P a g e 7 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r A Mining Example: Charter Oak Mine and Mill The ruins of abandoned placer and lode (underground) mines are a common sight on the Helena National Forest. Exploration and prospecting on public land has resulted in thousands of prospect pits, trenches and mining shafts. When placer or lode claims seemed promising, the land was usually patented and thus came out of government ownership. Mines and mills were then developed on patented land but the resulting waste rock piles (from excavating tunnels) and tailings piles (from milling the ore) was often strewn across adjacent public land. These areas are now the scene of toxic mine waste cleanup. Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz Briefly, Charter Oak was a lode mine and mill active off and on from 1916 to 1955. The Hopkins family ran the first Charter Oak operation as a stamp mill until the stock market crash of 1929. The mine was inactive during the first years of the Great Depression. In 1942, the Hopkins & Sons Mining Company developed the 50-ton flotation mill you see today. The Hopkins brothers and leaseholder James Bonner operated the mine throughout World War II and into the 1950s. World War II brought great productivity to the mine. Designated a strategic metals mine by the federal government, Charter Oak produced lead and zinc essential to fighting the war. Toxic waste rock and mill tailings were removed from Charter Oak from 1996-1998. The historic mine has been stabilized and interpreted by the Forest Service with the invaluable assistance of Passport in Time program volunteers and Helena High School X-CEL program students. Charter Oak is one of a handful of standing World War II-era lode mines still in existence on public land in the West. For this reason, the Charter Oak mine was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. – Courtesy of Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Offices, https://www.fs.usda.gov/ Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz
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