Detroit Copper Mining Company of Arizona
The Detroit Copper Mining Company of Arizona was a US company based in Morenci that dealt with copper mining .
The company was founded in 1874 and was independent until 1881. Then the Phelps Dodge Corporation won a controlling majority. The company continued to exist as a subsidiary of Phelps Dodge until 1917, when all Phelps Dodge operations in the area were consolidated into the new Phelps Dodge, Morenci Branch.
history
The company was founded in 1874 by Captain EB Ward, a wealthy steamship owner from Detroit , Michigan, and William Church, a mining speculator from Denver , Colorado . In 1875 the company claimed the mining rights for 145 sites near Morenci. At the time, the Detroit Copper Mining Company of Arizona owned a shop, hotel, and other properties in the city of Morenci. She built a water pump system on the San Francisco River, eleven kilometers away .
The ore grade in the veins was 7%. A blast furnace was used to smelt the ore . Until 1900 Detroit Copper Mining was the only company in the field of Arizona copper mined .
Church founded Morenci to provide housing and services for the miners . The company employed largely Mexican workers, who were paid only half of what American workers made. As the mining industry continued to expand, the nearby town of Clifton was established to secure housing for the workers.
In 1881 the Phelps Dodge Corporation acquired a controlling majority in the company.
In May 1882, the Detroit Copper reached an agreement with the Longfellow Copper Mining Company to jointly mine the "Detroit lode" corridor. Detroit Copper had the right of eternal depth , but not enough capital to mine the deeper parts of the Detroit lode .
Like many mining companies in Arizona and New Mexico at the time, the Detroit Copper Mining Company faced several waves of unionization and, after 1900, strikes. Detroit Mining used undercover agents to prevent unions from being reorganized.
The Phelps Dodge Corporation paid off the remaining minority partners in 1897. After a restructuring, the company went out in 1917 and the company was incorporated into the "Phelps Dodge Corporation, Morenci Branch".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Weed, Walter Harvey. The Mines Handbook: A Manual of the Mining Industry of North America. Houghton, Mich .: Stevens Copper Handbook Co., 1918.
- ↑ a b Copper Manual: Copper Mines, Copper Statistics, Copper Shares and a Summary of Information on Copper, Etc. New York: D. Houston & Co., 1899.
- ↑ a b Finlay, James Ralph. The Cost of Mining: A Discussion of the Production of Minerals With Remarks on the Geologic, Social and Economic Foundations Upon Which It Rests. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1920.
- ↑ 140 pounds of copper per ton of ore mined
- ^ A b c d Garner, John S. The Company Town: Architecture and Society in the Early Industrial Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0195070275 .
- ↑ which was later purchased by the Arizona Copper Company
- ↑ Douglas, James. "A Remedy for the Law of the Apex." Report of Proceedings of the American Mining Congress. Tenth Annual Session. Denver, Colo .: 1907.
- ^ Kluger, James R. The Clifton-Morenci Strike: Labor Difficulty in Arizona, 1915-1916. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1970. ISBN 0816502676 ; Jensen, Vernon H. Heritage of Conflict: Labor Relations in the Nonferrous Metals Industry Up to 1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1950; Byrkit, James. "The Bisbee Deportation." In American Labor in the Southwest. James C. Foster, ed. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982. ISBN 0816507414
- ^ Nugent, Walter TK and Ridge, Martin. The American West: The Reader. Purdue, Ind .: Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN 0253212901
- ^ Kennedy, Bruce A. Surface Mining. Littleton, Colo .: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, 1990. ISBN 0873351029