Brief by Central Staff
Mining – April 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Last year, we reported on the closing of the Sweet Home Mine near Alma. It started as a silver mine in 1873, and was resurrected in recent times to produce rhodochrosite, a red gemstone that was declared Colorado’s official state mineral in 2003.
The mine closed on Oct. 18, 2004 because the declining number of crystals being found did not bring enough income to cover the expense of mining. Reclamation work will soon be underway at the site.
At the time of closure, a couple of newspaper stories observed that Colorado was down to only two hard-rock mines – the Henderson molybdenum mine near Empire, and Yule Marble near Marble. (Several coal mines are in operation, but they’re not “hard-rock” mines. And uranium production is growing, but since it, like coal, is usually found in soft sedimentary rock, it isn’t exactly hard-rock mining either.)
We just learned about another – a gold mine in operation in Hinsdale County near Lake City. It’s the Golden Wonder, which dates back to the 19th century, and went back into small-scale production a few years ago.
In the past two years, it has produced 41,693 ounces of gold from 2,830 tons of ore, which works out to 14.7 ounces of gold per ton of ore.
That’s rich ore, at least by contemporary standards. Most modern gold mines move through immense deposits of low-grade ore; a fraction of an ounce per ton is enough to make one of those Nevada open-pit gold mines profitable.
The ore is not refined locally. Bob Oswald, who runs the Durango office of the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology, said the ore is hauled down a narrow road to Lake City in small trucks, then loaded on a semi and hauled to Nevada for milling.
The mine, he said, might have half-a-dozen employees.
We tried to find out more, but Lake City appeared to be off-duty on a March weekday. The mine didn’t have a listed telephone number, and nobody answered at either the county commissioners’ office or the newspaper office.