Kelly Mine, NM: Part 2 - The Mine скачать в хорошем качестве

Kelly Mine, NM: Part 2 - The Mine

J. S. Hutchason, known as "Old Hutch," is credited with being the father of the Magdalena mining district. His discoveries spawned the mining camp of Kelly. Hutchason was poking around the Magdalena Mountains in the spring of 1866 when he found rich lead outcroppings. He staked the Juanita Mine and, three weeks later, the Graphic Mine. In those early days the ore was smelted locally in adobe furnaces called "vassos," and then an ox team to Kansas City hauled the metal. Probing farther around the hills, "Old Hutch" found another promising prospect, which he obligingly turned over to a friend, Andy Kelly, who operated a local sawmill. Kelly gave his name to the mine and worked it for a time, but when he failed to do the required assessment work, Hutchason jumped the claim. Meanwhile, prospectors attracted to the area about 1879 laid out a townsite on the west slope of the Magdalena Mountains and named it for Kelly. In the late 1870's Hutchason sold his Graphic Mine for thirty thousand dollars. He also sold the Kelly Mine, which in turn was resold to Gustav Billing for forty-five thousand dollars. In 1881 Billing erected a smelting plant near Socorro at Park City which treated ore from the Kelly and other mines until 1893. In 1896, with the construction of the Graphic Smelter, Magdalena became the smelting town for Kelly. It treated the ore there until 1902. With the advent of the 1880's, the small camp of Kelly began to experience a promising growth and much activity. A branch line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe reached Magdalena, four miles from Kelly, in 1885. Daily stages ran to Magdalena, a school, two hotels, a resident doctor, and the usual assortment of stores and saloons served Kelly. The camp also boasted a fine water system with pipes conducting mountain spring water throughout the town. With the increasing influx of miners, sleeping accommodations were scarce. Supposedly, the two hotels rented beds in eight-hour shifts. About the turn of the century, as lead and silver were being wrenched from the earth, a discarded greenish rock was being tossed high on the waste dump piles. Cory T. Brown of Socorro shipped away some of the rock to have it tested. It turned out to be a valuable zinc carbonate called smithsonite. Brown, in partnership with J. B. Fitch, immediately leased the Graphic property and began stripping the dumps of the smithsonite. Kelly's second era of prosperity dawned as others leased properties and began doing the same thing. In 1904 Brown and Fitch pocketed a tidy sum by selling the now celebrated Graphic Mine to Sherwin Williams Paint Company. Billing sold the Kelly Mine to Tri-Bullion, who then built a smelter at Kelly. Kelly began to boom with prosperity as it reaped the profits of smithsonite. The camp became the state's leading producer of zinc. Kelly expanded to include two schools; three churches, a Catholic, Methodist Episcopal, and Presbyterian; and a moving picture parlor. By 1931 the smithsonite deposits were exhausted. Gradually, mining throughout the district began to decrease, allowing Kelly to die. Today some mining is still being done near Kelly, but the prosperous camp that once had a population of three thousand no longer claims any residents. The only intact building is the white-stucco-front Catholic Church, where mass is still offered once a year. Adobe and rock ruins dot both sides of the dirt road beyond the church. Extensive mine workings, tailing dumps, old mine buildings, and headframes stand rusted and neglected farther up Kelly Canyon. Facing the church on the hillside is Kelly's cemetery.