Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings, Royal John Mine Road, approximately 0.04 miles north of New Mill, San Lorenzo

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-35-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Royal John Mine and Mill complex is on the west slope of the Black Range in the Gila National Forest. Off Highway 61, near Faywood, New Mexico, is Royal John Mine Road. The road is approximately 12 miles long, and the Mine and Mill are located at the end. It is within the boundaries of Township 17 South, Range 9 West, and includes parts of Sections 8, 9, 16, and 17. Date of Construction: A single claim was patented in with major development occurring in the area between and Designer: Unknown. Builder: The Old Mill builder is unknown.

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-35-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Erin Edwards Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No. Page 2 LOCATION AND TOPOGRAPHY: The Old Mill is located on the east side of Royal John Mine Road, at the terminus of the road in the mining area, approximately .04 mile north of the New Mill. The road is unpaved, and has been damaged due to heavy rains and flooding. The general area is littered with various pieces of equipment, processing and hauling gear, assorted machine parts and pipes, and mostly modern-day litter. It is unclear which of the equipment and machinery are original to the site, or which equipment has been moved from the adjacent private land to the public land, as the owner of the adjacent claim frequents flea markets and antique shows to collect mining ephemera.

The Old Mill is located on a hillside in a clearing of pine and juniper trees. There are tailings down both sides of the hill on either side of the Old Mill. HISTORY OF THE OLD MILL: Settlers began to flood New Mexico after the passage of the Federal Mining Act of With the passage of the General Mining Act of federal lands were opened up to mining claims by anyone 18 years of age or older. The passage of the Sherman Silver Act of further encouraged mining in New Mexico. By the population of the territory was and by the population had risen even further to Copper ore was known historically to be in the area around the Royal John Mine, but zinc and silver were first discovered by accident in the area around Prospectors were looking for silver deposits, but found zinc instead.

Multiple claims were made in the Royal John area but only one, the Comanche Claim, was patented in Even though the ore was there for the miners to take advantage of, there was still no mill in the area, which made mining difficult (McDonald In iron deposits were found in Socorro County, copper was found in the Burro Mountains, and zinc was starting to be produced in Socorro County. By the end of the Bureau of Immigration reported that there were 79 official mining districts in southern New Mexico, with 754 patented claims and claims that were not patented. Because of the rise in mineral claims in the area, by there were two smelters in Silver City (Simmons In the Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No.

Page 3 Gila Forest Reserve was made a National Forest upon the creation of the U.S. Forest Service under the Department of Agriculture. The Gila National Forest was under the administration of the Southern District of the U.S. Forest Service. Even though the land was now Federally controlled, any patented claims were allowed to remain on the land, as long as the owner fulfilled the rules of operating a patented claim. That same year an 18-mile road from Lake Valley to the mine was constructed and a small mill was built. The builders are unknown (Figure 1). It was indicated in the Kinney report that the Old Mill used a steam-operated jig mill to concentrate the ore (Kinney In the Enabling Act was passed, which invited New Mexico and Arizona to become states.

A constitution for New Mexico was approved on January 19, and the next year on January 6th President William Howard Taft signed the proclamation making New Mexico the Nation s state World War I began in and as of that year there were more than 70 different types of minerals being mined in New Mexico, with many of them contributing to the war effort (Simmons Because of the war, mined minerals were in great demand, and in Albert Owen and his brother John Owen acquired the mine and mill. Albert and John then built an 11-mile road that is still in use today and runs from Faywood, New Mexico, up to the mine and mill.

No ore was mined until when 161 tons of ore were mined and shipped (McDonald Within a year of the Owen Brothers first endeavor into mining the Royal John Mine, Great Britain had intercepted the Zimmerman telegram . The telegram promised Mexico the return of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas in return for Mexico joining Germany s side in World War I. On April 2, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. New Mexico committed as many people and as much goods to the war effort as they could, stepping up production in mining In early the Owen brothers gave the Mimbres Mining Company a chance at finding ore at the mine.

The Mimbres Mining Company did find ore at Royal John, but they did not find the grade of ore they were looking for, so they left and the property returned to the Owen Brothers (McDonald Between mid-1917 and early the Black Range Mining Company operated the mine and found a small amount of lead-zinc ore. They drilled nine churn holes to the north of the Sunshine Cut. During mining at Royal John produced tons of ore Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No.

Page 4 (Soule American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) operated the mill between approximately and early During this period, ASARCO mined tons of ore (Soule They improved mill operations with the refurbishment of the Old Mill, with the addition of the New Mill , which housed new diesel electric power equipment, and with new tables and flotation equipment. However, the extent of the refurbishment to the Old Mill is unknown.

Despite the new equipment, operations were still hindered by a lack of crushing equipment (Kinney With the beginning of the Great Depression in late metal prices dropped, and mining at Royal John ceased in early Albert Owen resumed mining at Royal John in but the Old Mill, unused since burned in June and the ore was then hand-sorted and transported to the Blackhawk Mill near Hanover, New Mexico, approximately 35 miles away (Kinney During Owen mined only 494 tons of ore (Soule Since the Mill burned, it has completely collapsed onto itself (Figure 2). Unfortunately there are no known pictures of the Old Mill, so the exact appearance of it is unknown.

It is composed of rock retaining walls, terraces, concrete walls/footers, foundations, and terraces that once held a gravity-fed mill with the remains of a wooden ore chute at the top. Three main terraces were present. Extensive tailings are located on the slope to the north and south of the building. The wood ore chute on the top level of the mill has completely collapsed. It consisted of rough-hewn timbers and beams, as well as milled lumber. Heavy wood logs, used to provide support to the foundation, are still present; however, they are all collapsed. The chute is located directly west of and below the adjacent Mill Adit, and the top of the building is generally level with the road cut above.

A rough-cut boulder and concrete foundation overhangs the associated terracing, tailings, and walls of the Old Mill. Several concrete pads and equipment anchors are visible near the top of the mill. Nothing remains of the original mill superstructure It is worth noting that the masonry wall near the base of the mill is of exceptional quality and craftsmanship, with tightly laid rough-cut stone laid in irregular courses. The upper retaining wall, below the chute, is also of good quality and is rough-cut stone laid without courses. The area in front of the mill and across a drainage area is littered with scattered equipment, trash, Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No. Page 5 and debris.

Machinery and equipment include a large metal hopper or ore bin, a large metal tank or boiler (possibly part of a steam engine), a large metal bin or ore cart, scattered lumber, scrap metal, unidentified equipment, a dismantled conveyor belt and pulley equipment, generators and motors, a fiberglass hopper or ore chute, plastic tanks, fuel cans, and a wooden spool with a hose. The equipment and debris appear to have accumulated over time and include equipment that post-dates the operation of the Old Mill. It is not clear if any of the equipment was used at the Old Mill Remediation at this site entails the removal of the tailings that have accumulated to the north and south of the Old Mill.

All of the tailings will be removed to a location by the West Cut, and the hillside will be excavated and consolidated (Email from Wendy Sutton, USFS There is a probability that the Old Mill will not withstand the excavation. The Old Mill relied on gravity to feed ore into crushers and a steam-operated jig mill to concentrate the ore (Kinney Steam-powered jig mills were introduced around for the concentration of ore. They replaced the hand-jigging methods that were used before, and were usually made up of a primary crusher unit plus wooden jigs that were steam-powered (Heyl Any equipment used at the Old Mill could not be verified, as the building is collapsed. BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) ASARCO Company History. Electronic document. Chipman, Donald E.

Handbook of Texas Online, "Cabeza De Vaca, Alvar Nunez," accessed January 05, Chipman, Donald E. Handbook of Texas Online, "Seven Cities of Cibola," accessed January 05, Donoghue, David Handbook of Texas Online, "Coronado Expedition," accessed January 05, Fell, James E. Ores to Metals: The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry. University Press of Colorado, Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No. Page 6 Boulder, Colorado. ForestHistory.Org. National Forests of the U.S.; digital document Gulf South Research Corporation. Cultural Resources Survey of the Royal John Mine and Mill in Grant County, New Mexico. USDA Forest Service, Gila National Forest, New Mexico. Hast, Adele. International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 4. St. James Press, Chicago, Illinois.

Heyl, Allen V., Allen Agnew, Erwin J. Lyons, and Charles H. Behre, Jr. The Geology of the Upper Mississippi Valley Zinc-Lead District. Geological Survey Professional Paper United States Government Printing Office, Washington, Huggard, Christopher J., and Terrence M. Humble Santa Rita del Cobre, A Copper Mining Community in New Mexico. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. Kinney, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Royal John area, Swartz District, Grant County, New Mexico: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report. Kohout, Martin Donell Handbook of Texas Online, "Asarco," accessed January 05, McDonald, Steven John Brief History of the Royal John Mine and Mill Site. Gila National Forest, Grant County, New Mexico. Simmons, Jerry. New Mexico Mining History.

Albuquerque Gem and Mineral Club. Electronic document. Soule, Investigation of the Royal John Lead-Zinc Deposits, Grant County, New Mexico. U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations Sutton, Wendy. Email from Wendy Sutton, November 30, Sutton, Wendy. Email from Wendy Sutton, January 27, Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No. Page 7 The American Presidency Project. 2016a Proclamation 432 Setting Apart as a Public Reservation Certain Public Lands in the Territory of New Mexico. Electronic document. The American Presidency Project. Proclamation 582 - Enlargement of the Gila Forest Reserve, New Mexico. Electronic document. USDA Forest Service. Establishment and Modification of National Forest Boundaries and Natural Grasslands, A Chronological Record electronic document.

%20to%202012.pdf USDA Forest Service. 2016a The Early Days: A Sourcebook of Southwestern Region History. Electronic document. USDA Forest Service. Gila National Forest. Electronic document. https://www.fs.usda.gov/gila. Visit Silver City. Gila National Forest. Digital document; Royal John Mine and Mill, Old Mill and Tailings HAER No. Page 8 Figure 1 - The Old Mill. Figure 2 - The Old Mill.