Gambling on Ore: The Nature of Metal Mining in the United States, 1860-1910

250 Pages·2013·1.785 MB·English

by  Kent Curtis

Gambling on Ore
Mining the American West
Duane A. Smith, Robert A. Trennert, and Liping Zhu, editors
Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale, Andrew Gulliford
From Redstone to Ludlow: John Cleveland Osgood’s Struggle against the United Mine Workers
of America, F. Darrell Munsell
Gambling on Ore: The Nature of Metal Mining in the United States, 1860–1910,
Kent A. Curtis
Hard as the Rock Itself: Place and Identity in the American Mining Town, David Robertson
High Altitude Energy: A History of Fossil Fuels in Colorado, Lee Scamehorn
Industrializing the Rockies: Growth, Competition, and Turmoil in the Coalfields of Colorado
and Wyoming, David A. Wolff
The Mechanics of Optimism: Mining Companies, Technology, and the Hot Spring Gold Rush,
Montana Territory, 1864–1868, Jeffrey J. Safford
Mercury and the Making of California: Mining, Landscape, and Race, 1840–1890,
Andrew Scott Johnston
The Rise of the Silver Queen: Georgetown, Colorado, 1859−1896, Liston E. Leyendecker,
Duane A. Smith, and Christine A. Bradley
Santa Rita del Cobre: A Copper Mining Community in New Mexico, Christopher J. Huggard
and Terrence M. Humble
Silver Saga: The Story of Caribou, Colorado, Revised Edition, Duane A. Smith
Thomas F. Walsh: Progressive Businessman and Colorado Mining Tycoon, John Stewart
Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West,
Michael A. Amundson
Gambling on Ore
The Nature of
Metal Mining
in the
United States,
1860–1910
Kent A. Curtis
University Press of Colorado
Boulder
© 2013 by Kent A. Curtis
Published by University Press of Colorado
5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C
Boulder, Colorado 80303
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of
the Association of American University Presses.
The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams
State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of
Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State Uni-
versity, and Western State Colorado University.
This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Curtis, Kent A.
Gambling on ore : the nature of metal mining in the United States, 1860–1910 / Kent A. Curtis.
pages cm — (Mining the American West)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60732-234-4 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-60732-235-1 (ebook)
1. Metallurgy—United States—History. 2. Metal trade—United States—History. 3. Mines and
mineral resources—Social aspects—United States—History—19th century. 4. Mines and mineral
resources—Social aspects—United States—History—20th century. 5. Ores—United States. I. Title.
TN623.C87 2013
338.2'74097309034—dc23
2013012681
Design by Daniel Pratt
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover illustration of Pearl Street Station, circa 1883, courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.
Author photograph by Maxim Estevez-Curtis and Noah Estevez-Curtis.
For Marcela Estevez,
who made this book possible.
“The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.”
richard White, The Organic Machine (1996)
Contents
List of Figures ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Arsenic in the Wilderness, or
Knowing Nature through Mining 1
1. Producing a Mining Landscape: Gold Rush
Uncertainty in Proto-Montana 15
2. The Value of Ores: Knowledge and
Policy in Lode Mining Development 69
3. Turning Copper into Gold:
The Dynamics of System Building 115
4. The Ecology of Ore Processing: Pollution and
the Law in the Deer Lodge Valley 163
Conclusion: Producing a Mining Society 203
Bibliography 211
Index 223
vii

Figures
Inside Pearl Street Station Cover
Placer creek profile 19
Routes through gold rush Montana 35
Map of “Big Horn City,” May 6, 1863 38
Montana gold mining region 49
Samuel T. Hauser, late 1870s 52
Territorial Governor Samuel T. Hauser, circa 1886 53
Virginia City, Montana, 1866 55
Map of the mountain section of Mullan Road 61
W. W. de Lacy map of the Territory of Montana, 1865 62
Mineral lode deposit formation 72
Five-stamp mill 81
Rossiter Worthington Raymond (undated) 89
William Andrews Clark, 1898 103
Map and inset of the Boulder Batholith 120
Marcus Daly (undated) 123
James Ben Ali Haggin (undated) 125
George Hearst (undated) 127
Anaconda, Montana, 1887 133
Anaconda Mine, smelters, 1885 134
ix
Inside Pearl Street Station 140
Pearl Street Station coverage map 142
Map of mining claims, Butte City and vicinity 147
Map showing productive area of Butte Copper Camp 156
Average ore composition mined in Butte 167
Train load of ore for Washoe Smelter 170
Washoe Reduction Works 173
Panorama view of Butte from southwest, circa 1895 193
NASA image of Butte, 2006 204
“Berkeley Pit & Butte Hill copper mining operation” 206
x figures