Tintic Early Mills

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Early Tintic Mills

The following comes from D. B. Huntley, Mining Industries of Utah, Appendix I, Reports of the Tenth Census, 1880, page 446.

The Tintic Mining and Milling Company’s mill is situated at Homansville, Utah county, just over the line from Tintic district, Juab county, from which it obtains its ore. It is 2-1/2 miles east of the Eureka Hill mines and 18 miles west of Santaquin. The mill was built by an Ohio company, called the Wyoming Mining and Milling Company, and started in January, 1873, on ore from the old Wyoming mine. This mine failed, and the company bought others and milled much ore during the year. In the spring of 1874 Colonel Locke took charge, and purchased it in February, 1877. The mill was bought by the Tintic company and began operations July 14, 1880. The mill is very neat, fully equipped, substantial, and convenient. It was built at a cost of $65,000. It contains a Blake rock-breaker 8 by 10 inches, a dry-floor 10 by 30 feet, ten 750-pound stamps, four Horn pans 2 feet 2 inches by 4 feet 8 inches, two settlers, 3 by 8 feet, a clean-up pan, a retort, a Stetefeldt furnace, and a very fine 45 horse-power engine made in Marysville, California. The batteries are double-discharge, and have a No. 40 brass wire screen, 8-iuch drop, speed 90, and a capacity of from 7 to 20 tons per day, depending on the ore. The pans hold 1,800 pounds, and are run eight hours. No chemicals, except a little potassium cyanide, are added. The loss of mercury is one pound per ton. Settlers containing two-pan charges are run eight hours. The bullion is from 0.300 to 0.650 fine. There are about 4,000 tons of tailings in the reservoir. These assay $9 per ton. The Stetefeldt furnace has a 40-foot shaft with pit five feet square, flue-dust chambers 42 by 15 feet by 12 feet, and 100 feet of underground flue to a 70-foot stack. It requires the labor of four men and 1-1/2 cords of wood per twenty-four hours. From 5 to 6 per cent of salt is used. The company’s charges are $25 per ton for working, guaranteeing 80 per cent, in bullion of the assay value of the silver, and also of the gold if it exceeded $10 per ton. The product of this mill while under Colonel Locke’s management, from the spring of 1874 to the spring of 1878, was $39,058.73 gold and $241,112.23 silver, from 3,261.7 tons of ore.

Unless noted, the following is lifted directly from USGS Professional Paper 107, Tintic Mining District, published in 1919.

"The first mill in the district was started at Homansville in 1872 for the treatment of ores from the Eureka Hill mine by the amalgamation process. It was equipped with a Blake crusher and 12 revolving stamps having a capacity of treating 'about 25 tons of ore a day. Very little work was done by this plant, and it was finally removed to a site 8 miles south of the Mammoth mine, where it formed part of the 27-stamp mill constructed and enlarged between 1876 and 1879 to treat ores from the Crismon-Mammoth mine. The additional parts of this mill ·were obtained from other abandoned mills." (USGS Professional Paper 107, Tintic Mining District, published in 1919, on page 115)

June 3, 1877
"The Wyoming Mill, owned by Col. J. M. Locke is situated at Homansville, about the only location in the district where there is to be had an abundant supply of water. The nearest mineral producing point, Eureka Hill, is distant two miles, and the other mines are from seven to twelve miles away. This mill was constructed by Mr. D. B. Bell, the same gentleman who built the Ontario company's, and like all work he does in this line, is of the best possible character." The mill had ten stamps powered by a 100-horsepower engine. The mill had a daily capacity of ten tons. Eight of the ten tons came from the Crismon Mammoth mine, and the remaining two tons came from the Golden Treasure and Eureka mines. Eighteen men were employed at the mill. (Salt Lake Daily Tribune, June 3, 1877)

The second mill erected at Homansville was the Wyoming, built by an Ohio concern called the Wyoming Mining & Milling Co., which started January, 1873 on ore from the old Wyoming mine, afterward the Eagle and now part of the Eagle and Blue Bell. This mine failed, and the company bought others and milled much ore. The Wyoming mill was equipped with 10 stamps, 4 amalgamating pans, and the first Stetefeldt chloridizing roaster furnace erected in Utah, which had a capacity of 30 tons. The mill is said by Col. Joseph M. Locke, its manager, to have been the only one that was successful at that time, as all the other mills tried to work the ores as free-milling ores, handling some ore from the immediate surface with a measure of success but failing with other ores. Antimony caused the chief trouble, which was overcome, according to Col. Locke, by thoroughly chloridizing it and then, with the aid of steam passed into the shaft of the Stetefeldt furnace, driving it off as chloride. The mill was not run steadily, owing to the scarcity of ore of the class which the mill could treat. The ore was mined usually in small lots by lessees and hauled to the mill, and when sufficient ore had accumulated to make a run the mill was put into commission. It ran in this way until 1878, closing then because its largest shipper, the owners of the Crismon-Mammoth mine, attempted to mill their own ore.

According to the ore record of the Wyoming mill, it treated from the Crismon-Mammoth mine between April 29, 1876, and June, 1877, ore aggregating 1,907 tons containing gold and silver. The average of 547 tons treated in 1877 assayed $11.74 in gold· and 52.56 ounces in silver to the ton. As a general rule milling companies did not pay for gold until l876, and as no assays were made by the miners except for silver the millman had the advantage. It was after this time that the mine owners attempted to mill their own ores.

In the spring of 1874 Col. Locke took charge of the Wyoming mill and, in February, 1877, he purchased it. The mill was afterward bought by the Tintic Mining & Milling Co., which began operations July 14, 1880. After this time the charges for working the ore were $25 a ton and the company guaranteed 80 per cent in bullion of the assay value of the silver and also of the gold if it exceeded $10 a ton. The product of this mill while under Col. Locke's management, from the spring of 1874 to the spring of 1878, was $39,058.73 in gold and $241,112.23 in silver recovered from 3,261.7 tons of ore. In 1880 this mill was again put into condition for operation, and in 1881 it commenced on custom ores. It treated mostly Northern Spy ore in 1882, and operated almost continuously up to 1886.

In 1873, before the purchase of the Wyoming mill, the Tintic Co. built near Diamond a plant known as the Miller mill, with 10 stamps, wet crushing for custom work. Leaching was unsuccessfully attempted here in the spring of 1879. Also in 1873 another plant, known as the Shoebridge or Ely mill, was built 6 miles south of Diamond for custom work. It had 15 stamps and one Aiken roasting furnace, and ran irregularly until February, 1877, when the company failed. The Hunt & Douglas process was introduced in 1876. The property was bought in 1878 by S. P. Ely, who ran it as a custom mill between October, 1878, and September, 1879.

The Mammoth-Copperopolis mill was erected at Roseville, six miles from the mine, to treat the gold ores of the mine, in 1873, about the same time or shortly before its smelter was constructed but it was soon found that the large quantity of copper present in the ore impeded operations very much. The equipment consisted of fifteen stamps of 750 pounds each, six amalgamating pans, three settlers, and one agitator. The mill had a capacity of 22-1/2 tons of ore for each 24 hours.

The Crismon-Mammoth 27-stamp mill was built eight miles south of the mine between December, 1876, and February, 1879, and crushed wet until March, 1880. A White & Howell furnace was then added but was soon shut down. Wet crushing was again begun in August, 1880. Besides a chloridizing roasting furnace there were seventeen 750-pound stamps, ten 550-pound stamps, a rock breaker, five pans, three settlers, and a retort. The tailings on hand in 1880 were said to assay $9 or more to the ton in gold and silver. The mill was closed in 1882.

In 1891 a 15-stamp mill was equipped by John Shettle to treat Mammoth ores by the lixiviation process. Forty tons·was being treated daily, assaying 18 ounces of silver per ton, and 15 more stamps were being added. This mill was sold to the Tintic Milling Co. in May, 1892, and worked Northern Spy ore averaging $20 in gold and silver to the ton.

Between 1886 and 1893 nearly all the mines were shipping ores to the smelters for treatment, and all ores not having sufficient value to warrant their transportation were accumulated on the waste dumps. As the district contained no water available for milling, it was impossible to make any use of these ores. However, during 1893 the Mammoth Mining Co. constructed a pipe line from Cherry Creek, a distance of 20 miles, and erected a large pumping plant, with a capacity of 600 gallons a minute, at a cost said to have been about $130,000.

During 1893 the construction of quartz mills was begun, and in 1895 there were four pan-amalgamation plants of the most modern type operating in the district. They operated very successfully on the lower-grade ores of the district and shipped both bullion and concentrates. The richer ores were shipped to the smelters·in the vicinity of Salt Lake City and elsewhere. Later the smelters and ore buyers offered better prices and the railroads lower rates on some of the ores that were being milled, making it an object to ship instead of mill, and so all the milling plants were soon closed.

In 1905 concentration mills were built on the Godiva and Uncle Sam properties, using water piped from Homansville, two miles away. The Uncle Sam mill reverted to the May Day Co. some time later. It was dismantled in 1916, and the building was used for storing ore. Attempts were made by lessees of the May Day property to concentrate the carbonate ore dry during the time the mill was in existence and resulted in a very good grade of concentrate. The process was patented by Dietz & Keedy.

Beginning in 1913 the old ore and tailing dump of the May Day was treated in a cyanide plant operated by lessees. In the later part of 1913 a mill was completed at Silver City to use the Knight-Christensen process of chloridizing, roasting, and leaching, which was being adapted to treat the low-grade ores of the Knight mines; Iron Blossom, Colorado, Beck Tunnel, Black Jack, Dragon, and Swansea. The ores from these mines are said to afford an excellent variety of oxidized, sulphide, and siliceous material, from which to make a mixture most suitable to the process of treatment. On April 6, 1915 the plant was destroyed by fire. Reconstruction began on the site of the abandoned Tintic smelter in July, 1915, by the Tintic Milling Co., newly organized by a consolidation of the Knight-Christensen Metallurgical Co. and the Mines Operating Co., which had operated successfully for two years at Park City, using the Holt-Dern process of roasting. The new mill was at first equipped with three Holt-Dern roasters and one Christensen roaster. The latter was discarded and eight more Holt-Dern roasters were added in 1916, when operations on a commercial scale began. At first about 150 tons of ore was treated daily. This quantity was subsequently doubled. The ores treated contain silver as the principal metal, with copper, gold, and lead, the content ranging from 4 to 30 ounces of silver and 0.03 to 0.20 ounce of gold to the ton, 1 to 2 per cent of lead, and from a trace to 2 per cent of copper. The lead is not recovered.

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