An Exerpt from When Silver Was King By Jack San Felice © 2006

In 1870 General George Stoneman led his soldiers of the California Column into Arizona Territory to protect the settlers and miners who were looking for new areas to search for riches. General Stoneman decided the best way to control the Apaches was to build a road up the side of the mountains between his two camps. Camp Pinal was at the top of the mountains below present Hutton Peak, and Camp Picket Post was at the bottom near Queen Creek near Picket Post Mountain. This would also allow his horse soldiers to effectively pursue the Apaches. This road was (and still is) called the Stoneman Grade. It became for many years the only horse or mule trail to Globe from the mining camps near Picket Post Mountain. While working on this road on the side of King's Crown Mountain, one of his soldiers by the name of Sullivan found some black rocks that did not break when struck but bent. What Sullivan found was silver sulfide nuggets. Sullivan did not tell his companions about his find, but kept it a secret.

However, in March of 1875 a prospecting party returning from Globe via the Stoneman Grade camped by a small brown hill. This party consisted of Charles G. Mason, Ben W. Regan, William H. Long, Isaac Copeland, and another man (whose name remains lost to time) camped on the site of the present day main shaft of the Silver King Mine. On March 25 they found the source of Sullivan's silver nuggets near their camp. Sullivan's secret was no longer a secret. They thought they had found a King of a mine, in fact they named it the Silver King Mine. They gathered some ore and rushed to Florence to register their claim and established the newly formed Pioneer Mining District. About the same time as staking out the Silver King they located another rich silver prospect nearby and called it the Silver Queen. The Silver Queen prospect would later become the famous Magma Mine of Superior, which turned out millions in copper ore shortly after the turn of the 20th Century.

During its peak days from 1876 to 1887 the Silver King Mine produced from $7 million to $40 million dollars worth of ore according to various reports. The company's records show that the Silver King Mining Company paid out almost $2 million dollars in dividends to its investors. The ore was extremely rich from top to bottom and plenty of good ore was left in the mine as the management preferred to high grade the ore leaving the lower grades in the mine. The amount taken out was only 10% of the approximate mineable ore body. This leaves 90% of payable waiting to be extracted. The Silver King Mine was initially developed to a depth of 830 feet. This included the open cut or glory hole and a water sump reservoir of 36 feet. The main shaft by 1883 was dug to a vertical depth of 714 feet. There were two compartments, each about 4 feet square, side by side, that were fitted with cages. These cages were hooked to a head frame, attached to cables and powered by steam. They brought out the ore and transported men and supplies into the mine to the seven levels of the mine.

Several factors affected the closing the Silver King Mine. The cost of wood had been steadily rising and it took thousands of cords of wood to fuel the steam engines necessary to run the mine and the mills. In fact, it cost $8 to $18 per cord of wood at that time, and it took a cord to roast each ton of ore. The superintendent with the approval of the company decided to convert from wood to fuel oil and this cost depleted the cash reserves. The cost of processing the ore thus went up. In the interim the Silver Standard was in the process of being devalued and the country's monetary system was changing to the Gold Standard. In addition, the local Pinal City Bank collapsed. This signaled the collapse of the western silver boom, and although there were a million tons of ore left in the Silver King Mine, no speculators were willing to invest in a mining venture during this period of national instability.

The Re-openings of the Silver King Mine

In 1905 the mine was again opened for a short time, then again in 1916 and 1917. There was still

plenty of silver to be mined according to the mining men of that era. In 1919 investors financed a $500,000 bond issue which reopened the mine and the mine realized a profit during that operation. After this reopening the mine stood idle and filled up with water. Throughout the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. the mine was never completely drained of the water, although several investors made some half-hearted attempts. Many times over the years some ore was brought up out of the mine and even a new shaft was dug and the old drifts reworked. Each time the mine was worked valuable ore was located, but the working capital necessary for a large venture never materialized. Even the tailings and the dumps were worked during the 1970s and 1980s with some success using the cyanide leach process.

The mine is currently an active mining claim and normally off limits to visitors. The Deens of Riverside filed an active claim in 1997 They staked the property and completed a certified survey. Then they filed the proper papers making them the legal claimants to the Silver King Mine and the adjacent mining claims. I became acquainted with the Deens and decided to write about the history of the mine. After several visits to the mine, I began to do some serious research on the

- Silver King and decided to write a book about the mining days of the 1880s and the attempts to reopen the mine.

The book called When Silver Was King, is really about the people who lived in those turbulent times. The story centers on the people who worked at the Silver King Mine and who lived in the town of Silver King, which surrounded the mine. It also centers on the people of the town of Pinal, five miles down the mountain, on Queen Creek, next to Picket Post Mountain, which was the mill site for the mine. The book is now in print and includes the history of the 1880s and the Central Arizona area, which was greatly influenced by the mine. It includes the process of mining silver in the 1880s, tales of other mining activity next to the Silver King, stories of early pioneer life, the Stoneman Grade, Apaches, miners, pioneer women, stagecoach robberies, and frontier justice. It also includes several stories about the search for the Two Soldiers Mine and the Lost Dutchman Mine that many believe are one and the same. These searches originated from the town of Silver King and took the seekers into the vast mysterious Superstition Mountains.

As of 2006 the Silver King Mine is not a prospect, but a working mine, with all the necessary equipment functional, and has the necessary permits and Plan of Operation to operate. With the right investors the mine will reopen to take its place once again among the great silver mines of the world.

Article courtesy Jack San Felice