Castle Dome's rich history includes mining, gunfights

Intermittent small mining operations continued using an arrastra to crush ore that was smelted locally in adobe furnaces, producing a product in the form of a lead bar called a “plancha,” composed of 95 percent lead, 0.5 percent silver and the remainder impurities.

The smelters were operated by Mexicans who charged miners $40 a ton for processing.

Low-grade galena ore became sought after by Frank Vomocil and Paul Billicke, whose experience in silver mining was proven in the returns they got by eight old claims in the early 1890s.

Capitalists continued to invest in the Castle Dome District throughout the 1890s. These included the Castle Dome Mining Co., composed of Chicago investors, and Yuma merchants John Gandolfo and Eugene Sanguinetti.

Later investors included William and Eliza Luce, who saw an opportunity to extract gold and silver from the tailings at Castle Dome by use of the cyanide process. They, in turn, bought many of the nearly-exhausted mining claims, formed the Castle Dome Mining and Milling Co., and built a 200-ton processing plant.

Financial difficulties led to insolvency and the demise of the Luce operation by 1906.

Castle Dome had its share of lawlessness at the turn of the century. Miner Barbaro Hernandez, while under the influence of marijuana, attempted to shoot several miners as they were descending a shaft. He later claimed the miners had stolen his windlass (a tool used for hoisting). The next day, the armed victims returned to confront Hernandez and both parties had a shotgun battle, with Hernandez wounding both miners.

A grand jury exonerated Hernandez as having acted in self-defense.

Another miner and co-worker of Hernandez, Trinidad Reyes, didn’t take it well when Castle Dome Mine superintendent Ed Mayes reprimanded him for being intoxicated. Reyes pulled a six-gun and fired at his boss, who immediately disarmed him — though he was unable to restrain Reyes, who escaped to Mexico.

An increase in the market price for lead caused a brief revival of the district during World War I and again during World War II. By 1943, brothers George and Kenneth Holmes had mined 3 million pounds of lead, making the district one of the greatest producers of lead ore during the war. From 1870 to 1949, the district produced close to 18 million pounds of lead.

Operations in the district continued in the 1970s through the mid-1980s, fueled by the high market price for silver. Small firms were also mining galena at $140 per ton and fluorite at $90 a ton. Ore was shipped to the El Paso smelter.

The Imperial Dam, completed in 1938, covers the site of Castle Dome Landing today.

The Castle Dome Mine Museum on the site of the former mining camp has been in operation since 1994. It provides visitors a historical overview of the district’s mining operations through artifacts collected from local mines, now housed in a collection of historic buildings, some original to the site.

Since the 1950s, mineral collecting has attracted visitors to the Castle Dome District.

One of the first documented mineral specimens collected at the site was an anglesite with galena, cerussite and fluorite, probably collected by William P. Blake in the early 1880s.

Different mines in the district were known for their minerals, including wulfenite from the Puzzler and Hull mines, cerussite and fluorite from the Hull Mine and argentiferous galena from the galena-fluorite veins in the Flora Temple and Little Dome mines.

Gold-bearing veins discovered at the Big Eye vein 4 miles southeast of Castle Dome Peak yielded $33,000 in gold between 1912 and 1917.