The Kennecott Mines
| ABOVE: Engineering and office staff at Kennecott in the 1930s. The man in glasses with the pipe is superintendent Richelsen |
|
|
|
On July 15th, there were 72 men
working at Bonanza, 86 at Jumbo, 17 at Erie and 146 at the Mother Lode
Mine, for a total of 321. Another 142 worked at the lower camp. The
aerial trams, messes and staff accounted for the rest, bringing the
total workforce at Kennecott to exactly 550 that day with a monthly
payroll of $86,337.00. The previous year had seen peak ore production at
339,374 tons. The workforce then had been about 600 men. By the end of
1924, the production would be about three quarters of 1923. Such was the
state of the mines as Stephen Birch and Dan Jackling headed up the
Bonanza tram to visit the Bonanza, the Mother Lode and the Jumbo in the
summer of 1924. Our entire staff had already arrived ahead of all the top-level managers and visitors. We realized that the Bonanza and Jumbo were essentially cleaned out. Even the Mother Lode was nearly depleted of its proven reserves. Typically the company was able to establish reserves four years in advance of actually removing the ore. This was no longer true. Everyone knew what was coming. I sat down next to Russell Belvedere at one of the two ten-man tables placed together for our meeting. Coffee and water was already set up. The meal would follow Stephen Birch’s speech. The Great Man rose to speak. |
|
|
| BELOW: Stephen Birch, "the great man," on the ground at Kennecott in a 1911 trip, probably a few months after the railroad reached this site. The man next to him was Superintendent Seagraves, while the two others were representatives of the Guggenheim brothers--the original investors and originators Kennecott. |
