New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

Mineral prospecting in what would become southern Arizona began about the mid-1800s, after the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. Silver mining goes back much further. Some of the earliest silver mining was done by the Spaniards about 1687, and those were deposits that had been worked much earlier by the Indians.

After the Jesuits were expelled from the New World and the Spaniards migrated back into Mexico, the mines laid dormant until 1855. This is the date of some of the earliest settlements. In 1857, mining began in earnest with the formation of the Sonora Mining and Exploration Co. and the Arizona Mining Co. In 1858, the Santa Rita Mining Co. was organized to operate older workings as well as the new ones that were being discovered every day.

In areas where mining was exceptionally active, towns sprang up—Patagonia, Harshaw, Mowry, Washington, and Dusquesne. But many mines had their own temporary camps that kept the miners close to their work—Trench, Hardshell, World's Fair, and Four Metals. There may be an adobe wall or two, a foundation, or even a fairly complete building left in the more prosperous or easily dismantled buildings. When it was time to move to the next mineral discovery, it was a relatively easy task to tear down one camp and set up another elsewhere. Outside of a vague mark on a tattered old map, these temporary mining camps have returned to the earth from which they arose.

The heyday of life and mining activity in the Harshaw and Patagonia Districts in the Patagonia Mountains lasted for a good half century from the 1870s to the 1930s. Outside of the towns of Patagonia, Harshaw, Mowry, Washington Camp, and Dusquesne that experienced fluctuating populations from 500 to 2000 inhabitants, there were at least a dozen smaller camps scattered throughout the mountains to handle the gold, silver, copper, and lead ore where the discoveries were made. A wealth of information lies within the crumbling adobe walls, the scattered artifacts of everyday life, and the rusting mining equipment left behind in these ghost towns.

Other important information lies within the mineral specimens saved from the jaws of the crushers and the fires of the smelters. These remnants provide glimpses of the kinds of minerals uncovered nearly 150 years ago. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has in its permanent mineral collection some of the finer examples of copper, lead, silver, and zinc minerals from this area preserved for posterity.