around was filled with prospectors. Much
gold was taken out by placer mining, but
quartz mining, tried later, was less suc-
cessful. In fact, the loss of large sums of
money in quartz mining put a taboo upon
Shasta County for many years, and it
was not until the development of copper
properties was proven profitable that the
county was able to take her rightful place.
The discovery of copper was almost sim-
ultaneous with that of gold, but no regard
was paid to it, partly because of the low
price of the metal and the distance from
ore markets, and partly because the re-
fractoriness of the ore, due to the presence
of baser metals, made its handling difficult
and unprofitable. Langley's State Regis-
ter for 1859 says : "The ore from the vicin-
ity of the Pitt and McCloud Rivers,
Shasta County, is said to excel in richness
the celebrated Arizona mines, and to con-
tain in addition a considerable quantity
of gold." This reference is to the claims
at Bully Hill and Copper City, where cop-
per had been recognized as early as '53.
In 1862 there was a rush to that vicinity
to locate gold and silver claims, and the
town of Copper City sprang up. In '63,
two hundred and fifty tons of copper ore
were shipped to San Francisco, and were
found to contain 8 per cent copper, about
$40 in gold to the ton, and $20 in silver.
tt was shipped to Swansea, Wales, but the
profit made was small. By 1866 only six
voters were left in the place, the mines
having been abandoned because of unsuc-
cessful attempts to separate the precious
Sha-sta King mine, showing Balakalala mine at top of hill.
Dumping slag at the Mammoth smelter at Kennett.
metals from the base. Even in the past
ten years that problem in the same mines
has led to much expensive experimenting,
but a large furnace and hot blast have
made pyritic smelting possible, and the
General Electric Co., under the name
of the Bully Hill Copper Mining and
Smelting Company, now operates the
mines successfully.
It is notable that not only the Bully
Hill, but also the Iron Mountain and Af-
terthought properties were worked for
years as gold and silver mines before it
was realized that wealth lay in the cop-
per they contained. Even up to 1893,
two years before the development of the
Iron Mountain mine as a great copper
property, copper was not listed among
the county's mineral resources. It is
said that* when Hugh McDonnell, the
promoter who sold the Iron Mountain
mine to the Eothschild and Fielding in-
terests of London and New York, later
incorporated as the Mountain Copper Co.,
Ltd., took the company's representatives
through the mine he constantly called
their attention to the gold and silver ore
which could be seen in the top of the tun-
nel, and tried to hide the copper sulphide
in the bottom, whereas the company cared
little for the gold and silver, and were
secretly on the watch for the copper. The
deal was consummated, and $300,000 was
paid for the mine, which soon became
known as the sixth greatest copper pro-
ducing property in the United States, and
the eighth in the world. The company
was capitalized for $6,250,000, and it had
soon spent a million dollars or more in
erecting what was then an up-to-date
smelter, and in further developing the
mine. This was in 1895, an important
year for the county/ because it marked
the arrival of capital, without which cop-
per production was^ impossible. The vast
resources of the copper belt were now to
be developed, and their development was
to result in a general revival of interest
in copper throughout the State.
The copper bearing ore bodies in Shasta
County lie in a crescent-shaped belt,
which "crosses the Sacramento at about the
point where the Pitt river flows into it,
twenty miles north of Eedding. The
length of the belt is approximately thirty
miles, and it ranges in width from one-
half to four miles. The ore is not con-
tinuous throughout the belt, as it is in-
tersected by various gulches and canyons,
but some geologists believe it w%s ; origi-
nally one formation. It is interesting
to note the difference in character of the
THE COPPER INDUSTRY IN SHASTA COUNTY.
259
formations on the east side of the river
and those on the west. On the latter side
the ore is found in lenses and blankets, or
flat bodies, while on the east side it is in
veins ranging from twenty to forty feet in
width. Silicious ores are necessary in
smelting the western ores, but those on
the east contain sufficient silica to need
no fluxing ores. This advantage is offset
by the presence of more base ores, such
as zinc, antimony and BaS04. On the
west side of the river there are three
smelters, the plant of Mountain Copper
Mining Company at Keswick, the Bala-
kalala at Coram, and the Mammoth Cop-
per Mining Company at Kennett. On
the east side are the Bully Hill smelter
near Copper City, and the Great Western
Gold Company's plant at the Afterthought
mine at Ingot.
The pioneer smelter at Keswick, when
at its height, ran five furnaces and had
a daily capacity of 1500 tons. The com-
pany erected a refinery at Elizabeth, New
Jersey, and for five years sent its matte
there. Then it erected converters at Kes-
wick and produced blister copper which
was shipped to Eastern electrolytic cop-
per refineries. It is estimated that this
mine has produced $30,000,000, and vast
amounts of ore are yet in sight. The
Mountain Copper Company also owns sev-
eral adjoining claims which are very rich,
the Hornet mine being said to show
6,000,000 tons of low grade copper ore.
As pioneers, this company had much to
contend with, for the people in the south-
ern part of the county, having previously
relied upon their farms for support, now
rebelled as they saw the sulphur smoke
from the open roasters which were then
used destroying their trees, as it did the
native vegetation for several miles around.
The company was, in consequence, con-
stantly harassed with law suits in which
the damages called for were almost in-
variably many times the taxable value of
the property. While the people generally
upheld the company, they did not take
an active part in defending it, because
the company had shown only indifference
to them and their interests. The Gov-
ernment, evidently urged by private land
owners, then began a suit for damage of
timber land, and the lower courts issued
an injunction against the company. This
injunction has only been dissolved by the
United States Supreme Court within the
past few months. Partly because of these
difficulties, and partly because there ap-
Mammoth mine.
260
OVERLAND MONTHLY.
peared to be a great field around the bay
for the production of chemicals and es-
pecially of fertilizers through the sul-
phur contained in the ore from the Iron
Mountain mine, the company erected a
smelter and sulphuric acid and fertilizer
works at Martinez, and in 1905 closed the
Keswick smelter and commenced ship-
ping the ore to the new plant. In 1907
some work was resumed at Keswick, but
was stopped later. It is now rumored,
that the company, under Manager Lewis
T. Wright, intends to begin the erection
of a modern plant on the old site. Two
hundred men are constantly employed at
+he mine, and with public sentiment now
awakened to the value of a smelter to the
community, and with the Government in-
junction removed, it seems most prob-
able that at least part of the ore will be
smelted in the more convenient place,
Keswick.
The second smelter to be blown in was
that of the Bully Hill Company, near
Copper City. After a varied history, and
much changing of hands, the property
was bought in 1900 by Captain J. R. De
La Mar, who erected a small smelter
which was operated for several years.
Converters were installed, and the matte
was reduced to blister copper before be-
ing shipped East to a refinery. The Gen-
eral Electric Company later purchased
the mine and smelter from Captain De La
Mar, and are now operating under the
title of the Bully Hill Copper Mining
and Smelting Company, with D. M.
Riordan of New York as President. Bully
Hill is thirty miles from Redding by
wagon road, and it had been necessary to
haul the blister copper to Redding for
shipment. Upon purchasing the prop-
erty, the General Electric Company de-
cided to build a broad gauge railway to
the nearest point on the Southern Pacific,
at the junction of the Pitt and Sacra-
mento rivers eighteen miles away. Dur-
ing the cours'e of construction of the
road, during 1906-7', the smelter was
closed for extensive improvement, but
work in the mine was continued. The
road was completed in January, 1908, and
the enlarged smelter was blown in in
March. The furnace in this smelter is
larger than those of other smelters in the
countv unless it be those of the Bala-
kalala recently completed. Converters
have been done away with, and the matte
is shipped to the Mammoth Company's
plant at Kennett, where it is converted
into blister copper about 98 or 99 per cent
pure. When refined, the General Electric
Company makes use of the copper in its
own work or places it upon the market.
The capacity of the Bully Hill smelter is
300 tons daily, and about two hundred
and fifty men are given employment, in
both mines and smelter.
The third smelter to be erected in the
county was that of the Great Western
Gold Company. It is located twenty-six
miles northeast of Redding and six miles
from Bully Hill by trail. The nearest
shipping point is twelve miles away at
Bella Vista, the terminal of the Terry
Lumber Company's standard gauge from
Anderson. The "Great Western Gold Co.
is now contemplating building a railway
to Bella Vista, and will then make ex-
tensive improvements in its smelter, for
the bad roads for hauling during the win-
ter have heretofore been a serious draw-
back. The Afterthought mine had an
early history similar to that of the Iron
Mountain and Bully Hill mines. It had
been worked in pioneer days for gold and
silver, and a small reverberatory furnace
had been erected in 1875, but with no
success. Considerable money was later
spent by other parties in putting in a
small water jacket furnace, which like-
wise failed to separate the base ores. This
mine contains more zinc than any other
mine on the copper belt, and it is little
wonder these early attempts at smelting
failed when the ore has since resisted more
rigorous methods. The operations of the
present company date from 1902. The
Great Western Gold Company is composed
of stockholders from the Mississippi Val-
ley, mainly from St. Louis, and it is the
only company in the county which has de-
pended upon the sale of stock for its funds
for development work. While the com-
pany has the smallest plant on the belt,
with two furnaces and a capacity of 200
tons, it is expected with further develop-
ment to be one of the big mines of the
future.
Until recently the largest smelter oper-
ating in the county was the one at Ken-
nett, a town on the Southern Pacific, J$
Mountain Copper Company's smelter at KeswicTc.
miles north of Bedding. This property is
owned by the Mammoth Copper Mining
Company, a subsidiary company of the
United States Mining, Smelting and Re-
fining Company, and was purchased by
them from a Redding stock company in
1904. The mine, which is now claimed
to surpass the famous Iron Mountain
mine in value, lies about two and one-half
miles west of the smelter, at an elevation
of three thousand feet above sea level, and
2300 feet above the smelter. An aerial
tram first brought the ore from the mine,
but proving unsatisfactory, a combination
of gravity tram, electric and steam rail-
way has recently been installed. Five
blast furnaces, with a daily capacity of
1700 tons of ore and fluxes, are in opera-
tion. Two converter stands, with eight
converter shells, have been added to the
plant this year, and the blister copper for
at least three other smelters in the county
will be made here. In April, over three
million pounds of blister copper were pro-
duced. Limestone for flux is obtained at
the Holt & Gregg quarries near by, and
quartz from the Old Diggings mines sup-
plies the needed silica. Much Goldfield
and Tonopah ore was smelted here a year
ago, but now the ore from the Centennial
Eureka mine, a Utah property of the
United States Company, is being shipped
here, and Nevada ore is not handled.
The Mammoth Company, since its ad-
vent into the county, has done much in
setting a standard for good treatment of
employees. The first innovation was the
eight hour shift in mine and smelter,
which has since been adopted throughout
the county. By voluntarily raising al-
ready good wages when copper rose in
price and not cutting them when it fell,
the company has won the good will of the
entire community, and several attempts
of the Western Federation to organize in
the camp have resulted in the organizers
being led out of town by the business men,
although the union movement had met lit-
tle support from the employees. During
the financial stringency of November,
1907, work went on in Kennett just as
before, and it was generally considered
one of the best towns in the State at that
time.
Public interest is at present centering
around the newest smelter, which, with
its four furnaces and 1500 ton capacity,
is generally conceded to be the largest
and most up-to-date of the smelters in the
copper belt. It is the one recently built at
262
OVERLAND MONTHLY.
Coram, four miles south of Kennett, by
the Balakalala Company of Salt Lake and
Boston. The Balakalala group of mines
was at one time under a bond to the Moun-
tain Copper Company, but due to a lapse
in payment the company was forced to
give, them up, and about three years ago
the 'present company, in which are asso-
ciated the Guggenheim interests, Joseph
Coram of Boston, the McCornick Bros.,
of Salt Lake, and other capitalists, pur-
chased the claims. Considerable attention
was attracted to the company last year*
when a shortage of funds made it neces-
sary, to stop construction work on the
smelter. As the Balakalala Company
could not levy an assessment on its stock,
the National Copper Company was or-
ganized, with Thomas Lawson at its head,
and this company took over the Balaka-
lala stock, and levied an assessment of two
dollars and a half per share. It seems to
have been Lawson's plan to get control of
the stock, as he offered to underwrite all
shares that were not paid up, but the
stockholders came forward with 97 per
cent of the funds needed, and Lawson
got only 3 per cent of the stock. The
Balakalala mine has always been closely
connected with Lawson's mine, the Shasta
King, run under the name of the Trinity
Copper Company, with A. H. Brown as
superintendent. As will be seen in the
accompanying cut, the mines are near to-
gether, the Balakalala being at the top
of the hill and the Trinity at the base.
A contract has been made by which the
Trinity Company will furnish not less
than one hundred tons of ore daily, and
not more than five hundred, to the Bala-
kalala smelter, and the aerial tram has
been extended to the Shasta King from
the Balakalala mine, to carry the ore to
the smelter, a distance of six miles.
When this smelting began last fall, with
two hundred and fifty men at work in the
Shasta King, the first actual production
of the Trinity Copper Company com-
menced; for while about half a million
had previously been spent in developing
the mine, nothing had heretofore been
taken from it. While no doubt overcapi-
talized, at $6,250,000, the mine is con-
sidered rich, and undeserving of the
scathing criticisms it has received because
of the manipulations of its stock by its
president, Thomas Lawson.
Th ; e six properties which have been
mentioned as Shasta County's, and also
California's greatest copper producing
mines, represent an investment of ap-
proximately eight million dollars, which
is divided among them as follows:
Mountain Copper Co $2,000,000
Mammoth Copper Mining Co. .2,000,000
Balakalala Co 2,000,000
Bully Hill Copper Mining and
Smelting Company 1,000,000
Great Western Gold Co : 500,000
Trinity Copper Co 500,000
In all, these mines employ about 2500
men, and have a monthly pay roll of
$200,000.
In the past twelve years capital has
developed the above mentioned mines and
proven the wealth of the copper belt, and
there are many more properties which may
in the near future prove as productive. A
copper mine cannot be developed without
an investment of at least a million dol-
lars, and there are few individual owners
who can handle such a large proposition.
The history of the successful mines in
this region is that they have been worked
by individuals until some value has been
proven, and then they have been bonded
to different large corporations until at
length purchased by one; for only cor-
porations are able to invest several mil-
lions in order to get out a few more.
There are at least fifty other copper mines
already located on the belt, some of
them considerably developed. The most
important ones are the Golinsky mine,
under bond until recently to the American
Smelting and Refining Company; the
Summit Group, owned by the Stauffer
Chemical Company; the Friday Lowden,
Vulcan, Shasta May Blossom, Spread
Eagle, Keystone, Graves Group, and the
Sugar Loaf.
There is a striking contrast between
the mineral regions in Shasta County and
in Nevada, for the mining towns which
have grown up about these California
mines and smelters are in no sense boom
towns, though rough in many ways.
Strange to say, these towns are not nearly
so substantially built as the Nevada
camps, yet they are by the presence of the
PRISONER.
263
smelters guaranteed to last fifteen or
twenty years, whereas Goldfield has al-
ready boarded up many of her brick and
tised for sale, because it is so good no
one cares to dispose of it. If more of
our Californians who have rushed to Ne-
stone buildings. Kennett, the largest vada to locate claims or to go into busi-
town to grow up around a smelter, has ness in the mining camps had looked
about 2500 inhabitants, and six hundred about at home, they would have found
of them are employed in the smelter. No
stock in these copper companies is adver-
perhaps less glaring but more assuredly
substantial opportunities.
PRISONER
BY GRACE HELEN BAILEY
Drunk, insolent with life's red wine, was I.
Nor Pasha's splendid lures could make me rue
The greater wealth that I had saved for you.
The treasures of the heart put idly by,
With just this portent prized a woman's sigh :
Its hints of loves unknown make lovers sue.
So, toying with the chains I scarcely knew,
Denying all, I saw my freedom die.
Triumphant midst white lilies of the field,
Fain daring all, with never thought to yield,
I waited you. unreckoning of the fate
Which comes to all, too soon, or over late.
A prisoner fettered fast while life shall hold,
You broke my pride upon your shield of gold.
A SEAPORT OF SINALOA
BY MINNIE ROSILL.A STEVENS
A SEMICIRCLE of blue ocean,
inside a semicircle of blue
mountains, with a band of white
buildings between the two, such
is Mazatlan. Landward, the mountains
seem slipping away and away till they
blend with the sky in the distance; sea-
ward, the water, likewise, slips away and
away to blend with the sky in the distance,
leaving the town the only fixed and tan-
gible portion of the landscape for the eye
to rest upon, as it gazes from the rocky
heights behind the town and sweeps the
lovely panorama from the dancing waves
of the Pacific to the foothills of the Mexi-
can Cordilleras.
The ports of Eastern Mexico have al-
ways been but poor affairs, mere roadsteads
without extensive shipping, their climate
hot and sickly, their towns squalid. Not
so with the Western coast, though, com-
paratively, so new in the point of develop-
ment, and so much less generally known.
From Acapulco to Guaymas, the many in-
dentations of the shore line form a series
of magnificent harbors, perfectly adapted
to all the demands of commerce, and so
many in number that some of them, as
yet, are scarcely frequented at all. But
with the present rapid development of the
Mexican Republic, the day is not far dis-
tant, especially after the opening of the
Panama Canal, when these fine ports will
fill an important -place in the water traffic
of the Pacific, and one or more among
them, perhaps, has it in its future to rise
to a place among the leading ports of the
Western world.
Probably no town is better fitted to be-
come this future leading seaport than
Mazatlan, midway up the coast, at the en-
trance of the Gulf of California. Mazatlan
General view of Mazatlan, Sindloa, Mexico.
"Its crowning glory is its old Mission Church/' Mazatlaris cathedral.
is already a thriving town, claiming
twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and,
when the railroad, which is building from
Guaymas to the City of Mexico, and which
has already passed Mazatlan, is completed,
the latter town is sure to take on new life
and grow after the manner of the modern
metropolis. Its location is ideal for such
a growth. Though that part of the State
immediately adjacent is somewhat sandy
and barren, the interior of Sinaloa is very
fertile, producing heavy yields of sugar,
tobacco, cotton and tropical fruits, much
of which finds market in Mazatlan. But
the chief occupations of Sinaloa are stock
raising and mining, the surrounding
mountains being very rich in gold and
silver. Mazatlan is the natural outlet for
the wealth of the mines and range, and
already has quite an extensive trade by
water with various nations. It imports
considerable quantities of English goods,
and the ships of all lands can be seen, at
any time, anchored on the broad bay,
while visitors from as many countries con-
tinually frequent the wharves and pass up
and down the picturesque narrow streets.
Out-of-the-way places always have a
charm to those unfamiliar with them, and
perhaps it is for this reason that it seems
so out of the way to us, though a busy,
well-known place in its own locality, that
Mazatlan possesses a peculiar fascination
aside from its other attractions. With its
quaint, flat-roofed buildings and many
courtyards and plazas, filled with palm
trees and all the luxuriant verdure of the
tropics, it greatly resembles some old
Spanish town or a suburb of a Moorish
city minus the minarets. The crowning
glory of the place is its old mission church,
one of the oldest and finest ever built in
America, by the early Spanish priests. It
stands in the heart of the city, not far
from and facing the sea, and has a mag-
nificent facade marked by a triple door-
way and twin towers of noble proportions,
while a dome or two breaks the horizontal
lines of the roof with harmonious curves.
Sculptured stone figures of the saints
stand in appropriate spots about the ex-
terior, while the interior is decorated in
that rich if somewhat showy style common
to the old missions. The building is in a
state of fine preservation, and is Mazat-
lan's central point of interest to visitors.
Mazatlan Bay is supposed to be fortified
and is guarded by a garrison of Govern-
ment troops, and a fort built on a high
ledge of rocks overlooking the sea. The
266
OVEBLAND MONTHLY.
fortifications are neither extensive nor
formidable, however,, and do not inspire
an over-degree of confidence in their sta-
bility before a fleet of modern gunboats in
full action. But the fort is an interesting
spot, for all that, and commands a fine
view of the bay and the vessels that float
in such numbers on the glassy bosom of the
harbor.
Between the fort and the town, upon an-
other rocky ledge, is the lighthouse, from
whence, at night, bright beams shine out
to light the incoming vessel safely into
port. From the lighthouse tower is ob-
tained another fine view of the city, with
the beautiful cathedral prominent in its
midst, the picturesque buildings smothered
voluptuously in flowers and feathery palm
groves, and a line of boats drawn up on
the sandy beach. It is a scene of languid
beauty of a peculiar style to be seen only
in tropical America.
Like all Spanish-American towns,
Mazatlan sleeps during the heat of the
day and awakes to life as the cool of the
evening comes on. The plaza is the com-
mon center of activity at all times, and
at night that activity rises to its highest
state. The whole population seems out on