Rush
William Trethewey arrived in the spring of 1904 and set out prospecting the area. On his second day he found a vein, and staked it with another prospector, Alex Longwell. Immediately thereafter he found a second vein, staking it for himself, while Longwell went off to stake another of his own. All three would later develop into major mines, the Trethewey, Coniagas and Buffalo. Millar had returned to the area to continue work, and posted a sign alongside the railway tracks which read "Cobalt Station T. & N.O. Railway". Still, there was relatively little work being done commercially, and nothing like a "rush" started.
When travel re-opened in the spring of 1905 word was out that there was silver at Cobalt Station. Prospectors and developers started pouring into the campsight, and by the end of the year there were 16 operating mines that had shipped $1,366,000 worth of ore. The next year another $2,000,000 worth of ore was shipped, but the obvious surface veins were mined out. To continue production, trenches were dug in criss-cross patterns hoping to cut through a vein. The Nipissing Mine introduced the use of high-pressure water to simply wash off all of the topsoil, and by 1913 Long Lake, now known as Cobalt Lake was "tainted or yellow green, and is opaque". The lake was later drained, both to clear out the brackish water as well as to expose further veins.
Although one of the richest veins was known as early as 1904, development was slowed by disagreements among the shareholders. These were finally worked out and mining the "Lawson Vein" started in 1908. Once mining was underway it became clear that the vein was incredibly large, as much as 10,000 tons of processed silver, making it the largest single find in the world to this day. It is better known today as the "Silver Sidewalk".
The rush reached its peak in 1911, shipping 31,507,791 ounces of silver. The town had grown considerably, and had a population of between 10,000 and 15,000.
Read more about this topic: Cobalt Silver Rush
Famous quotes containing the word rush:
“As it grew darker, I was startled by the honking of geese flying low over the woods, like weary travellers getting in late from Southern lakes, and indulging at last in unrestrained complaint and mutual consolation. Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings; when, driving toward my house, they suddenly spied my light, and with hushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I came in, and shut the door, and passed my first spring night in the woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They seldom looked happy. They passed one another without a word in the elevator, like silent shades in hell, hell-bent on their next look from a handsome stranger. Their next rush from a popper. The next song that turned their bones to jelly and left them all on the dance floor with heads back, eyes nearly closed, in the ecstasy of saints receiving the stigmata.”
—Andrew Holleran (b. 1943)
“These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas.... But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)