Ontario silver mine

The lode was discovered by accident on 19 January 1872 by Herman Budden, Rector Steen (Pike), John Kain, and Gus McDowell.

[1][2][3] Hearst and his business partners James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis owned this mine and constructed the necessary infrastructure to make it productive, including hoists and stamp mill.

Chambers, who had been retained as manager, brought the bonanza ore body into production by the late 1870s.

It eventually produced fifty million dollars' worth of silver and lead.

Primary ores included argentiferous galena, sphalerite, and tetrahedrite-tennantite with pyrite and quartz gangue.