Sunshine Mine
The Sunshine Mine is located between the cities of Kellogg and Wallace in northern Idaho. It has been one of the world's largest and most profitable silver mines, having produced over 360 million ounces of silver by 2001.
A 2007 Canadian report by Behre Dolbear & Company estimated measured and indicated resources of 31.51 million ounces of silver in 1.43 million tons at 21.8 ounces of silver per ton and inferred resources of 231.5 million ounces of silver in 2.28 million tons at 101.6 ounces of silver per ton. The Behre Dolbear report is considered historic in nature and illustrates the resource potential of the Sunshine Mine.
From historical records beginning in 1904, the Sunshine Mine has produced 364,893,421 ounces of silver from 12,953,045 tons of ore through 2001, when the mine was closed. From January 1, 1998, to January 1, 2004, the average reserves carried by the mine were 1.38 million tons, containing 32.20 million ounces of silver at 23.3 oz Ag/ton.
Geography
The Sunshine Mine is on the east side of Big Creek waterway and south of the unincorporated community of Big Creek, Idaho, between Kellogg and Wallace. In a mountainous area, the mine entrance is approximately above sea level.Sunshine Mine is just upstream from Crescent Mine, which operated between 1906 and 1986.
Interstate 90 passes approximately north of the Sunshine Mine complex.
History
Early history
The Sunshine Mine property had its beginning in September 1884 when brothers True and Dennis Blake filed a claim on a series of ore deposits in the Big Creek mining district in Shoshone County, Idaho.The Blake Brothers, as they are frequently called, were natives of Maine. In the fall of 1876, for reasons unspecified in extant sources, the Blake Brothers began migrating west. They lived and worked in Chicago for some time before continuing west and settling in Washington Territory. According to court records, the Blake Brothers lived in Snohomish County, Washington Territory by October 1878. Sometime after November 1879 the brothers relocated to the east part of the territory, settling in the small city of Spokane Falls.
By early 1880 the Blakes relocated to the Coeur d'Alene Valley in Idaho, where they homesteaded at the mouth of a stream named Big Creek, midway between the present cities of Kellogg and Wallace. Here the Blakes farmed for several years. In September 1884, they happened to locate the Yankee Boy and Yankee Girl ore deposits up Big Creek Canyon from their homestead.
It was these deposits, namely the Yankee Lode mining claim, that the Blake brothers staked in late September 1884. The two brothers mined their claim for the next two decades until poor health persuaded them to release control of the property to other interests. Following the death of True Blake in 1910, True's widow Hattie Blake and his brother Dennis opted to lease out the mining property. The property was leased to several individuals sometime on or about September 1912. The property went through a series of acquisitions in the years following, being leased and managed at various times by men such as Sidney Shonts and next Dan Price.
Price, President of the Big Creek Leasing Company, spent a large sum of money in an effort to reach ore reserves on the lower levels of the Blake Brothers previous workings. When unsuccessful, Price recruited Spokane businessman Eugene Tousley. Tousley, in turn, recruited John Sawbridge, a Yakima, Washington businessman and mining entrepreneur.
It is unclear exactly when Sawbridge became involved in the company, but he likely held stock when the Sunshine Mining Company was officially formed in 1918. At this time the company's headquarters were in Spokane, Washington. The original officers of the company were Eugene C. Tousley, E. Ely, and V.S. Ricaby. Tousley was a broker in the mining industry, working in Spokane. During this time W.F. Newton was manager of the company,
In approximately 1921 a group of businessmen and entrepreneurs from Yakima purchased a controlling interest in Sunshine Mining Company. John Sawbridge became and/or remained the President of the company. The Yakima businessmen who joined the Board at this time were Albert E. "A.E." Larson, Alexander Miller, and Nathan P. "N.P." Hull. Hull served on the Board of Directors until his death in July 1929. Three years after his death, in 1932, Hull's son Carroll M. Hull was named to the Board. Carroll Hull served on the Board of Sunshine until February 1965.
Following the death of Sawbridge in 1931, Larson became president and served the company in that capacity until his own death in 1934. At that time Robert M. Hardy became president. He served as President until his resignation in 1956, at which time his son succeeded him as President of the Company.
Mining operations
In 1921 a 25-ton per day mill was constructed. The mill was later expanded piecemeal and eventually reached a daily capacity of 500 tons. Soon after the concentrator was commissioned, the Sunshine tunnel was dug from the surface in an exploration effort that discovered higher quality ore historically identified as "Chinatown".In 1935 the concentrator at the mine was upgraded with new ball mill grinding units and flotation cells. These increased the capacity to 1,000 tons per day while attaining a recovery of 98%. The sinking of the new four-compartment vertical Jewell shaft was started, reaching the 2300 level in 1936.
In 1943 a crew drifting east on the 2700 level following the Silver Syndicate fault discovered the famous Chester vein.
It was primarily the exploitation of the Sunshine vein followed by the Chester vein that determined the present configuration of the underground workings. With the discovery of the Chester vein on the 2700 level and the ore body's distance from the Jewell shaft of approximately 4000 feet east - southeast, other internal shafts were sunk or raised to more efficiently service the operations. The other principal internal shaft is the No. 12 shaft, servicing the Copper vein and the West Syndicate vein in the western end of the mine.
In 1957, under the Presidency of Robert M. Hardy Jr., Sunshine Mining Company drilled the Medina No. 1 oil well. This was located immediately north of the town of Ocean City on the coast of Washington State. This was a joint venture with J.W. Tanner, a businessman from Olympia, Washington with specific interests in the oil industry.
Sunshine Mining Company purchased Tanner's interest in the company in 1958. Sunshine's Medina No. 1 well would produce 12,500 barrels of oil and remains Washington State's only commercially producing oil well. In 1961 the well was capped and production stopped.
In 1960, sand-filling operations were introduced underground at Sunshine Mine. The mill tailings were classified so that the coarser material, approximately 45% of the total mill feed, was used for stope backfill.
Sunshine Mine Disaster
Around 11:40 a.m. on May 2, 1972, smoke was discovered coming from the 910 raise on the 3700 level. As the smoke spread rapidly through the mine via the No. 10 Shaft, which provided the mine's air intake, Shaft Foreman Fred "Gene" Johnson ordered an evacuation at about 12:03 p.m. The plan was to hoist miners from the lower levels to the 3100 level, where they would be directed to make their way from the No. 10 Shaft to the Jewell Shaft for the final hoist to the surface. However, the No. 10 Shaft's main elevator, the chippy hoist, was immediately rendered useless when smoke overwhelmed its control room. This left the smaller double drum hoists to bring the men out, a process that started at 12:10 p.m.. However, at 1:02 p.m., the hoistman succumbed to the increasing smoke and carbon monoxide levels, leaving the men still below with no means of escape. Johnson, those assisting him, and a number of men newly-hoisted from below were also overcome, unable to reach the Jewel Shaft before they collapsed.About the same time that hoist operations stopped, Safety Engineer Robert Launhardt was leading a makeshift rescue team equipped with oxygen masks towards the No. 10 Shaft. En route, they encountered and helped two survivors, the second of whom, Byron Schulz, was desperately pleading for oxygen. Don Beehner, a member of Launhardt's team, gave his own mask to Schulz, only to collapse moments later. Despite his colleagues' best efforts, Beehner could not be moved or revived, and had to be left behind while Launhardt concentrated on saving Schulz. Beehner would be the final confirmed death in the mine that day.
Of the 173 men in the mine at the time of the fire, 80 were able to evacuate, with the last one - Schulz - reaching the surface by 1:30 p.m. Two men on the 4800 level - Tom Wilkinson and Ron Flory - were able to find a safe zone near the No. 12 borehole, and would be rescued 175 hours later on May 9. The remaining 91 men died of carbon monoxide poisoning. 31 victims were found on the 3100 level, 21 on the 5200 level, 16 on 3700, 7 on 4400, 7 on 4800, 4 on 3400, 3 on 4200, and 2 on 5000. During body recovery, it was found that some of the men on 5200 had tried to build a barricade against the smoke, likely after losing contact with Johnson, but were overcome before they could finish it.
While the exact cause of the fire was never determined, several contributing factors to the high death toll were identified. These included the ventilation system, the early loss of the chippy hoist, inadequate fire/escape procedures, and lack of evacuation drills. One major factor involved the mine's re-breathers, known as self-rescuers, which could provide individual miners with 30 minutes of oxygen in contaminated air. It was found that most miners were unaware of how to use them, and so could not activate them, a task made more difficult by the fact that many re-breathers were out of date and in poor condition. In addition, most miners were equally unaware of the re-breathers' tendency to heat up in air with high carbon monoxide levels. This led some miners to discard their re-breathers, believing them defective, when, in fact, they were working properly.
The mine was closed for seven months after the fire. It was one of the worst mining disasters in American history, and the worst disaster in Idaho history. Today, a monument to the lost miners stands beside I-90 near the mine.
After the Sunshine Mine reopened and resumed full production, it regained its position as the number one silver producer in the Nation. In 1979 alone, Sunshine Mine produced 18% of the Nation's silver ore. By the end of 1988, the mine was at full production. Ore production was primarily from mining the Chester vein systems serviced by the No. 10 shaft and the remnants of the Sunshine and Rambo vein stopes, referred to as the Footwall area on the 3700 and 3400 levels. The 4000 and 4200 level Copper vein was under development from the No. 12 shaft.