Misplaced Pages

#740259

79-407: Anaconda Copper Mine may refer to one of two mines operated by Anaconda Copper Anaconda Copper Mine (Nevada) Anaconda Copper Mine (Montana) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Anaconda Copper Mine . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

158-521: A Roman alluvial gold mine at Las Médulas , Spain are so spectacular as to justify the site being designated UNESCO World Heritage status. The methods used by the Roman miners are described by Pliny the Elder in his work Naturalis Historia published in about 77 AD. The author was a Procurator in the region and so probably witnessed large-scale hydraulic mining of the placer deposits there. He also added that

237-468: A close friendship with a shrewd, intelligent businessman, John D. Ryan , who assumed the presidency of Daly's bank and management of his widow's fortune. The leaders of Amalgamated turned to Ryan, famous for his negotiation skills, for help in creating a monopoly at Butte. Control of the areas producing mines was a key to high income. Ryan convinced Heinze to walk away with abundant compensation, allowing Amalgamated to take over Heinze's properties as well as

316-416: A few feet, or more than ten feet (a common term for one that is over six feet +/- is a "Long Tom"). While they are capable of handling a larger volume of material than simpler methods such as the rocker box or gold panning, this can come at the cost of efficiency, since conventional sluice boxes have been found to recover only about 40% of the gold that they process. The sluice box was used extensively during

395-407: A larger volume became more common. The same principle may be employed on a larger scale by constructing a short sluice box , with barriers along the bottom called riffles to trap the heavier gold particles as water washes them and the other material along the box. This method better suits excavation with shovels or similar implements to feed ore into the device. Sluice boxes can be as short as

474-478: A major shale-oil venture , but that the world oil glut and the declining price of petroleum made shale oil moot." At the time of the sale to ARCO, Anaconda had large working hard coal holdings in the Black Thunder mine at Thunder Basin, Wyoming . ARCO planned to diversify its energy business into coal. In June 1998, Arch Coal completed the acquisition of the coal assets of Atlantic Richfield. Closing down

553-539: A silver mine in Park City, Utah , which consequently made Hearst many millions. Huge deposits of copper were soon developed and Daly became a copper magnate. When surrounding silver mines "played out" and closed, Daly bought up the neighboring mines, forming a mining company. In 1883, Daly built a smelter at Anaconda, Montana , building a company town to support the workers, and connected his smelter to Butte by his Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway . Butte became one of

632-481: A sluice box, being fed not by a sluice but by hand. The box sits on rockers, which when rocked separates out the gold, and the practice was referred to as "rocking the golden baby". A typical rocker box is approximately 42 inches long, 16 inches wide and 12 inches deep with a removable tray towards the top, where gold is captured. The rocker was commonly used throughout North America during the early gold rush, but its popularity diminished as other methods that could handle

711-443: A stream bed. Gold accumulations in an old stream bed that are high are called bench deposits. They can be found on higher slopes that drain into valleys. Dry stream beds (benches) can be situated far from other water sources and can sometimes be found on mountaintops. Today, many miners focus their activities on bench deposits. Deep leads are created when a former stream bed is covered over by later sediments or by igneous rock from

790-653: A stroke, but William Rockefeller brought in his son Percy Rockefeller to help with leadership. In 1912 and 13, the Pujo Committee investigated William Rockefeller and others for allegedly earning $ 30 million in profit through cornering of the copper market and "synchronizing with artificially enforced activity" in Amalgamated Copper stock in the New York Stock Exchange. During the 1920s, metal prices went up and mining activity increased. Those were really

869-702: A suburb of Butte. While working in the Alice, he noticed significant quantities of high grade copper ore. Daly scouted the Anaconda and several other mines in the area and recommended the mine to the Walker brothers, who sent a professional geologist to inspect the Anaconda. The Walkers were not interested in the mine, and Daly sold his interest in the Alice to purchase it himself. Placer gold and silver lode mining had taken place at Butte, placer mining at Helena , Bannock and Virginia City , Montana territory respectively, and Butte

SECTION 10

#1733084750741

948-595: A toll in the mining industry; decline in demand led to the company making massive layoffs in both the United States and Chile (up to 66 percent unemployment rate in the Chilean mines). On March 26, 1931, Anaconda cut its dividend rate 40%. John D. Ryan died in 1933 and was buried in a copper coffin. His mighty Anaconda shares, once worth $ 175 each, had dropped to $ 3 at the low of the Great Depression. Cornelius Kelley became

1027-423: A trough into the primary sluice box where it is filtered again. Both the grizzly and undercurrent are designed to increase efficiency, and were often used in combination. Sluicing is only effective in areas where there is a sufficient water supply, and is impractical in arid areas. Alternative methods developed that used the blowing of air to separate out gold from sand. One of the more common methods of dry washing

1106-770: A vein, are typically only a minuscule portion of the total deposit. Since gems and heavy metals like gold are considerably denser than sand , they tend to accumulate at the base of placer deposits. Placer deposits can be as young as a few years old, such as the Canadian Queen Charlotte beach gold placer deposits, or billions of years old like the Elliot Lake uranium paleoplacer within the Huronian Supergroup in Canada. The containing material in an alluvial placer mine may be too loose to safely mine by tunnelling, though it

1185-490: A volcanic eruption. Examples existed in the goldfields of Gulgong and Creswick in Australia. The gold bearing gravel is accessed by shafts and drives similar to underground mining techniques but is typically processed as if alluvial gold. The heat associated with an igneous lava flow, in some cases, altered the gold bearing gravel so that it needed to be crushed first to extract the gold; an example of this kind of deep lead

1264-455: Is " winnowing ". This method was most commonly used by Spanish miners in America, and only requires a blanket and a box with a screen on the bottom. The material is first filtered through the box so only the finer material is placed onto the blanket. The material on the blanket is then flung into the air so that any breeze can blow away the lighter material and leave the gold behind. While this method

1343-413: Is extremely simple and requires very few materials, it is also slow and inefficient. A trommel is composed of a slightly inclined rotating metal tube (the 'scrubber section') with a screen at its discharge end. Lifter bars, sometimes in the form of bolted in angle iron, are attached to the interior of the scrubber section. The ore is fed into the elevated end of the trommel. Water, often under pressure,

1422-446: Is now rarely used for profit since even an expert gold prospector can only process approximately one cubic yard of material for every 10 hours of work. A rocker box (or "cradle") is capable of greater volume than a gold pan; however, its production is still limited when compared to other methods of placer mining. It is only capable of processing about 3 or 4 yards of gravel a day. It is more portable and requires less infrastructure than

1501-461: Is possible where the ground is permanently frozen . Where water under pressure is available, it may be used to mine, move, and separate the precious material from the deposit, a method known as hydraulic mining , hydraulic sluicing or hydraulicking . The word placer derives from the Spanish placer , meaning shoal or alluvial/sand deposit, from plassa (place) from Medieval Latin placea (place)

1580-624: Is provided to the scrubber and screen sections and the combination of water and mechanical action frees the valuable heavy minerals from the lighter gravel. The mineral bearing ore that passes through the screen is then further concentrated in smaller devices such as sluices and jigs. The larger pieces of ore that do not pass through the screen can be carried to a waste stack by a conveyor. Large-scale sifting of placer gold from large volumes of alluvial deposits can be done by use of mechanical dredges. These dredges were originally very large boats capable of processing massive amounts of material; however, as

1659-490: Is the Mexican dry wash. This method involves placing gravel on a riffle board with a bellows placed underneath it. The bellows is then used to blow air through the board in order to remove the lighter material from the heavier gold. The amount of gravel that can be processed using the Mexican dry wash technique varies from 1 1/2 to 4 cubic yards per day, and can be processed at a maximum efficiency of 80%. Another form of dry washing

SECTION 20

#1733084750741

1738-479: The California gold rush for larger scale operations. When streams became increasingly depleted, the grizzly and undercurrent variants of the sluice box were developed. The grizzly is a set of parallel bars placed at a 45-degree angle over the main sluice box, which filter out larger material. The undercurrent variety includes additional, auxiliary sluice boxes where material is initially filtered. It then travels through

1817-571: The United Copper Company . Neither organization was able to monopolize copper extraction in Montana. In addition, although Butte was the most prolific copper-mining district in the world, Amalgamated could not control production from other copper producing districts, such as those in Michigan , Utah , Arizona , or countries outside the United States. Marcus Daly passed away in 1900. His widow began

1896-558: The Upper Clark Fork river basin and many associated areas as Superfund sites—the nation's largest. The EPA named ARCO as the "potentially responsible party." As a result, ARCO was obliged to remediate (clean up) the area. Since then, ARCO and BP have spent hundreds of millions of dollars decontaminating and rehabilitating the area, though the job is far from finished. ARCO merged with BP in 2000. BP in turn sold most of ARCO to Tesoro in 2010, but retains responsibility for cleanup of

1975-560: The Amalgamated Copper Company from 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana . It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mining companies in the world for much of the 20th century. Marcus Daly bought the original silver mine, named the Anaconda, in 1880. Daly partnered with George Hearst , James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis in 1881 to develop it, and

2054-700: The Anaconda Company owned several Montana newspapers including the Butte Post , Butte Miner , Anaconda Standard , Daily Missoulian , Helena Independent , and Billings Gazette . The Anaconda Company controlled the economic and political dealings throughout Montana well into the mid-1900s. As the state's largest employer, Anaconda dominated Montana politics. In the political arena the "copper collar" symbolized influence, wealth, and power. In 1894, Montana held an election to decide which city would be its capital. Marcus Daly, an Anaconda supporter, used his power over

2133-411: The Anaconda Company. From the 1920s until 1959, journalists working at the newspapers could write nothing that clashed with the company's business enterprises. Journalists were thus not allowed to develop and exercise their professional skills through their news judgment - lawyers and accountants made news judgments, not journalists — and were frozen for decades in this pre-professional model. By 1920,

2212-544: The Anaconda Copper Company, and the Rothschilds appear to have had no further role in the company. By his death in 1900, Marcus Daly had just become president of the holding company valued at $ 75 million. Lawson later had a falling out with Rogers and Rockefeller, and wrote of the experience in a book Frenzied Finance (1905). Colored by Lawson's bitterness, the book offered insight into aspects of high finance. At

2291-522: The Anaconda operations and uses ARCO as a subsidiary to handle Anaconda-related lawsuits. Anaconda diversified into aluminum production in 1952, when they purchased rights to build an aluminum reduction plant in Columbia Falls . After two years of construction, the plant went online in August 1955. Following two expansions in the 1960s, the plant had a peak output capacity of 180,000 tons annually. ARCO kept

2370-558: The Berkeley Pit and shut off the deep pumps in 1982, allowing the pit and mines to fill with water. The Continental Pit, the last active Anaconda mining property in Butte, was closed in 1982, but resumed mining in the early 2000's. Six years after ARCO acquired rights to the "Richest Hill on Earth", Butte's mines were completely idle. ARCO founder, Robert Orville Anderson , stated "he hoped Anaconda's resources and expertise would help him launch

2449-501: The Copper Collar, but these hoots and catcalls he contemptuously ignored, reiterated his freedom from all cliques, factions, and corporations and that his purpose had been purely and simply to prove or disprove unlawful practices, and sat down." Even the suggestion that a person wore the "copper collar" created pandemonium from the crowd. Ivan Doig refers to the "copper collar" in his novel Work Song (2010). In 1919, Gracie resists

Anaconda Copper Mine - Misplaced Pages Continue

2528-525: The Rothschilds, French and British, bought out the stock in Anaconda held by Hearst's widow, Phoebe Apperson Hearst , for $ 7.5 million. By the late 1890s the Rothschilds probably had control over the sale of about forty percent of the world's copper production. The Rothschilds' role in Anaconda was brief. In 1899, Daly teamed up with two directors of Standard Oil to create the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company which grew to become one of

2607-400: The United States government, and the successor government of Augusto Pinochet paid Anaconda compensation of $ 250 million. Losses from the Chilean takeover however, had seriously weakened the company's financial position. Later in 1971, Anaconda's Mexican copper mine Compañía Minera de Cananea , S.A. was nationalized by president Luis Echeverría Álvarez 's government. An unwise investment in

2686-458: The Yukon, placer deposits may be mined underground. As the frozen ground is otherwise too hard and firm to mine by hand, historically fires were built so as to thaw the ground before digging it. Later methods involve blasting jets of steam ("points") into the frozen deposits. Deep leads are accessed by techniques similar to conventional underground mining. Although this procedure is not required,

2765-553: The actions were not illegal and took place frequently. Anaconda was producing copper at such a rate they had tremendous stockpiles. To control prices, the company only sold the requested supply. Under the pressure of a "joint account" set up by Ryan and Rockefeller of nearly a million and a half shares of Anaconda Copper Company, prices fluctuated from $ 40 in December 1928, to $ 128 in March 1929. Selling large volumes of shares rather quickly causes

2844-578: The assets of all other copper companies operating in Butte. In 1922, Anaconda bought mining operations in Mexico and Chile ; the latter hosted the largest mine in the world and for a time yielded two-thirds of the company's profits. The company added aluminum reduction to its portfolio in 1955. In the 1950s, the company switched over from underground to open-pit mining . In 1960 its operations employed 37,000 employees in North America and Chile. Anaconda Copper

2923-449: The beginning of the 1900s, due to electrification (and Amalgamated's maintenance of an artificially high copper price), copper was very profitable, and copper mining expanded rapidly. Between 1899 and 1915, Anaconda, controlled by Standard Oil insiders, stayed under the name of Amalgamated Copper Company. Amalgamated was in conflict with powerful copper king F. Augustus Heinze , who also owned mines in Butte; in 1902 he consolidated these as

3002-418: The bottom to fall out of the market; investors lose confidence and dump their shares, causing a domino effect. Small investors would purchase blocks of shares on credit, and when they could not sell at or above the given price, had to sell the shares at a loss when the banks called on their loans for the purchase of said shares. Smaller investors were completely wiped out. The results are still considered one of

3081-425: The chairman in 1940. Butte mining, like most U.S. industry, remained depressed until the dawn of World War II , when the demand for war materials greatly increased the need for copper, zinc, and manganese. Anaconda ranked 58th among United States corporations in the value of World War II-military production contracts. That relieved some of the economic tensions. The end of World War II brought another depression in

3160-430: The company expanded dramatically in 1882 with the discovery of huge copper deposits. In 1883, Daly began building a smelter and the town of Anaconda to process copper mined in Butte. In 1899, with Hearst and Tevis deceased, Haggin retired and Daly restructured the enterprise into the Amalgamated Copper Company, bringing in H H Rogers and William Rockefeller . By 1910, Amalgamated had expanded its operations and bought

3239-453: The company switched to open-pit mining , a very area-consuming method. The Berkeley Pit kept expanding and ate away at the older parts of Butte. In 1971, Chile's newly elected Socialist president Salvador Allende confiscated the Chuquicamata mine from Anaconda, stripping Anaconda of two-thirds of its copper production. Allende was overthrown violently in 1973 in an operation backed by

Anaconda Copper Mine - Misplaced Pages Continue

3318-400: The copper industry because of a decline in demand after war production ended. During the post-war years, demand and prices for copper dropped. At the same time mining costs had risen precipitously. As a result, copper production from Butte's underground vein mines dropped to only 45,000 mt annually. Anaconda tasked its engineers with devising new techniques to keep mining profitable. The answer

3397-564: The flow of water is a great location to find gold. Gold is very dense and is often found in a stream bed. Many different gold deposits are dealt with in different ways. Placer deposits attract many prospectors because their costs are very low. There are many different places gold could be placed, such as a residual, alluvial, and a bench deposit. Residual deposits are more common where there has been weathering on rocks and where there hasn't been water. They are deposits which have not been washed away yet or been moved. The residual usually lies at

3476-548: The gold fields, material that was carried downstream and raised the level of portions of the Central Valley by some seven feet in affected areas and settled in long bars up to 20 feet thick in parts of San Francisco Bay . The process raised an opposition calling themselves the "Anti-Debris Association". In January 1884, the North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company case banned the flushing of debris into streams, and

3555-488: The gold for a large part of the ancient world. Hydraulic mining methods such as hushing were used widely by the Romans across their empire, but especially in the gold fields of northern Spain after its conquest by Augustus in 25 BC. One of the largest sites was at Las Médulas , where seven 30 mile long aqueducts were used to work the alluvial gold deposits through the first century AD. In North America , placer mining

3634-476: The gold has become increasingly depleted in the most easily accessible areas, smaller and more maneuverable dredges have become much more common. These smaller dredges commonly operate by sucking water and gravel up through long hoses using a pump, where the gold can then be separated using more traditional methods such as a sluice box. In areas where the ground is permanently frozen , such as in Siberia, Alaska, and

3713-604: The golden years for Anaconda. The company was managed by the Ryan-Kelley team and was growing fast, expanding into the exploitation of new base metal resources: manganese and zinc . In 1922 the company acquired mining operations in Chile and Mexico ( Cananea ). The mining operation in Chile ( Chuquicamata ), was acquired from the Guggenheims in 1923. It cost Anaconda $ 77 million and was

3792-546: The greatest fleecings in Wall Street history. The United States Senate held hearings on the stock manipulations, concluding that those operations cost the public at the very least, $ 150 million. A 1933 Senate banking committee called these operations the greatest frauds in American banking history, a leading cause of the 1929 stock market crash and 1930s depression. In 1929 Anaconda Copper Mining Co. issued new stock and used some of

3871-516: The largest Superfund site in the country; CERCLA liability passed to BP upon its acquisition of ARCO. Marcus Daly , a self-taught miner, engineer and geologist, bought a small silver mine called Anaconda in 1880. At the time, Daly was working for the Walker brothers , mining investors and bankers from Salt Lake City, Utah . He was a mining superintendent of the Alice, a silver mine in Walkerville,

3950-585: The largest copper mine in the world. It produced copper yielding two-thirds to three-fourths of the Anaconda Company's profits. The same year ACM purchased American Brass Company , the nation's largest brass fabricator and a major consumer of copper and zinc. In 1926 Anaconda acquired the Giesche company, a large mining and industrial firm, operating in the Upper Silesia region of Poland . This nation had gained independence after World War I. At that time Anaconda

4029-564: The largest trusts of the early 20th century. The leading roles were played by Henry Huttleston Rogers ( John D. Rockefeller 's friend and a key man in his Standard Oil businesses) and William Rockefeller (John's brother). They were aided by company promoter Thomas W. Lawson . Although Rogers and William Rockefeller were Standard Oil directors, the company of Standard Oil did not have a stake in this business, nor did its founder and head, John D. Rockefeller , who disliked such stock promotions. By 1899 Amalgamated Copper acquired majority stock in

SECTION 50

#1733084750741

4108-423: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anaconda_Copper_Mine&oldid=932686033 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Anaconda Copper The Anaconda Copper Mining Company , known as

4187-545: The local lake Carucedo had been heavily silted by the mining methods. Environmental activists describe the hydraulic mining form of placer mining as environmentally destructive because of the large amounts of silt that it adds to previously clear running streams (also known as the "Dahlonega Method"). Most placer mines today use settling ponds , if only to ensure that they have sufficient water to run their sluicing operations. In California, from 1853 to 1884, "hydraulicking" of placers removed an enormous amount of material from

4266-456: The minerals from the ground, and separating it from the non-gold or non-gems. The simplest technique to extract gold from placer ore is panning . This technique has been dated back to at least the Roman Empire. In panning, some mined ore is placed in a large metal or plastic pan, combined with a generous amount of water , and agitated so that the gold particles, being of higher density than

4345-561: The mines was not the end of the new owner's problems. The areas of Butte , Anaconda , and the Clark Fork River in this vicinity became highly contaminated by a century of mining and smelting operations. Milling and smelting processes produced wastes with high concentrations of arsenic , as well as copper, cadmium , lead , zinc, and other heavy metals. Beginning in 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency designated

4424-462: The money to buy shares of speculative companies. When the market crashed on October 29, 1929, Anaconda suffered serious financial setbacks. At the same time, copper prices started dropping dramatically. During the winter of 1932–33, as the Depression expanded, copper prices dropped to 10.3 cents per pound, down from an average of 29.5 cents per pound only two years earlier. The Great Depression took

4503-596: The most prosperous cities in the country, often called "the Richest Hill on Earth." From 1892 through 1903, the Anaconda mine itself was the largest copper-producing mine in the world. It produced more than $ 300 billion worth of metal in its lifetime. In 1889 the Rothschilds tried to gain control of the world copper market. In 1892 the French Rothschilds began negotiations to buy the Anaconda mine. In mid-October 1895

4582-603: The newspapers, bribed the legislature, set the wages, murdered union organizers, exported the earnings, and finally shut down, leaving Butte and Anaconda the poorest cities in the states and the largest EPA Superfund site in the country. Placer gold Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly gold ) and gemstones , both of which are often found in alluvial deposits—deposits of sand and gravel in modern or ancient stream beds , or occasionally glacial deposits. The metal or gemstones, having been moved by stream flow from an original source such as

4661-501: The origin word for "place" and "plaza" in English. The word in Spanish is thus derived from placea and refers directly to an alluvial or glacial deposit of sand or gravel. An alternative etymology derives the English word from American Spanish placer (placer, sandbank), from earlier placel , apparently from obsolete Portuguese placel (placer, sandbank). Placers supplied most of

4740-430: The other material, settle to the bottom of the pan. The lighter gangue material such as sand, mud and gravel are then washed over the side of the pan, leaving the gold behind. Once a placer deposit is located by gold panning, the miner usually shifts to equipment that can treat volumes of sand and gravel more quickly and efficiently. Gold panning was commonly used on its own during the California gold rush ; however, it

4819-426: The papers to further his cause. While campaigning, "Anaconda's supporters portrayed Helena as a center of avarice and elitism while promoting their choice as the pick of the working man. In return, Helena's backers claimed that if the victory should go to their opponent the entire state would be strangled by the "copper collar" of Daly's Anaconda Copper Mining Company." Daly's campaign was unsuccessful and Helena became

SECTION 60

#1733084750741

4898-461: The people of Butte. In the early 20th century, Butte's culture with its perverse pride in its wide open character was a response to the people's belief in the all-encompassing power of the company. Butte's bars, gambling dens, dance halls, and brothels were among the few public institutions not owned or controlled by Anaconda. It was not only the hazards of mining and the grim environment of Butte that propelled men and women to frenzied gaiety, but also

4977-538: The plant due to high electricity costs and low market prices. On March 3, 2015, the closure became permanent. Dashiel Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest was based on Hammett's experience as a Pinkerton Detective working at the Anaconda Mine in Butte and the Anaconda Road massacre in 1920. The term copper collar , coined in the late 1800s, was a metaphor used to describe a person or company directly controlled by

5056-440: The plant open after Butte copper operations ceased in 1982, and sold the plant to a group of investors led by a former ARCO executive in 1985, due to high electricity costs and low market prices. As Columbia Falls Aluminum Company (CFAC), the plant continued operations as an independent company until it was purchased by Swiss metals giant Glencore in 1999. Glencore continued CFAC operations through 2009, when it temporarily shuttered

5135-433: The powerful Anaconda Company as they try to force her to sell her property. She says, "Leave this house at once, Whoever-You-Are Morgan. I'll not have under my roof a man who wears the copper collar." The workers who are under the "copper collar" are referred to as "snakes" and the Anaconda Company is referred to as an "ogre". The "copper collar" symbolized different things to different people but "the Anaconda Company used

5214-403: The process water may be continuously recycled and the ore from which the sought-after minerals have been extracted ("the tailings") can be reclaimed. While these recycling and reclamation processes are more common in modern placer mining operations they are still not universally done. In earlier times the process water was not generally recycled and the spent ore was not reclaimed. The remains of

5293-466: The properties of William A. Clark (another Butte copper magnate). Amalgamated gained almost complete control of Butte's copper as they merged with these companies. The reorganized company was again named Anaconda. Ryan made its president and rewarded with a significant package of Amalgamated shares. The "right hand" of John Ryan was Cornelius Kelley, a young attorney, who soon was given the position of vice-president. Henry Rogers died suddenly in 1909 of

5372-453: The site of the lode. This type of deposit undergoes rock weathering. Alluvial or eluvial deposits are the most common type of placer gold, and are often the richest. They contain pieces of gold that have been washed away from the lode by the force of water, and have been deposited in sediment in or near watercourses or former watercourses. Therefore, they are mostly found in valleys or flood plains. Bench deposits are created when gold reaches

5451-427: The state's capital. Flexing its political muscle again in 1903, the Anaconda Company closed down operations within all of Montana, putting 15,000 men out of work until the legislature enacted the regulations it demanded. Montanans were angered by this decision and from that point forward, to suggest a politician "wore a copper collar", could cost him the election. The copper collar symbolized oppression and control to

5530-516: The struggle admits of no neutrals. Since the territory's admission to statehood in 1889 the struggle has continued." The term "copper collar" was used in historical novels set in that period. In The Old Copper Collar (1957), a tale of the course of a senatorial election in Helena in the early 20th century, Dan Cushman refers to the "copper collar": "At this point the galleries packed with Bennett sympathizers commenced heckling him with suggestions he wore

5609-474: The tactics of an authoritarian state to quash a legitimate labor movement within its corporate fiefdom. That the press, an elemental part of democracy, was used in the assault marks a black period in the history of American journalism." In Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place across America, John B. Wright writes that for decades, the Anaconda Company: mined and smelted metal, leveled forests, owned

5688-487: The thought that here were arenas of self-expression denied them elsewhere in a city ringed by the ' copper collar ' . Choosing sides in this battle was unavoidable. According to Author Fisher's article, "Montana: Land of the Copper Collar," "Six months is the longest one may live in Montana without making the decision whether one is 'for the Company' or 'against the Company.' The all-pervading and unrelenting nature of

5767-508: The unsuccessful Twin Buttes mine in southern Arizona further weakened the company. In 1977 Anaconda was sold to Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) for $ 700 million. However, the purchase turned out to be a regrettable decision for ARCO. Lack of experience with hard-rock mining, and a sudden drop in the price of copper to sixty-odd cents a pound, the lowest in years, caused ARCO to suspend all underground mining operations in Butte in 1980. ARCO closed

5846-656: Was called the "Greater Butte Project" (GBP). The project would exploit lower-grade underground reserves by the block-caving method. Anaconda sank a new shaft, the Kelley, and the mine began producing in 1948. The new method was successful, although short-lived. They also began stripping ground for what was to become the Berkeley Pit . In 1956 Anaconda netted the largest annual income in its history: $ 111.5 million. After that year, ore grades continued their decline, mining costs were rising each year, and profits were diminishing. To survive,

5925-770: Was famous in the context of several gold rushes , particularly the California Gold Rush and the Colorado Gold Rush , the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush and the Klondike Gold Rush . Placer mining continues in many areas of the world as a source of diamonds, industrial minerals and metals, gems (in Myanmar and Sri Lanka ), platinum, and of gold (in Yukon , Alaska and British Columbia ). An area well protected from

6004-416: Was found at Forest Reefs , also in Australia. If vegetation was buried along with the old stream, by a volcanic eruption, the effect of heat and decay upon that buried vegetation can result in the presence of harmful amounts of carbonic acid gas ( H 2 C O 3 ), as occurred in the deep lead deposit at Creswick. A number of methods are used to mine placer gold and gems, both in terms of extracting

6083-455: Was nearing the end of its silver lode mining phase. Lacking capital to develop the mine, Daly sought financing from San Francisco mining magnate George Hearst and his partners, James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis , of Hearst, Haggin, Tevis and Co. and the Anaconda Company was born in 1881 with Daly as a 25% partner in the enterprise. Daly had recommended Hearst purchase the Ontario Mine ,

6162-548: Was purchased by the Atlantic Richfield Company ( ARCO ) on January 12, 1977. ARCO halted production at the Anaconda smelter in 1980, and mining ceased completely in 1982 when the deep pumps draining the Berkeley Pit and the underground mines were shut off, allowing the Pit and mines to fill. The company presently only exists as a major environmental liability for BP , who bought out ARCO in 2000. Its former operations are now

6241-402: Was the fourth-largest company in the world. These heady times, however, were short-lived. In 1928, Ryan and Rockefeller aggressively speculated on Anaconda shares by manipulating the supply of copper (reducing supply to corner the market), causing shares to go up at first; at which point they sold, which caused stocks to fall; then buying them back. Known today as a " pump and dump ", at the time

#740259