Mine Tales: Gold-mining in Mohave County had its ups and downs

Signature mines include the Gold Road, Tom Reed and United Eastern.

Gold discovered by soldiers stationed at Camp Mohave near the Colorado River in 1863 led to mining operations that would rank Mohave County as the second-highest gold-producing county in Arizona.

The following year John Moss reportedly discovered $240,000 worth of gold in a vein aptly named the Moss vein. Although more veins were discovered, mining operations slowed over the next several decades due to an uprising among the Hualapai Indians in 1866 and the 1880s discovery of gold 25 miles to the northeast in the Cerbat Mountains.

A revival occurred in 1900, when Mexican prospector Jose Jerez discovered gold in the area while tending burros. News spread that the ore discovered assayed at $40 to the ton.

Large-scale development of the property began when the Gold Road Mining and Explorations Co. sank several shafts, including the Tom Reed and Harrison. By 1906, the Tom Reed Gold Mines Co. acquired the property and began producing high-grade ore. A mill was erected to grind the rock, which was later mixed with cyanide to recover the gold from the ore.

The Vivian mine discovered by Ben Paddock around 1902 led to the establishment of a namesake town consisting of 150 people. As the local mines prospered, the larger town of Oatman was established in 1909.

The town was named after Olive Oatman, a woman captured in 1851 near Gila Bend by a Yavapai Indian war party that turned her over to the Mojave Indians. She was released six years later near the site of the present town of Oatman.

Oatman experienced a massive influx of 10,000 people after the development in 1913 of the $13 million ore deposit known as the United Eastern mine. By 1916 the mill at the United Eastern Mine was processing over 250 tons of ore daily.

During World War I, Oatman was the largest gold producing camp in the United States. Surviving a devastating fire in 1921 that destroyed many of the town’s buildings, today it serves as a tourist attraction along Route 66 and includes the Oatman Hotel, which served as the destination in 1939 for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard after their wedding in Kingman.

By the 1920s, the gold and silver content of the ores decreased as the depths of some mines reached below 1,000 feet. Ore mined in the district during its boom years averaged $12.37 per ton.

In 1924, mining further decreased when the United Eastern ore body became exhausted along with the ore from the Tom Reed Mine eight years later. By then the San Francisco district had produced over $34 million worth of gold.

The final blow to the district occurred in 1942, when the U.S. War Production Board issued Limitation Order No. 208, closing gold mines in the U.S. in an effort to force miners to work in copper and zinc mines producing materials deemed strategic metals for the war effort.

The Gold Road underground mine was Arizona’s only operating commercial primary gold mine during the late 1990s, yielding 40,000 ounces of gold a year. Closed in 1998 due to declining market prices, it was reopened in 2010 by Mojave Desert Minerals, which currently produces gold on a limited basis through exploration and development.