The Elkhorn lode was located by Mike T. Steele and F. W. Pahnish on October 24, 1873. A partnership was formed with Con Bray and Judge Meade and enough money was raised to build a small mill on the site. For the next two decades, small amounts of high-grade ore were mined and shipped to Swansea for smelting. In 1893, the Elkhorn shut down, along with the district's other mines, after the disastrous drop in silver prices that year. By 1903, silver prices had recovered to a point where it seemed feasible to revive the Elkhorn mine. Tom Judge found a rich vein of silver ore while doing prospecting work on the Elkhorn Ledge. This generated some interest to reopen the mine, but there was not sufficient financing to get the project underway. In 1906, Frank Felt bought a number of claims in the district and, along with M. L. McDonald and Donald B. Gillies, started a tunnel on the Idanha vein which eventually would become the major producing mine for the Elkhorn group. Two years later, in 1909, the tunnel would be further developed by the Park Mining Company which extended it to 748 feet (Sassman 1941; Wirtz and Lovell 1976).
The Elkhorn Mining operations were restricted by the lack of economical transportation prior to 1882. Being located in the heart of a a high mountain valley, far from any towns or hubs was a major issue. From 1873 to 1882, nearly no ores were shipped out. Instead they were stockpiles and processed on site. The cost of processing was very high. The ore was hauled by wagon to Corinne, Utah and then sent overland (train) to San Francisco, from there by ship to Swansea, Wales where the smelters were located. In 1893, silver prices crashed and many mining operations throughout the district closed down, most never to recover. But not the mighty Elkhorn.
The Elkhorn had something that many other mines in the area did not have. Gold. Gold values and ore sustained the mine from 1893 to the early 1900s. In the twentieth century, virtually all mining activity in the district was centered on the Elkhorn lode. The massive operation to develop the lode would turn out to be one of Montana's last and largest mining ventures. Economics dictated that a rail line be built for export of ores. The rail line was completed by December 1919 and was the last narrow-gauge railway built in the United States. The railroad had three Baldwin locomotives, 28 freight cars, three passenger cars, a machine shop, an engine house and depots at a total cost of $2.1 million dollars.
Large-scale development of the Elkhorn lode got underway in 1911. William R. Allen, former lieutenant governor of Montana turned mining entrepreneur, became interested in the property and devoted his efforts to developing the Elkhorn mines on a scale which dwarfed anything attempted in the area before or since. Allen would be inextricably linked with the fortunes of the Elkhorn mine for the next 40 years. Although many others were involved in the development of the Elkhorn mine, Allen was the chief promoter and prime mover of the project from beginning to end. His personal career and fortune would be mirrored in the development and ultimate failure of the Elkhorn mine project.
An estimated $5,000,000 was spent by the Boston-Montana Development Company in building the Elkhorn mine project. However, before the mill even went into production, serious problems began to appear. The economy had slowed down during the 1920-1921 recession and, to make matters worse, the company's bond and note issues, along with other financial obligations, came due during this same period. In its prime, the mine and mill employed 250 men, yet only 26,000 tons of ore were mined from 1921 through 1924 due to labor issues, weather and a variety of other bad luck problems. 20,000 tons were produced in 1925, but from then on only a few tons were reported processed sporadically during the years 1935-1937, 1939, 1942, 1948 and 1953.
The mine owners processed much of the gold and silver for those years at the mill. Making payroll and operating expenses from those proceeds. It was only in years of high profits that any production was reported or taxes paid on that production. According to historical documentation, the amount of ores produced as reported would equal $8.7 million dollars at a 1930-1949 average. However, historical documents only account for an actual taxable output of $375,000. A variance of nearly $8.3 Million dollars. Where did all that money go?
Total production from the Elkhorn mines was 52,385 tons of ore and from that, 8,900 tons of concentrates were produced for shipment to smelters at Tooele, Utah and East Helena, Montana.
The concentrates yielded 851,725 pounds of lead, 4,100 pounds of zinc, 370,799 pounds of copper, 180,843 ounces of silver and 1,013 ounces of gold. The total of this output in 1949 numbers is $8,725,435.50. Somehow this was mis-reported in 1949 when the reported total production of the Elkhorn mines was $375,000. This is not uncommon and leaves over $8.25 million dollars unaccounted for.
In 1981 the previously abandoned mines received new interest with the increase in gold prices. The Elkhorn mines were bought by Timberline Minerals, Inc. who did some exploratory prospecting work on the site. They reported good potential for silver, tungsten, molybdenum as well as pockets and veins of gold which were previously unknown. It has been reported by numerous geological and federal sources that with current technology, these mines could be viable, commercial sites with only a few thousand dollars in improvements. Could these claims be responsible for the next mining billionaire in the United States? Only time will tell.
