Historical Mines
Silver is a mined mineral that has been an integral component of civilization for over 5,000 years. For centuries it has served as a monetary criteria for empires and countries. Silver investments, jewellery, and awards continue as its medical uses advance. As its photography use disappeared it became an anchor component of today's electronics. All mines have a life. Finding new mineable deposits is critical. These historical mines created silver's role in history.
Aspen
United States
Historical Mines
In 1879, prospectors searching for another Leadville were led to the Aspen area by geological maps that showed outcrops of Leadville Limestone. They found silver ore on Aspen Mountain, but ore production was small until the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad reached the town in 1887 and provided economic shipment of ore to smelters. Ore occurs in the Mississippian Leadville Limestone and the lower part…
Barton Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Barton Mine, also known as Net Lake Mine, is an abandoned surface and underground mine in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located about 0.50 km (0.31 mi) north of the Temagami Arena in Temagami North and just east of the Ontario Northland Railway in northwestern Strathy Township. Dating back to the early 1900s, it is one of the oldest mines in Temagami. Barton was the site of a fire in the early…
Batopilas, Chihuahua
Mexico
Historical Mines
Batopilas (Spanish: [batoˈpilas] ( listen)) is a small town, and seat of the surrounding municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, located along the Río Batopilas at the bottom of the Batopilas canyon, part of the Copper Canyon. As of 2010, the town of Batopilas had a population of 1,220. Its elevation above sea level is 578 metres (1,896 ft). The town is situated in a narrow…
Beanland Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Beanland Mine, also known as Clenor Mine, is an abandoned surface and underground mine in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located about 1 km (0.62 mi) west of Arsenic Lake and 4 km (2.5 mi) northwest of the town of Temagami in central Strathy Township. It is named after Sydney Beanland, who first claimed the mine site in the 1920s and was a director for the mine from 1937 to 1938.
Mining operations…
Berggeschrey
Germany
Historical Mines
First Berggeshrey
Berggeschrey or Berggeschrei ("mining clamour") was a German term for the rapid spread of news on the discovery of rich ore deposits that led to the rapid establishment of a mining region, as in the silver rush in the early days of silver ore mining in the Ore Mountains. It is similar in some respects to the gold rush in North America.
Even as the first settlements were established…
Big Dan Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Big Dan Mine is an abandoned underground mine in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located about 1 km (0.62 mi) southwest of Net Lake and just west of the Ontario Northland Railway in east-central Strathy Township. It is named after Dan O'Connor, who first claimed the site in the 1890s.
Mining operations began at the site in the early 1900s, making Big Dan one of the oldest mines in Temagami. Gold…
Blue Hawk Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Blue Hawk Mine is located on the east slope of Blue Grouse Mountain, on the west side of Okanagan Lake. The mine is just a few kilometres from Downtown Kelowna in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
The mine consists of several adits operated for a single year, 1934, and has been virtually abandoned ever since. British Columbia's Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources refers to the…
Caribou
United States
Historical Mines
Caribou is a former silver-mining town, now a ghost town near Nederland in Boulder County, Colorado, United States. It was named after the Caribou silver mine nearby. The Caribou Ranch recording studio is several miles away, on the road from Nederland up to Caribou.
History
1861 to 1969
A prospector named Conger discovered placer gold downstream from Caribou in 1861. He eventually followed the gold…
Central City - Idaho Springs
United States
Historical Mines
Silver veins were discovered in the Central City-Idaho Springs district a short time after gold was discovered there in 1859. However, mining the silver veins was delayed for the most part until smelters were built in the late 1860s. The veins of the district are zoned in a roughly concentric manner, with gold-bearing pyrite veins in the center, and silver-bearing galena veins more common in the outlying…
Cerro Colorado Mountains
United States
Historical Mines
The Cerro Colorado Mountains are a low mountain range in southern Pima County, Arizona, USA. The highest point of the range is (5,319 feet (1,621 m)). The range consists of a NNW–SSE trending ridge with several shorter ridges extending off the main ridge to the ENE. The higher portions of the range cover an area of about 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi), with dimensions of 6.8 km (4.2 mi) by 4.0 km (2.5 mi).
The…
Cerro Vanguardia Mine
Argentina
Historical Mines
The Cerro Vanguardia Mine is a gold and silver mine located 150 km north west of Puerto San Julián, in the Santa Cruz province of Argentina. It is majority-owned and operated by AngloGold Ashanti, which holds a 92.5% interest in the mine . The remaining 7.5% are owned by Formicruz (Fomento Minero de Santa Cruz Sociedad del Estado), a company owned by the province of Santa Cruz.
In 2008, the mine…
Champion Mill
United States
Historical Mines
Champion Mill, in Lake County, Colorado, is part of a mining complex on the eastern slope of Mount Champion on Halfmoon Creek. Established in the 1890s, it was a consistent supplier of gold and silver, as well as galena and pyrite to the smelters in Leadville, CO. The mine and mill operated until around 1919, when the price to ship the ore to Leadville became too expensive to maintain a profit.
Cliff Mine
United States
Historical Mines
The Cliff mine was the first successful copper mine in the Copper Country of the state of Michigan in the United States. The mine is at the now-abandoned town of Clifton in Keweenaw County. Mining began in 1845, and the Cliff was the most productive copper mine in the United States from 1845 through 1854. Large-scale mining stopped in 1878.
The Cliff mined a fissure vein of native copper in Precambrian…
Cobalt
Canada
Historical Mines
Cobalt is a town in the district of Timiskaming, province of Ontario, Canada, with a population of 1,133 (as per the Canada 2011 Census.)
In 2001 Cobalt was named "Ontario's Most Historic Town" by a panel of judges on the TV Ontario program Studio 2, and in 2002 the "Cobalt Mining District" was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
W.E. Logan discovered cobalt in 1884 at the future site of…
Copiapó
Chile
Historical Mines
Between 1830 and 1850 Chilean silver mining grew at an unprecedented pace which transformed mining into one of the country's principal sources of wealth. The rush caused rapid demographic, infrastructural, and economic expansion in the semi-arid Norte Chico mountains where the silver deposits lay. A number of Chileans made large fortunes in the rush and made investments in other areas of the economy…
Copperfields Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Copperfields Mine, originally known as Temagami Mine, is an abandoned copper and silver mine on Temagami Island in Lake Temagami, Ontario, Canada. The mine opened in 1955 and comprises both underground and surface workings within a sulfide ore body. Situated in Phyllis Township, the mine produced 34,000,000 dollars Canadian with 80 million pounds of copper, 230,028 ounces of silver and 13,271 ounces…
Creede
United States
Historical Mines
Creede was the last silver boom town in Colorado in the 19th century. The town leapt from a population of 600 in 1889 to more than 10,000 people in December 1891. The Creede mines operated continuously from 1890 until 1985, and were served by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.
The original townsite of Creede was located on East Willow Creek just above its junction with West Willow Creek. Below Creede…
Danlou Occurence
Canada
Historical Mines
The Danlou Occurrence, also known as the Danlou Gold Occurrence and the Mortimer Occurrence, is a mineralized zone in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Gold is the occurrence's primary commodity while copper and silver are secondary commodities. It occurs in a quartz vein within a diabase-porphyry shear zone. Pyrite and chalcopyrite are present in small amounts.
The Occurrence is located 10 km (6.2 mi)…
Emma Silver Mine
United States
Historical Mines
The Emma Silver Mine is a currently inactive silver mine near Alta, Utah, in the United States. The mine is most noted for an attempt in 1871 by two American business promoters, including Senator William M. Stewart and James E. Lyon, to make a profit by promoting the depleted silver mine to British investors.
Origins
In the Spring of 1871, promoters Senator William M. Stewart of Nevada, and James E.…
Faro, Yukon
Canada
Historical Mines
Faro is a town in the central Yukon, Canada, formerly the home of the Faro Mine, the largest open pit lead–zinc mine in the world as well as a significant producer of silver and other natural resource ventures. The mine was built by the Ralph M. Parsons Construction Company of the USA with General Enterprises Ltd. of Whitehorse being the main subcontractor. As of 2011, the population is 344, considerably…
Georgetown - Silver Plume
United States
Historical Mines
The Georgetown–Silver Plume National Historic Landmark District is a federally designated United States National Historic Landmark that comprises the Town of Georgetown, the Town of Silver Plume, and the Georgetown Loop Historic Mining & Railroad Park between the two silver mining towns along Clear Creek in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States.
The…
Gilman
United States
Historical Mines
Silver was discovered in the Gilman mining district in 1878 or 1879. As the deeper sulfide ores were reached, the miners found that the ore contained so much zinc that the smelters refused to buy it. A roaster and magnetic separator were installed in 1905 to separate out the zinc minerals, turning the problem into an asset. The mining operations transitioned increasingly to zinc, although the Eagle…
Glasebach Pit
Germany
Historical Mines
The Glasebach Pit (German: Grube Glasebach) is a mining museum and former pit in the Harz fluorspar mining area near Straßberg in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is run by the East Harz Mining Society (Montanverein Ostharz e. V.). The pit was founded under the name of Vertrau auf Gott ("Trust in God").
The mining industry in the area around Straßberg goes back to the time around the year 1400.…
Iwami Ginzan
Japan
Historical Mines
The Iwami Ginzan (石見銀山) was an underground silver mine in the city of Ōda, in Shimane Prefecture on the main island of Honshu, Japan. It was the largest silver mine in Japanese history. It was active for almost four hundred years, from its discovery in 1526 to its closing in 1923.
The mines, mining structures, and surrounding cultural landscape — listed as the "Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and…
Kaslo
Canada
Historical Mines
Kaslo is a village in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada, located on the west shore of Kootenay Lake. Known for its natural environment, it is a member municipality of the Central Kootenay Regional District. As of 2011, it had a population of 1,026.[
Originally designated as a sawmill site in 1889, Kaslo grew on the silver boom of the 19th century, and retains much of the history…
Keeley-Frontier Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Keeley-Frontier Mine is a large abandoned mine in the ghost town of Silver Centre, Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It consists of two underground mines that were sunk 1,455 ft (443 m) below the surface. Keeley Mine was discovered in 1907 while Frontier Mine was constructed in 1921. The 8th level of the Keeley Mine connected with the 6th level of the Frontier Mine in 1962,:42 creating the two compartment…
Keno City
Canada
Historical Mines
Keno City is a small community in Yukon, Canada at the end of the Silver Trail highway. Its population was 15 in 2006 (stats Canada census). Keno City was the site of a former silver-lead mining area proximal to Keno Hill. Keno City is 13 kilometres away from Elsa, Yukon, which is owned by Alexco Resource Corp who currently own and operate the various Ag-Pb-Zn deposits in the Keno Hill area. Rich silver…
Kongsberg Silver Mines
Norway
Historical Mines
Kongsberg Silver works ( Kongsberg Sølvverk) was a mining operation at Kongsberg in Viken county in Norway. The town of Kongsberg is the site of the Norwegian Mining Museum (Norsk Bergverksmuseum).
Operating from over 80 different sites, Kongsberg silver mines constituted the largest mining field in Norway. It was the largest pre-industrial working place in Norway, with over 4,000 workers at its peak…
Laurium
Greece
Historical Mines
Laurium was famous in Classical antiquity for its silver mines, which was one of the chief sources of revenue of the Athenian state. The metallic silver was mainly used for coinage. The Archaeological Museum of Lavrion shows much of the story of these mines.Recent discoveries date the first mines to 3200BC
Systematic exploitation of mineral resources seem to have begun un the 6th century BC under Peisistratus.…
Lautenthal
Germany
Historical Mines
Mining of copper, lead and silver in the area around Lautenthal started about 1225. In the middle of the 14th century, however, the Harz was depopulated because of plague and mining came to an end.
Mining in the Harz was started again in 1524. Lautenthal was founded in 1538 as a mining settlement on the river Laute, a small tributary of the Innerste, and had already been given the status of a town…
Lavrion
Greece
Historical Mines
The Lavrion Mining District has been dated to the Early Bronze Age at about 3200-2800BC and is considered to be the earliest recorded site for the extraction of ore in Europe. From the recorded history of the mines (thanks to the Athenians) after a perceived lull there was an upsurge of mining activity in about 500BC.
At this time Silver output was so vast that the Athenians are thought to have constructed…
Leadville
United States
Historical Mines
Gold was discovered in the area in late 1859, during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush. However the initial discovery, where California Gulch empties into the Arkansas River, was not rich enough to cause excitement. On April 26, 1860, Abe Lee made a rich discovery of placer gold in California Gulch, about a mile east of Leadville, and Oro City was founded at the new diggings. By July 1860 the gold rush was…
Mina Proaño
Mexico
Historical Mines, Operational Mines
Mina Proaño, an underground silver mine located in central Mexico, is one of the world's largest and most profitable silver mines. The mine is located just outside the city of Fresnillo, Zacatecas; and is also known as Mina Fresnillo and Fresnillo Silver Mine. The mining operation is run by Peñoles which, since 1967, has been controlled by Mexico City-based Grupo BAL. In 2004, Mina Proaño produced…
Morro Velho
Brazil
Historical Mines
Morro Velho, also called AngloGold Ashanti Brasil Mineração, after its current owner AngloGold Ashanti, is a complex of gold mines located near the city of Nova Lima in the Minas Gerais state of Brazil.
It is one of two mining operations of the company in Brazil, the other being the Serra Grande Gold Mine.
In 2008, the Brazilian operations contributed 8% to the company's overall production.
Wikipedia
Nasa Silver Mine
Sweden
Historical Mines
The Nasa (Nasafjäll) silver mine (Swedish: Nasa silvergruva), located on Nasa Mountain on the border between Sweden and Norway, was used for mining silver, mainly from 1635 to 1659 and from 1770 to 1810. Smelting occurred during the first period (1635-1659) at Skellefteälven; during the second period (1770-1810) at Adolfström in Arjeplog .
It was an indigenous Sami man by the name of Peder Olofsson…
Net Lake Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Barton Mine, also known as Net Lake Mine, is an abandoned surface and underground mine in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located about 0.50 km (0.31 mi) north of the Temagami Arena in Temagami North and just east of the Ontario Northland Railway in northwestern Strathy Township. Dating back to the early 1900s, it is one of the oldest mines in Temagami. Barton was the site of a fire in the early…
Nevada - Silver Mining
United States
Historical Mines
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…
New Denver
Canada
Historical Mines
New Denver is a village in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, along the shore of Slocan Lake. New Denver was founded as a mining town in 1892, and briefly known as Eldorado City before being renamed after Denver, Colorado. It was incorporated as a village in 1929 and currently has approximately 504 residents.
During World War II, New Denver became a Japanese Canadian internment camp. Not long after…
Nipissing Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
The Nipissing Mine is an abandoned silver mine in Cobalt, Ontario, Canada, located on Nip Hill on the east side of Long Lake.
It was developed in the subsequent Cobalt silver rush of 1903. The original 843 acres of claims were purchased by Ellis P. Earle from the Ferland Syndicate. By 1907, it was the top producing mine in the area. The company completely surrounded Peterson and Carr lakes and occupied…
Pearce Commonwealth
United States
Historical Mines
Pearce, Arizona, and Sunsites, Arizona, are adjacent unincorporated communities in the Sulphur Springs Valley of Cochise County, Arizona, United States. The two communities are often referred to as Pearce-Sunsites, Pearce/Sunsites, or Pearce Sunsites.
Pearce is located between the Cochise Stronghold, Chiricahua National Monument, and the winter Sandhill Crane refuge of Whitewater Draw making it popular…
Planchas de Plata
Mexico
Historical Mines
Planchas de Plata (Spanish for slabs of silver), sometimes called Bolas de Plata (balls of silver) is a historic silver-mining district near Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and a few miles south of the border with the US state of Arizona. Native silver was discovered here in 1736 by Antonio Siraumea, a Yaqui Indian, on the Rancho Arizona of Bernardo de Urrea. Historian Donald Garate believes Urrea's Arizona…
Potosi
Bolivia
Historical Mines
Potosí was founded as a mining town in 1546, while Bolivia was still part of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Over the next 200 years, more than 40,000 tons of silver were shipped out of the town, making the Spanish Empire one of the richest the world had ever seen. But such vast wealth also came at a price. Thousands of the indigenous people were forced to work at the mines, where many perished through accidents,…
Priest Mine
Canada
Historical Mines
Priest Mine is an abandoned surface and underground mine in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located about 19 km (12 mi) northwest of the hamlet of Marten River on an island in north-central Cross Lake. Dating back to the early 1900s, it is one of the oldest mines in the municipality of Temagami.
History
The mine was discovered in 1907 when attention was focused there by the discovery of a quartz…
Rammelsberg
Germany
Historical Mines
The Rammelsberg is a mountain, 635 metres (2,083 ft) high, on the northern edge of the Harz range, south of the historic town of Goslar in the North German state of Lower Saxony. The mountain is the location of an important silver, copper, and lead mine, the only mine which had been working continuously for over 1,000 years when it finally closed in 1988. Since 1992, the visitor mine of Rammelsberg…
Sala Silver Mine
Norway
Historical Mines
Sala Silver Mine (Swedish: Sala silvergruva) is a mine in Sala Municipality, in Västmanland County in Sweden. The mine was in continuous production from the 15th century until 1908. Additional mining occurred in 1950-1951 and also in 1945-1962 in the neighboring Bronäs Mine.
The Sala ore is mainly known for its high silver content though the ore also contained economic amounts of lead and zinc. The…
Samson PIT
Germany
Historical Mines
The Samson Pit or Samson Mine (German: Grube Samson) is an historic silver mine in Sankt Andreasberg in the Upper Harz region of central Germany. The pit has one of the oldest man engines in the world still working and it can be seen in operation during guided tours. The man engine, installed in the Samson Pit in 1837, used to be driven by the water power of the Rehberg Ditch (Rehberger Graben). The…
Santa Ana mine
Peru
Historical Mines
The Santa Ana Silver Project is a proposed open pit silver mining project by the Bear Creek Mining Corporation for the Santa Ana silver deposit in Huacullani District, Chucuito Province, Puno Region in southern Peru. Bear Creek's concession to the mine was revoked in late June 2011.
Bear Creek states that 63.2 million ounces of silver (proven and probable mineral reserves) are at the site, 19.7% of…
Silver Centre
Canada
Historical Mines
Silver Centre is a ghost town in Timiskaming District, Northeastern Ontario, Canada, situated in South Lorrain Township. It is located approximately 35 km (22 mi) south of North Cobalt, and 3 km (1.9 mi) west of Highway 567. Silver Centre was a secondary camp to the great silver fields of Cobalt, discovered in 1903. There are no current residents in Silver Centre. It is still an active mineral…
Silver Islet
Canada
Historical Mines
In 1868, one of the richest veins of silver was discovered on Silver Islet,a tiny Island located at the tip of the Sibley Peninsula in Lake Superior, by the Montreal Mining Company. The company sold it in 1870 to an American, Alexander H. Sibley, who formed the Silver Islet Mining Company.
The mine was extremely difficult to set up but it proved worthwhile as it ended up being one of the most successful…
Slocan
Canada
Historical Mines
The Village of Slocan, historically also known as Slocan City, is a village in the Slocan Valley of the West Kootenay region of the southeastern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located at the southern end of Slocan Lake, to the south of New Denver, which sits mid-way up the lake's eastern shore.
The townsite was staked at the lower end of Slocan Lake in 1892 following massive silver strikes…