east full-time. [10]
After many months, Schieffelin finally located loose silver ore that had been eroded from the nearby hills into a dry wash. [11] It took him several more months to find the source. When he located the vein, he estimated the vein to be fifty feet long and twelve inches wide. [12] The vein of silver ore was above the San Pedro River Valley, on a waterless plateau called Goose Flats. He filed the claim under the name "Tombstone" in remembrance of the soldiers' jests. [11]
With only 30 cents in his pocket, Schieffelin searched for his brother Al, who he had not seen in four years, and finally found him at the McCracken Mine in north-eastern Arizona. He persuaded Al to show his three remaining ore samples to the recently arrived assayer, Richard Gird, who had a reputation as an expert. Gird told Ed that the best of the three samples was a high-quality ore that assayed at $2,000 a ton. Ed, Al Schieffelin and Richard Gird formed a handshake partnership on the spot. Gird offered his expertise, connections, and a grubstake. Their three-way deal, which was never put down on paper, realized the three men millions of dollars of wealth. [13] : 17
News of the mines spread and interest from the Eastern United States grew. As that interest increased, so did the capitol investment into the mines around what would become Tombstone. Many mines were located and developed, including (but not limited to) the Goodenough, Contention, Toughnut and Grand Central. [14] : xiii
As the mining industry grew, Tombstone spawned three nearby sister towns that took up the chore of stamping and processing the ore. Charleston, Millville, and Contention were all on the San Pedro River to take advantage of the water needed to run the mills. [15] All are ghost towns today.
The mines operated successfully and in late March 1881 water was found in the Sulphuret shaft at 520 ft below the surface. [14] : 91 Other mines in the area encountered water within a year.
At first, the water was looked upon as a Godsend. The mines could pump it to the surface, store it in tanks and use it in the recovery process of the ores. This would eliminate the transportation costs of hauling the ore to the mills located on the San Pedro River, 6 to 8 miles away (depending on which mine was transporting ore to their mill). Transportation costs were about $4.00 to $5.00 per ton with an average of 14 tons per trip. Cornish pumps were installed and the deepening of the mines continued. As the mines deepened, controlling the water became more cumbersome. Pumps add increased costs to the company and if the ore is not of sufficient quality, the cost to operate overwhelms the value of the product. One by one, the mines were forced to shut down or declare bankruptcy as they ran out of usable ore. By the end of 1893, all silver production in Tombstone was halted and the mines abandoned. [14] : 91–110
In 1900 E. B. Gage, Frank Murphy, and William Staunton consolidated their various mining properties into a single entity, the Tombstone Consolidated Mines Company. They started efforts to drain the mines, laid a rail spur into town, and re-commenced mining. By using modern technology (for 1901), they installed high efficiency water pumps that pumped 4,000,000 gallons of water per day in a 24-hour period, with a capacity of 7,000,000 if needed. It took six years to bring the water under control to the 1,000 ft level of the "Boom" shaft. Immediately, mining commenced in sections below the water table as the shaft was deepened. All levels were operating on May 31, 1909 when the inevitable happened. A tank car of contaminated fuel oil was fed into the boilers and snuffed the fires. [14]
Without the steam to operate the system, the pumps failed and the water rose. Not willing to give in, the company fought the good fight and charged on. They fought the water for almost a year and even added additional horsepower with more boilers coming online. On May 1, 1910 the boilers failed after being pushed to their limits. Still the company charged on. They continued to fight the water and by December 1910, finally won the battle, bringing the water back to the 1000 ft level. But the damage had already been done. Low ore values, lost production and the expense of many millions of dollars to fight the water drove the company into bankruptcy. On January 18, 1911 the company closed the mine. On August 9, 1911 the Tombstone Consolidated Mines Company, LTD., was declared bankrupt. They had won the battle, but lost the war. Phelps-Dodge Corporation bought the claims for $500,000 at a Sheriff's auction. They were the only bidders. [14] : 113–43
During World War I the camp was revived, not as a silver producer but as the nation's foremost supplier of manganese, a strategic metal. In 1917 the district's work force was larger than at any time in its history. [16]
During the silver boom, it is generally agreed that Tombstone was the most prolific silver producer of any mining district in Arizona that was mined primarily for silver. The district produced 32 million troy ounces (1,000 metric tons) of silver. [1] There are widely varying estimates of the value of gold and silver mined during the course of Tombstone's history. In 1883, writer Patrick Hamilton estimated that during the first four years of activity the mines produced about USD $25,000,000 (approximately $785 million today). Other estimates include USD $40 [10] to USD $85 million [17] (about $1.3 billion to $2.77 billion today).
A rancher discovered the silver lode of the Commonwealth mine in Cochise County in 1892. At its peak the adjacent town of Pearce had 1,900 inhabitants; it is now virtually a ghost town with few residents and only one or two small shops. The district produced 12 million ounces (370 metric tons) of silver. [1]
Silver mining declined after the demonetization of silver in 1893, yet the boom in copper mining was soon producing more silver as a byproduct than had been produced during the bonanza silver days.
In 2006, all the silver produced in Arizona came as a byproduct of copper mining. Renewed mining is planned for the Tombstone district. [18]
As of Nov. 2017, the Goodenough Mine is open again for tours down to the 100' level. It is a hardrock mine, connected underground to the Toughnut and Girard mines, which may also be opened for tours in 2018.
Tombstone is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States, founded in 1879 by prospector Ed Schieffelin in what was then Pima County, Arizona Territory. It became one of the last boomtowns in the American frontier. The town grew significantly into the mid-1880s as the local mines produced $40 to $85 million in silver bullion, the largest productive silver district in Arizona. Its population grew from 100 to around 14,000 in less than seven years. It is best known as the site of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and presently draws most of its revenue from tourism.
The Mule Mountains are a north/south running mountain range located in the south-central area of Cochise County, Arizona. The highest peak, Mount Ballard, rises to 7,500 ft (2,300 m). Prior to mining operations commencing there, the mountains were heavily forested with large Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir and other conifers, but these were all cut down for housing needs and to feed the ore smelting furnaces in Douglas, Arizona, approximately 20 miles due east. Now, the primary vegetation of the Mules consists of manzanita brush, juniper, lowland oaks and pines, and various grasses. To the east of the mountain range lies Sulphur Springs Valley, and the San Pedro River and Valley to the west.
The Lavender Pit is a former open pit copper mine near Bisbee in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. It is located near the famous Copper Queen Mine. The Lavender Pit was named in honor of Harrison M. Lavender (1890–1952), who as Vice-President and General Manager of Phelps Dodge Corporation, conceived and carried out this plan for making the previously unprofitable low-grade copper bearing rock of the area into commercial copper ore.
Edward Lawrence Schieffelin (1847–1897) was an Indian scout and prospector who discovered silver in the Arizona Territory, which led to the founding of Tombstone, Arizona. He entered into a partnership with his brother Al and mining engineer Richard Gird in a handshake deal that produced millions of dollars in wealth for all three men. During the course of Tombstone's mining history, about US $85,000,000 in silver was produced from its mines.
George Warren worked as a prospector in the Tombstone and Bisbee, Arizona region during the late 19th century. He is credited with having located the body of copper ore, which later was known as the Copper Queen Mine, one of Arizona's most productive copper mines. Warren drank too much and bet his interest in the mine on a foot race against a horse and lost.
Silver mining is the extraction of silver from minerals, starting with mining. Because silver is often found in intimate combination with other metals, its extraction requires elaborate technologies. In 2008, ca. 25,900 metric tons were consumed worldwide, most of which came from mining.
In the United States, copper mining has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017, the US produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
In the United States, gold mining has taken place continually since the discovery of gold at the Reed farm in North Carolina in 1799. The first documented occurrence of gold was in Virginia in 1782. Some minor gold production took place in North Carolina as early as 1793, but created no excitement. The discovery on the Reed farm in 1799 which was identified as gold in 1802 and subsequently mined marked the first commercial production.
Silver mining in the United States began on a major scale with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1858. The industry suffered greatly from the demonetization of silver in 1873 by the Coinage Act of 1873, known pejoratively as the "Crime of 73", but silver mining continues today.
Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.
Silver mining in Colorado has taken place since the 1860s. In the past, Colorado called itself the Silver State.
Silver mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, began in 1858 with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver-mining district in the United States. Nevada calls itself the "Silver State." Nevada is the nation's second-largest producer of silver, after Alaska. In 2014 Nevada produced 10.93 million troy ounces of silver, of which 6.74 million ounces were as a byproduct of the mining of gold. The largest byproducers were the Hycroft Mine, the Phoenix Mine, the Midas Mine and Round Mountain.
In Arizona, copper mining has been a major industry since the 19th century. In 2007, Arizona was the leading copper-producing state in the country, producing 750 thousand metric tons of copper, valued at $5.54 billion. Arizona's copper production was 60% of the total for the United States. Copper mining also produces gold and silver as byproducts. Byproduct molybdenum from copper mining makes Arizona the nation's second-largest producer of that metal. Although copper mineralization was found by the earliest Spanish explorers of Arizona, the territory was remote, and copper could seldom be profitably mined and shipped. Early Spanish, Mexican, and American prospectors searched for gold and silver, and ignored copper. It was not until the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876 that copper became broadly economic to mine and ship to market.
Gold mining in Alaska, a state of the United States, has been a major industry and impetus for exploration and settlement since a few years after the United States acquired the territory in 1867 from the Russian Empire. Russian explorers discovered placer gold in the Kenai River in 1848, but no gold was produced. Gold mining started in 1870 from placers southeast of Juneau, Alaska.
Gold mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, is a major industry, and one of the largest sources of gold in the world. In 2018 Nevada produced 5,581,160 troy ounces, representing 78% of US gold and 5.0% of the world's production. Total gold production recorded from Nevada from 1835 to 2017 totals 205,931,000 troy ounces (6,405.2 t), worth US$322.6 billion at 2020 values. Much of Nevada's gold production comes from large open pit mining using heap leaching recovery.
The Copper Queen Mine was a copper mine in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. Its development led to the growth of the surrounding town of Bisbee in the 1880s. Its orebody ran 23% copper, an extraordinarily high grade. It was acquired by Phelps Dodge in 1885.
Harshaw is a ghost town in Santa Cruz County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. The town was settled in the 1870s, in what was then Arizona Territory. Founded as a mining community, Harshaw is named after the cattleman-turned-prospector David Tecumseh Harshaw, who first successfully located silver in the area. At the town's peak near the end of the 19th century, Harshaw's mines were among Arizona's highest producers of ore, with the largest mine, the Hermosa, yielding approximately $365,455 in bullion over a four-month period in 1880.
The Congress Mine is a gold mine located at the ghost town of Congress, Arizona, on the southeastern slope of the Date Creek Mountains, approximately 18 miles north-northeast of Wickenburg, Arizona, at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. The nearest community, four miles away, is modern Congress, formerly known as Congress Jct railroad station or Martinez Post Office. The Congress Mine produced substantial quantities of gold and was considered one of the most productive gold mines in Arizona.
Brunckow's Cabin is a historic cabin southwest of Tombstone in Cochise County, Arizona. It is purported to be the "bloodiest cabin in Arizona history;" between 1860 and 1890, at least twenty-one people were killed there, many of whom are buried on site. Presently, little of the cabin remains except for some foundations and small portions of the walls. A few unmarked graves have been identified, but because of theft, vandalism, and erosion, the site has been heavily damaged.
Montana silver mining was a major industry in the 1800s following discovery of numerous silver deposits. Between 1883 and 1891 Montana was second every year to Colorado in silver production, except for 1887 when Montana was number one, producing approximately $15.5 million worth of silver. Major mining districts in Montana included Butte, which was home to many important mines such as the Lexington, Alice, and Moulton mines, and Philipsburg, which housed the Granite Mountain and Bimetallic mines. Other influential, but significantly smaller mines, operated at Helena and the Castle Mountains. The rapid raise and fall of these mines were due to largely geological and economic factors that created favorable conditions for a silver mining boom and subsequent bust. Montana continued to produce considerable silver through most of the 1900s, as a byproduct of copper production at Butte.
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