Savage Mining Company.

Savage Mining Company was a gold and silver mining company, of Virginia City, Nev.

From the description of Savage Mining Company miscellany, 1876-1898. (California Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 122559063

In 1859, James Finny discovered a large silver deposit at the conjunction of Six Mile Canyon and Gold Canyon, in what would become Storey County, Nevada. The Comstock Lode, as the strike was named, became the site of a major silver rush and by the fall of 1860 three cities, Virginia City, Silver City, and Gold Hill were founded with a combined population of over 3400. During the next few years, the original claims changed hands and individual ownership was replaced by corporations owned by California investors.

During the 1860s shafts were dug, hoisting works and mills constructed, and numerous law suits settled questions of ownership. The 1870s were the boom period; John Mackay, James Flood, James Fair, and William O'Brien, known as the Bonanza Firm, gained control of the Hale & Norcross and adjacent mines and built fortunes on big strikes in 1872 and 1874. During the 1870s Adolph Sutro realized his dream to build a drainage and ventilation tunnel under the Comstock mines. By the end of the decade, however, ore production decreased and flooding continued to threaten the lower tunnels. Although mining continued through the 1880s, many mines closed up and pumping costs outstripped revenue. Toward the end of the century and into the twentieth, those mines that remained open had to cooperate with their neighbors to survive.

The management of the Savage Mining Company was typical of the Comstock Lode. Formally incorporated as the Savage Mining Company in 1862, the company was sometimes referred to as the Savage Silver Mining Company, and in 1904 it was reorganized as the Savage Gold and Silver Mining Company. Many of the Comstock mining companies in the nineteenth century are formally entitled "---- Gold and Silver Mining Company," but often "Gold and Silver" was omitted. In this finding aid the names have been shortened for convenience.) The company was founded in California with five trustees and four officers: president, secretary, treasurer, and superintendent. The board of directors ran the business from the company's offices on the Nevada Block, San Francisco. The superintendent, who was stationed in Virginia City, oversaw the daily management of the mine. The two levels of administration kept up a constant correspondence, in early years between the superintendent and president, but later through the secretary. Since the names of these men appear throughout the collection, a chronological list of officers for the Savage and Hale & Norcross can be found in Appendix II .

A detailed history of the Savage Mining Company is difficult to compile: the board of directors minutes for May 21, 1906 (see Box 10, folder 187) note the destruction of all corporate records prior to that date "by general conflagration on the 19th 20th & 21st days of April 1906 [the Great San Francisco Earthquake]." A few facts are nevertheless clear. Situated between Gold Hill and Virginia City, the Savage mine was bounded on the north by the Gould & Curry mine and on the south by the Hale & Norcross mine. The physical proximity of Savage and Hale & Norcross led to a common history, and although they maintained separate corporate identities, they experienced the same problems and successes. Both were supervised by James G. Fair in the 1870s and R. P. Keating in the 1880s. The companies exchanged material and personnel and in 1875 cooperated with the Potosi and Chollar mining companies to sink the Chollar-Norcross-Savage Shaft. In the 1890s when the Brunswick Lode was discovered, the Savage and Hale & Norcross joined forces with Gould & Curry, Best & Belcher, Consolidated California & Virginia, Chollar, and Potosi to dig the shaft.

The records prove that the Savage Mining Company existed into the 1930s, but mostly by levying assessments on their stock. The Hale & Norcross seems to have disappeared sometime before 1904, since they are not listed in projects to pump out and repair the mines. When and if the Savage Mining Company was dissolved is not clear. This collection was removed from the old Savage office building in Virginia City sometime around 1959 when the building was demolished.

From the guide to the Savage Mining Company and associated records, 1858-1959, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)