Chisos Mining Company

The Chisos Mining Company was established and began operations in 1903 near what would become Terlingua, Texas. The company specialized in quicksilver mercury mining. The marketability was established in 1799 when Charles Harvard discovered that compounding the element generated fulminate mercury crystals. These crystals can be used to cause small explosions and are useful in the manufacture of gunpowder cartridges and shells.

The Chisos Mining Company was preceded in the Big Bend area of west Texas by the Marfa and Mariposa Mining Company, which began operations in the 1880s. That company erected the first Scott furnace in 1899. The furnace was a necessary part of extracting quicksilver from the cinnabar that was prevalent in the region. There were several other mines in the area; however, Chisos ultimately eclipsed them all and was the most profitable. The town of Terlingua grew around the company, which necessitated the establishment of services including a post office, public school, store, and jail.

The company's founder and president, Howard E. Perry, was born in Chicago and began his career working at his father's lumber mill. How Perry acquired the tract of land in Texas that was mined is contested, but most likely he acquired the land in lieu of payment for a debt. He incorporated the Chisos Mining Company under the State of Maine on May 8, 1903 and listed Augusta, Maine, as the principal office. In July 1903, Perry registered Chisos as a foreign corporation doing business in Texas. After acquiring the tract in Texas, he went on research trips to California and Spain to see how quicksilver mines operated. After the Chisos mines were successful, he returned to Chicago where he ran the business remotely.

Perry's managerial style and his choice to administer the business from Chicago led to some structural idiosyncrasies. He established the precedent that he communicated only with one or two agents who then distributed information to all other agents and departments. The earliest correspondence with Perry in this capacity was with the store manager and purchasing agent, H.A. Ferguson. Perry also communicated with James Lafarrelle, a contemporary of Ferguson, who worked as a superintendent or supervisor. Ferguson resigned from his post in 1910 and was replaced by C.A. Hawley, who came from the Marfa and Mariposa company. Wayne Cartledge, who joined the company in 1909, rose through the ranks to become general manager in 1923. His younger brother Robert became general manager after him and held the post until 1940. Robert Cartledge's work at the company is extensively documented throughout the records.

Generally, the positions open to Anglo workers were mine superintendent, general manager, assayer, furnace manager, store manager, and purchasing agent. Manual labor was performed by Mexicans; a labor force from Mexico was readily available due to the site's remoteness from white settlements in Texas and its proximity to the Texas-Mexico border.

By 1905, the quicksilver industry was booming and would continue to do so with the advent of World War I. Competition was fierce and so secrecy was essential. Telegrams between Perry and his company were often in code. In response to the company's success, Perry commissioned a Scott furnace to be built. Previously, the Chisos company had been using the Marfa and Mariposa company's furnace; with its own furnace, Chisos grew to outpace the production of the older company. By 1910, the Marfa and Mariposa mines closed. The Chisos Company maintained steady business, aided by the discovery of the high-yielding ore chimney in 1914. The business reached its apex of profitability during the years of World War I; by 1921, demand and production decreased, but remained stable for the next few years.

The company store, from its inception the center of the community at Terlingua, was established no later than 1905 (the earliest documentation is a Brewster County tax record). Originally a temporary tent, the permanent structure was built around 1908. Its central location in the town made it the ideal location for the offices of the general manager and the company purchasing agent, as well as the Post Office. The one telephone in Terlingua was installed there in 1913, and when Precinct No. 4 was established, the office of the Justice of the Peace was also located in the store. It was a necessary establishment; there were no other general stores within a hundred miles, and this attracted patrons from outside the company's employ as well.

Payroll practices were closely bound to the running of the store. It would appear that laborers were paid at the end of each shift, either in silver pesos or coupons which could only be used in the company store; this may account for the inconsistent recordkeeping regarding the payroll of the labor force. In the early years, employees were paid in cash at the end of each shift. In seeking to maintain a closed economy, it is alleged that management paid wages in marked pesos and maintained an inconsistent exchange rate to U.S. dollars. Store clerk C.A. Hawley reported unscrupulous practices to the Mexican government, which in turn attempted to file suit against Chisos. This fiasco likely led to the institution of the coupon payment system, perpetuating the company store's closed economy. When Robert Cartledge started work for the company, one of his first duties was setting up the coupon payroll system. After that point, the daily-issued coupons could be traded in for cash twice per month, although this practice was not encouraged.

The institutions of the post office and the public school were established early to serve the growing community, and while they were more or less public, government-based institutions, their staff were employed by the Chisos Mining Company. George Ed Babb was for many years the postmaster, as well as a prominent member and occasional president of the school board. Other Chisos employees or affiliates on the school board include a Mrs. Burcham and a Mr. Waters. Other Chisos employees held political positions in Brewster County, including Wayne Cartledge's post in 1918 as County Commissioner. Purportedly these seats were maneuvered by Perry in order to influence budgets as well as taxes levied on the company.

The culture of Terlingua was structured around company mandates and customs. A seven-day work week was standard. The mine laborers worked in three eight-hour shifts, which rotated every two weeks, always on Saturdays; this opened Saturday evenings to social gatherings. The company, as well as Terlingua itself, was deeply segregated between white and Mexican employees. Though the majority of pupils in the Terlingua school were Hispanic, the school board forbade the use of Spanish therein. A notable example of this unequal treatment of Anglo and Mexican residents may be found in documents from 1922, when the mine closed for over two months because of flooding. Without wages and no means of savings, the laborers asked for credit to be extended at the store, and were refused.

Social strain was accompanied by legal difficulty. In 1928, communications began between Perry and representatives from the neighboring Rainbow Mining Company, including Alpine attorney John Perkins and Rainbow board member M.B. Whitlock, attempting to determine whether Chisos's latest excavations had led them beyond the perimeter of Perry's land and onto that of the Rainbow Mining Company. Perry insisted that the mine was entirely on Chisos land and had his attorney W. Van Sickle research past land surveys. Upon finding a disparity between the original survey and a more recent one, Van Sickle filed a claim with the land office, asserting Chisos's ownership of the contested area. Rainbow in return filed an injunction against Chisos on May 31, 1929 and Wilbur L. Matthews of Templeton, Brooks, Napier, and Brown in San Antonio was assigned to investigate the claims. Matthews uncovered evidence in favor of Rainbow's claim and clinched his victory by locating the original survey marker as indisputable proof of Perry's transgression. The matter was settled on February 17, 1930 with the court awarding Rainbow $75,000 in damages.

As the country slid into depression in the 1930s, the quicksilver industry suffered. On July 18, 1933, the National Quicksilver Producers Association (NQPA) was founded to support the industry's interests in the legislation being passed as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal initiative. The Association was comprised of mining companies around the nation and Howard Perry of the Chisos Mining Company served as its vice president upon its founding. The NQPA applied for a Code of Fair Competition from the National Recovery Administration on July 31, 1933. The Code was supposed to protect American quicksilver production from being replaced by cheaper, foreign suppliers as well as to set standards for how business was conducted.

Though this code was approved March 21, 1934, Howard Perry and the Chisos Mining Company had already severed ties with the NQPA and organized with other Texan quicksilver interests as non-NQPA members to address the problems unique to the area. Perry's primary disagreement with the code approved at the national level was its minimum wage requirements (30 cents per hour), which Perry thought were too high for a primarily Mexican workforce. Perry and his consortium received a temporary exemption from the minimum wage requirements, requiring them to pay at minimum 20cents per hour.

Perry's dealings with the NRA were far from over, as in 1934, NRA Executive Assistant T.U. Purcell began his investigation of Howard Perry and the Chisos Mining Company. Purcell found that not only was Perry underpaying his employees even beyond the allowed exempt amount, he was violating numerous other terms of the Code of Fair Competition. In addition to wage violations, Purcell's report cites Chisos for requiring a 54-hour work week (as opposed to the 40-hour work week required by the code), failing to pay overtime wages for these additional hours, and paying his Mexican employees in foreign currency rather than U.S. dollars. Further citations for safety, child labor, and oppression painted Perry as such an unreasonable employer that Purcell's report came to the attention of the Texas director for the NRA, H.P. Drought. What followed was a lengthy series of heated meetings with Purcell, Drought, Perry, and representatives from other mines in the Terlingua area, eventually removing Purcell from the investigation because of his attitudes towards Perry. By March, 1935, new investigators had been sent from the NRA to Chisos and Perry and his staff had made enough adjustments to the practices as to satisfy their inquiries. The company was found finally to be in compliance with the code and Perry was left to run Chisos without further interference from the NRA.

As the 1930s progressed, production of quicksilver declined and Perry was grasping at any opportunity to make the mine profitable again. Past due notices were making up most of the correspondence received by the company and Robert Cartledge was running Chisos with a skeleton crew, while trying to communicate to Perry the futility of continuing on at Chisos. Perry's creditors filed an involuntary bankruptcy suit against Chisos on September 5, 1942. After a last scramble for cash, Perry and Chisos filed the paperwork to finalize the bankruptcy on October 1, 1942 and the mine and furnace were shut down for the last time.

(Sources: Ragsdale, Kenneth Baxter, Quicksilver: Terlingua and the Chisos Mining Company, Texas A&M University Press, 1976; Ragsdale, Kenneth B., Chisos Mining Company, ( http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dkc05 ), and W. D. Burcham and Harris S. Smith, Mercury Mining, ( http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dkm02 ), Handbook of Texas Online, published by the Texas State Historical Association, accessed November 6, 2011; and the records themselves.)

From the guide to the Chisos Mining Company records, 1905-1943, undated, bulk 1928-1942, undated, (Texas State Archives)

Mining company located in the Big Bend area of west Texas at Terlingua.

Founded in 1903 by Howard E. Perry, the company extracted mercury from cinnabar and prospered especially during the years of World War I. Production declined in the 1930s, and the business declared bankruptcy in October, 1942.

From the description of Chisos Mining Company records, 1909-1932. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 37473275

Mining company located in the Big Bend area of west Texas at Terlingua.

Founded in 1903 by Howard E. Perry, the company extracted mercury from cinnabar and prospered especially during the years of World War I. Production declined in the 1930s, and the business declared bankruptcy in October, 1942.

From the description of Chisos Mining Company records, 1907-1942. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 37473329