Mohave County The Treasure Vault of Arizona

[jeff of pa]

Mohave County miner. (Mineral Park, A.T. [Ariz.])1906,


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[Lanny in AB]

Mohave County miner. (Mineral Park, A.T. [Ariz.])1906,


too many Parts to Post here

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Wow!

Thanks, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Clay Diggins]

I'm guessing you've never been to Mohave County Jeff?

During that time period the reports of mineral wealth in the west were even more exaggerated than now.

Always take old mining reports with a few pounds of salt. Especially when the newspaper has the word Miner in the title. I believe tooting your own horn was considered a worthy pastime back then. Kind of like TV ads now. (Lawn Darts, Melamine dog food, cheap land in Mohave County, 40 ounces to the ton, cheap land in Florida, cheap houses in Detroit, Love Canal the Community of the Future, Great deals on used cars from New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, Enron the best buy in energy stocks, Yugo, etc... etc... etc...)

Mohave County does have some good mineral deposits but mining them has almost always proven to be less of a boom and more of a bust when the big operations try to make a buck. Hard scrabblers and smart prospectors have an opportunity to strike it rich if they survive the elements. Lack of water has killed all but the smallest operations and more than a few prospectors.

Heavy Pans

 

[jeff of pa]

Everything needs to be researched, That's a Given , but still allot of History from what I seen.
Ghost towns Etc.. for those who need to start somewhere.
I would think it's better then driving to the Middle of Arizona and playing Eenie Meenie Miney Mo

the Complete collection

Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth. (Kingman, Ariz.)

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Mohave County miner. (Mineral Park, A.T. [Ariz.])

Search Results « Chronicling America « Library of Congress

 

[goldenIrishman]

Yeah.... There's NOTHING in Mineral Park. In fact the entirety Mohave County is nothing more than a very large dry hole. Take my word for it since I live only a few miles to the south of Mineral Park and can see it from my front yard. So remember... Nothing to see here folks.... please move along. (as I load up my shovels, buckets and detectors....) If you insist on tagging along, better have your snake chaps, snake gun and some damn good hiking boots!

P.S. MUCH better digging down near that little town in Maricopa County. What was is called again? Oh yeah! Wickenburg. Better get the beer on ice Clay. Company coming!

 

[jeff of pa]

Mineral Park - Arizona Ghost Town

 

[nh.nugget]

Yeah.... There's NOTHING in Mineral Park. In fact the entirety Mohave County is nothing more than a very large dry hole. Take my word for it since I live only a few miles to the south of Mineral Park and can see it from my front yard. So remember... Nothing to see here folks.... please move along. (as I load up my shovels, buckets and detectors....) If you insist on tagging along, better have your snake chaps, snake gun and some damn good hiking boots!

P.S. MUCH better digging down near that little town in Maricopa County. What was is called again? Oh yeah! Wickenburg. Better get the beer on ice Clay. Company coming!

GI, are you trying to protect your honey hole? LOL!

 

[arizau]

I'm guessing you've never been to Mohave County Jeff?

Mohave County does have some good mineral deposits but mining them has almost always proven to be less of a boom and more of a bust when the big operations try to make a buck. Hard scrabblers and smart prospectors have an opportunity to strike it rich if they survive the elements. Lack of water has killed all but the smallest operations and more than a few prospectors.

Heavy Pans

Have you forgotten about Duval Corporation and it's Mineral Park open pit copper mining property that operated for over 40 years or is your reference strictly referring to primary precious metal mines? I'm guessing the latter. Mineral park concentrates also contained payable quantities/credits of Ag and if I recall correctly Au too. Those payments probably put a healthy dent in the smelting fees and deducts.

For those not in the know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_Park_mine

I, my Mother and my Wife had a long history with Duval. My Mother was the first female employed to work at a Duval owned operating mine site. That was back in the early 60's and she did office work at the Carlsbad, NM potash operation until her retirement.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Have you forgotten about Duval Corporation and it's Mineral Park open pit copper mining property that operated for over 40 years or is your reference strictly referring to primary precious metal mines? I'm guessing the latter. Mineral park concentrates also contained payable quantities/credits of Ag and if I recall correctly Au too. Those payments probably put a healthy dent in the smelting fees and deducts.

For those not in the know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_Park_mine

I, my Mother and my Wife had a long history with Duval. My Mother was the first female employed to work at a Duval owned operating mine site. That was back in the early 60's and she did office work at the Carlsbad, NM potash operation until her retirement.

Good information arizau. Thanks for sharing! I love hearing from the people that were there.

I hadn't forgotten about Duval. In fact I was referring to them and their successors. Duval opened the Mineral Park mine in 1964 after spending 6 years and 32 million dollars to get there. They operated the mine for almost 16 years. The average net was in the range of 6 million dollars a year in the 1970's. Taxes from Mohave County were high and profits were barely sustainable. By 1975 Duval estimated a deposit life of 10 years at the current rate of mine production. The mine closed five years later in 1980 and all the closure maintenance employees were let go in 1982. Duval went bankrupt by 1984 under the weight of the heavy debt load they took on with Mineral Park. Interest rates went up and mineral prices went down.

I'm pretty sure neither Duval investors or their employees considered that a "success". It's good that they employed 300+ people for 16 years. It was historically the best of times for Mohave County because of the Duval operation. Duval was the biggest taxpayer in Mohave County. 300+ people in a County 13 times the size of Rhode Island.

Since 1984 at least three new Mineral Park mine owners went bankrupt. The most recent Mercator Minerals Ltd. estimated a 25 year life for the mine in 2006. They began restoration work in 2008 and full operation in 2013. They went bankrupt a year later in 2014 without notice to their employees or investors. Mohave County got half of the proceeds of the $10 million mine bankruptcy sale as back taxes, The other half went to pay the bill for the custom generators they purchased.

None of these mining operations were the "big boys". But they were bigger than the small operators that have succeeded. Duval was a long time small plant potash and sulfur miner that made their move to expand with the Mineral Park property in the late 50's. They were good miners who did everything right and were caught out with diminishing profits and rising interest rates. They weren't bad guys but they never succeeded with the Mineral Park property nor has anyone else. Now that the onsite generators and concentrators have been sold off in the bankruptcy I doubt Mineral Park will see any success in the foreseeable future. There aren't any smelters out there that will even consider taking in raw low grade ore. I doubt you could find one in the Southwest to even run concentrate.

There is a lot of opportunity for the small miner in Mohave County. It's a tough time to be looking for work there from the bigger mining operations. These intermittent mining companies formed every few years to restart Mineral Park do bring some work and income to the area and that's a good thing in a huge county with less than 15 people per square mile.

Heavy Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

GI, are you trying to protect your honey hole? LOL!

Now would I do something like that? There is plenty of land in this area for all prospectors! (Well maybe not all of them from Cali should things get worse there for miners) All I ask is that you do your research, your due diligence and respect other folks claims. Oh.... And showing up with a cold one once in a while wouldn't be frowned upon at all.

 

[goldenIrishman]

OK..... All this talk about the Mineral Park area has "inspired" me to take a little drive and do some testing just to the north of there. Maps have been checked to make sure I don't get into the Tipton Peak Wilderness area and that there are no current claims where I'm heading out to. We had taken a drive a couple of weeks ago and there were some areas of road cut that had exposed a lot of really good looking formations that are easy to get to so it's time to go take a much closer look. I'll let ya know what if anything we find Jeff. Might even take a couple of pictures to upload for ya.

 

[nh.nugget]

Here we go! New honey hole coming up! LOL! We all know your gonna say all you found was dirt!

 

[jeff of pa]

I'll be Happy with Pictures

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well I hate to say it but detecting didn't turn up much of anything. One tin can that was buried DEEP in the bank and when I got it out I could tell it was older than Clay. Also hit on one lead shard of pretty good size (also deep) and an unidentified chunk of steel about 3/4 of an inch long. It's been warming up around here at last so the snakes should be out at any time. Packed the .38 with snake load as a just in case and had to remind Jan to stay behind me in case they put in an early appearance.

Sorry for the lack of pictures Jeff but cell coverage was off and on and I got sick and tired of having to listen to "Verizon Vicki" so I shut her off. I'll get you some pics next time we go out there. We were just north of Chloride off Big Wash Road (east side of the highway) which is a really nice drive with some killer views from up top. You can look down on the old Mineral Park workings in several places.