The Mary McKinney Mine
by Mike Hurtt
Frank Castello was one of the few people who actually listened to Bob Womack. When Bob made his occasional visits to Castello's grocery store in Florissant, his tales of Cripple Creek gold flowed as freely as Frank's whiskey. It was natural then for Castello to be present at the founding of the Cripple Creek Mining District in early 1891. By the time the first snows fell that winter, he had staked a claim called the Mary McKinney.
These were the early days when prospectors arrived in Cripple in pairs, not by the hundreds. It was obvious by the fall of '91 that there was gold for the taking in Cripple Creek. The real question was where to find it. Castello chose a spot at the head of Squaw Gulch, at the base of what would become known as Gold Hill. Within a matter of months, the sprawling town of Anaconda would appear at the very foot of the Mary McKinney.
The budding town of Anaconda in the shadow of the Mary McKinney
Mine.
It turned out that Frank had chosen his spot
well. Within a short walk of the Mary McKinney, other great Cripple Creek
mines were getting their start as well. The Doctor Mine and the Jack Pot Mine were
close
neighbors. They had not yet merged to become the infamous Doctor Jack Pot Mine.
The Anaconda Mine was within shouting distance. The Chicken Hawk property was
just a short walk away. Frank Castello was definitely in the right place at the right time.
| Castello had the sense to understand that he was a grocer, not a miner. He worked the gold out of the ground on the leasing system. Experienced miners did the work, usually using the company's materials, and paid the company a percentage of the ore shipped. In this way, Castello was able to rapidly expand the mine and its physical plant while keeping a tight reign on expenses. This strategy eventually proved so successful that the company was able to swallow some neighboring properties and later bought the mighty Anaconda Mine. |
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Of course, not all of the lessees were grizzled old timers. One tenderfoot doing lease work in the Mary McKinney touched off a powder box with an experimental electric shooter. A hole was blown in the roof of the shaft house and the town of Anaconda was showered with rocks. Town wags said the hole was caused by a water pump blown up from the bottom of the shaft. Conventional wisdom held that a pump blown out with that much force would not return to Earth "for at least two days."
One of the biggest problems facing mine owners in those days was "high grading." The leasing system notwithstanding, the Mary McKinney was not exempt from the high graders. In short, miners would often tuck a few samples of ore in their clothing or dinner buckets before leaving for the day. This ore was then fenced through a complex system that could easily double or treble a miner's daily wage.
One oft-repeated high grading story involved the Mary McKinney. Superintendent George Keener told the shift boss it was his birthday and invited the men into his office for a birthday cigar. When the last man entered Keener's office, he locked the door, pulled two .45 caliber pistols, and ordered each man to empty his dinner bucket on the table. Every man caught with high grade was fired on the spot. Or so the story went....
Another
problem that plagued the Mary McKinney, and many other Cripple Creek mines, was flooding.
Castello made sure his company was part of the drainage plans, first for the El
Paso Tunnel, and later for the Roosevelt Tunnel. This kept the water level
down and allowed the Mary McKinney to scratch even deeper into the earth in
search of gold.
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Having seen the devastating effects of fraud and stock manipulation on some companies, Frank Castello decided it was best to keep control of the Mary McKinney in the hands of family and friends. Frank remained president of the company until his death in 1915. His son Charles took command after Frank's death. When Charles retired, his half brother, Frank Jr. assumed control. The Mary McKinney Mining Company remained a profitable enterprise as long as it could. |
World War I was devastating to the Cripple Creek Mining District and to the Mary McKinney in particular. Cripple Creek's glory days were over. The easily obtainable high grade ore was gone. The rule of the day was to keep costs low and survive. When World War I hit, many miners were called away to Europe and the mines were idled. Because it was a leased operation, miners found it particularly easy to walk away from the Mary McKinney. The property languished for a number of years with no significant operations being conducted and no new veins being discovered. The company ran up a $10,000 debt and owed back taxes. In 1928, the Mary McKinney Mining Company was sold to John Milliken's LeClair Mining Company in a 1 for 10 stock swap and assumption of debt .
Before it was done, the Mary McKinney Mine became Cripple Creek's 12th biggest producer, eventually pulling more than $11 million in gold from the ground. Coming in 12th may not sound like much, but in Cripple Creek, being number 12 meant many millions of dollars and a permanent place in mining history.
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