Cobalt silver rush

There were several small revivals over the years, notably in World War II and again in the 1950s, but both petered out and today there is no active mining in the area.

Much of the settlement in northern Ontario outside the Clay Belt owes its existence indirectly to the Cobalt Rush.

In the late 19th century the Ontario government started a program to establish settlements in the Clay Belt, a band of rich soil running north of Lake Temiskaming.

At the time, direct settlement to farms was still fairly widespread, and the towns of New Liskeard and Haileybury formed in the 1890s as the hubs of this activity.

In 1902 the government decided to take over the project and started development of the T&NO, contracting out construction to a wide array of companies.

James J. McKinley and Ernest Darragh were contractors supplying ties to the T&NO along Mile 103 from North Bay.

On August 30, 1903 they staked a claim on a timber limit owned by John Rudolphus Booth,[2] and sent several samples to an assayer in Montreal.

LaRose noted "One evening I found a float, a piece as big as my hand, with little sharp points all over it.

Ferland formed a syndicate with the railway engineers T. Chambers and R. Gilbraith, and acquired 846 acres (3.42 km2) of claims, including Herbert's.

The syndicate promptly sold 843 acreas for $1 million to Ellis P. Earle, which developed into the Nipissing Mine.

With the samples Gibson included a note which stated that "If the deposit is of any considerable size it will be a valuable one on account of the high percentage of nickel which this mineral contains.

Miller visited the area in Oct. and discovered a number of veins, reporting "pieces of native silver as big as stove lids and cannon balls."

[1] William Trethewey and Alex Longwell arrived in May 1904 and set out prospecting the area of Sasaginiga Lake.

Trethewey staked two claims on some veins, one of which became the Coniagas Mine since it showed signs of copper, nickel, silver and arsenic.

Prospectors and developers started pouring into the campsite, and by the end of the year 16 operating mines, employing 438 men, shipped $1,366,000 worth of ore.

[3]: 2529, 33 The top producing mines in 1907, included Coniagas, Nipissing, O'Brien, Buffalo, Trethewey, Larose, Silver Queen, Kerr Lake Foster, Temiskaming and Hudson Bay, Green-Meehan, McKinley-Darragh, Nova Scotia, Townsite and Right-of-Way.

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.