Calaveras Gold: The Impact Of Mining On A Mother Lode County

7 Unstable Twenties and Thirties

 Calaveras Gold that improved production and reduced costs. As a result, the Penn mine outran the Union-Keystone to become the most important copper mine by , not only in Calaveras County, but also all along the West Belt. As will be seen in the next chapter, between the wars there were a few short-lived attempts to reestablish the operation, with a final boom at the Penn mine coming in World War II. * * * Improved technology and corporate financing, modernization of mining and milling equipment, consolidation of significant properties, better management , and systematic production—these were the key elements that accelerated the development of Calaveras lode mining between the s and World War I. Mining in the golden years at the turn of the century was not only the county’s principal industry, but also its raison d’être. It energized the economic life of the county’s towns and villages, stimulated trade and travel, provided employment and support for most of the county’s population, and reinforced a cultural milieu that emphasized hard work and material growth. But even though mining culture in the golden years still championed the Lode Mining in the Golden Years  values of rugged individualism and personal achievement, mining was no longer a pioneer business open to anyone. The formative years of individual or small-company operations had given way to modern industrial mining, where individual miners were not entrepreneurs but hired hands working in shifts for a weekly paycheck. In this period Calaveras led all othercounties of the southern Mother Lode in modernizing the mining business. As W. H. Clary said in , mining in Calaveras County was a corporate enterprise with little room for the old-time prospector who would be better off ‘‘in a pocket country such as Tuolumne or Mariposa counties.’’ The remark was overtly provincial and biased, since Calaveras had had more than its share of little mines and pocket hunters, some of whom did very well indeed. Even as late as ,Vic Lagomarsino and Dave Queirolo of Angels Camp came to town with a load of quartz averaging one hundred dollars a pound from the Gobbi Ranch near Fosteria,which ‘‘has  Calaveras Gold 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 C a r s o n H i l l – M e l o n e s U t i c a S h e e p R a n c h G w i n R o y a l A n g e l s L i g h t n e r G o l d C l i f f A l t o B o s t o n M o u n t a i n K i n g M a d i s o n C a r s o n C r e e k Q u a k e r C i t y (in millions of dollars) Calaveras Lode Gold Mine Production, –. (Authors’ database) always been regarded as a pocket section of the country,’’ said the newsman who reported the story.84 Yet Clary’s point was clear: Old-fashioned methods could no longer sustain a modern industry. Even the smaller mines recognized the need to modernize after the s, but raising capital was difficult for small and marginal operators. Some simply mined only the high-grade ore for quick cash, as the Tanner mine operators did at Murphys between  and World War I. Others were more sensible, trying to find technological alternatives that could prolong production and still save money. In  at the ... mine in Angels Camp, for example, W. G. Drown, to remedy a power shortage, installed a gasoline engine to run a new rock crusher and other surface equipment. A few years later at the Alto mine near Copperopolis,Tommy Lane, brotherof the Utica owner, expanded operations by glory-hole mining to feed his new forty-stamp mill powered by electricity from the new Tulloch dam and power plant at Knights Ferry on the Stanislaus. Despite a low ore grade, Lane kept operating costs below fifty cents a ton.85 Through these and other efforts by progressive mine owners, large and small, Calaveras mining came of age by World War I. The Utica and Carson Hill–Melones mines emerged as the two largest gold producers, with the Gwin and Sheep Ranch not far behind. As the comparative graph in Table . indicates, between...