Great Western Mine (Lake County, California)

Great Western Mine
Location
Great Western Mine is located in California
Great Western Mine
Great Western Mine
Location in California
LocationMiddletown
StateCalifornia
CountryUnited States
Coordinates38°42′54″N 122°38′30″W / 38.71500°N 122.64167°W / 38.71500; -122.64167[1]
Production
ProductsMercury
History
Opened1873
Closed1909

The Great Western Quicksilver Mine was a mercury mine[2] in California, near Middletown in Lake County. The mining company was incorporated in 1872 and the mine produced from 1873 until 1909, when it was exhausted.

In 1880, Andrew Rocca was the superintendent of the Great Western Mine. His daughter, Helen Rocca Goss, wrote that the Great Western Quicksilver Mine employed 25 white miners and about 200 Chinese, a number consistent with numbers at Sulphur Bank Mine, located adjacent to Clear Lake.[3][4][5]

  1. ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Great Western Mine (Lake County, California)
  2. ^ Great Western Mine (Laguna Western; Black Bart Mine; Tucker lease), Mindat.org, retrieved 8 October 2017
  3. ^ Goss, Helen Rocca (1957), "The Life and Death of a Quicksilver Mine: Part I—The Mine and its Setting", The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, 39 (2), University of California Press: 167–189, doi:10.2307/41166254, JSTOR 41166254
  4. ^ Goss, Helen Rocca (1957), "The Life and Death of a Quicksilver Mine: Part II-Camp and Home Life", The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, 39 (3), University of California Press: 251–280, doi:10.2307/41169134, JSTOR 41169134
  5. ^ Goss, Helen Rocca (1957), "The Life and Death of a Quicksilver Mine: Part III-Good Times and Bad (Conclusion)", The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, 39 (4), University of California Press: 357–370, doi:10.2307/41169298, JSTOR 41169298