New Idria today a ghost of its former self
At one time the New Idria Mining Company, located south of
Hollister, was among the world’s top refiners of cinnabar. Rich
veins of the deep red ore extend from the New Almaden Mines,
located south of San Jose, reaching deep into San Benito
County.
New Idria today a ghost of its former self
At one time the New Idria Mining Company, located south of Hollister, was among the world’s top refiners of cinnabar. Rich veins of the deep red ore extend from the New Almaden Mines, located south of San Jose, reaching deep into San Benito County.
When mined and distilled, the ore yields quicksilver, also known as mercury, named for the fleet-footed Greek god, Mercury. Both of the California mercury mines competed in size and output with the ancient Almaden mines in Spain and those in Idrija, located in the former Yugoslavia. Both California mines ceased operation in the mid-1970s, following growing environmental concerns.
During the Gold Rush, the discovery of cinnabar in California came at a lucky time. Quicksilver is used in the amalgamation process, a chemical method of deriving gold and silver from ore. Today, the liquid metal is also used in barometers, thermometers and electric switches. It provides the silver coating found in thermos flasks, and is used to decorate fancy glass objects.
In the early 1850s, the New Idria mines were worked by Chileans and Mexicans who earned around $2 to $3 per day. They lived in huts, deserted workings and shanties. In time, a busy mining town grew up around the site. The mining operation, which continued for nearly 120 years, eventually had its own busy company town, complete with post office, school, dining hall, bunkhouses and cottages, all located around the refinery or climbing up the nearby hills. Due to its remoteness, located 63 miles south of Hollister, the community was nearly self-sufficient.
In July 1861, a geologic surveyor named William Brewer visited New Idria and two other nearby mines, the Aurora and the San Carlos. Brewer reported that there were miles of tunnels being worked, some of them reaching 1,000 feet into the nearby mountainsides. The three mines were consolidated in 1898 under the name New Idria Quicksilver Mining Co.
In its heyday, during the latter part of the 19th Century, the mining company employed 300 workers. The men labored in 24-hour shifts, alternating eight-hour cycles of sleep and work. Time off was allotted only every few months, but the risky job also paid well. At the refinery, enormous furnaces and massive turbines roared nonstop, heating the cinnabar and extracting the precious mercury.
There were pitfalls to the work. Until a ventilation system was installed to carry off the poisonous fumes, many workers fell deathly ill from the noxious smelting and refining process. Some died of mercury poisoning, even though many volunteered to do the riskiest work for an extra few days off plus a $20 stipend. This usually included the rigorous task of crawling down a ladder into the furnace pits to shovel out accumulated residue.
The poisonous effects of the smelting process were well known. In 1863, J. Ross Browne, a reporter and mining expert wrote on California mines, “A noxious odor was perceptible which had a pernicious effect upon the nervous system. The workmen who are compelled to stand in close proximity to the furnaces and condensers are frequently salivated and are liable to palsy, vertigo an other disorders of the brain.”
The refining process was done by reduction, in which the ore was placed in large furnaces, heated to a white-hot temperature and in the process the quicksilver was evaporated from the ore in the form of mercuric vapor. This was relayed into condensers containing a series of chambers, which conducted the vapor, while leaving the quicksilver. From there, the metal flowed down grooves to pipes and outside to large iron pots to be collected into flasks weighing 76 pounds each when filled.
At the New Idria Mines, about 900 such flasks per month were hauled overland by horse and mule pack trains to the nearest stage stop at San Juan Bautista. Each pack animal could carry three flasks weighing a total of about 225 pounds. At San Juan, the flasks were left for pickup and supplies were purchased for the return trip to the mines. According to the memoirs of Isaac Mylar, a San Juan Bautista resident of the era, the flasks were left in the store yard of Mr. Harris, a supply contractor to the mine. “No one ever stole them … their dead weight precluded anyone from getting any distance with a flask, to say nothing of the difficulty of trying to sell the stolen property.”
After the Southern Pacific line was extended to San Benito County, the shipments were delivered by stage to Tres Pinos to be picked up at the rail station.
The beginning of decline at New Idria occurred at the start of World War II when the U.S. government, in an economic move to keep Hitler out of Spain, signed a 99-year mercury trade agreement with that country. By 1972, the New Idria facility had become too expensive to run. Operating costs, along with growing environmental concerns, led to the mine’s closure.
Today, the old boom town lies silent and rusting, but its story remains, both as a vital chapter in the annals of San Benito County history, and as an ongoing problem for environmentalists concerned over the old operation’s long-term leaching of toxins into area water supplies.
