Good Hope Mine

At greater depth, these branching fissures united to form an irregular vein, with a tendency to send off shoots into the surrounding rock, chiefly into the foot-wall side.

[5] In 1881 with the arrival of the California Southern Railroad nearby at Pinacate a five-stamp mill was constructed to crush the ore from the mine and developed the underground quartz deposit.

In the 1890s an eastern corporation, the Good Hope Mining Company, took control and brought in a twenty stamp mill which was powered by coal from nearby Terra Cotta, California.

As a result of the diminished efficiency, the tailings carried sufficient value to make them profitable to cyanide operators who subsequently worked them.

Had there been less desire to maximize the volume of ore running through the mill and greater attention to efficiency, there would have remained little profit for the cyanide man.