Hello Everyone,
Founded in 1876, Homestake Gold Mine was the deepest and most productive gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. It was also the most productive gold mine in recorded history. In its 370 miles of tunnels, shafts, and chambers, from the surface to 8,000 feet, it produced more than 40 million troy ounces of gold, 9 million troy ounces of silver, and 6 million ounces of copper in its 126-year existence. A troy ounce is slightly heavier than a standard ounce. It received its name in the market of Troyes, France.
The company town of Lead, South Dakota developed around the mine which at its peak employed 2,200 people. Homestake closed in 2001, and in 2006, its caverns became home to the Sanford Underground Research Facility dealing with fascinating physics experiments in neutrinos, dark energy, and dark matter. A visit to the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center with a trolley tour around town, including a stop at the Lab’s Yates hoistroom, answers lots of questions about this.
HISTORY OF THE HOMESTAKE MINE
In April 1876, after a winter of prospecting, two brothers, Fred and Moses Manuel; Hank Harney; and Alex Engh found a promising vein of ore near what is now Lead, a few miles southwest of Deadwood. Such veins were called leads (pronounced leeds) which gave the town its name. The group staked a claim, built a mill, and within a year mined $20,000 worth of gold. They gave the mine its name because they thought there might be enough gold to allow them to return to their families (A “home” stake). The next year, they sold their claim for $70,000 (a million dollars today) to a partnership of three mining entrepreneurs: George Hearst, James Haggin, and Lloyd Tevis. The partners incorporated the Homestake Mining Company in 1877.
When the Homestake Mining Company was incorporated, George Hearst and his syndicate probably had little idea of the magnitude of their purchase. During its life, the Homestake Mine would supply the United States with the bulk of its gold for over 100 years and surpass all of its competitors in the global gold industry.
The name Hearst seems familiar because George was the father of William Randolph Hearst of the publishing empire. George was awarded the San Francisco Enquirer to settle a gambling debt. His son took over the newspaper which is how his publishing business began.
Besides the Homestake Mine, George owned an interest in some of the most important claims in the U.S. including the Comstock Lode in Nevada, the Ontario silver mine in Utah, and the Anaconda copper mine in Montana. He became a United States Senator from California between 1887 and 1891.
Workers were recruited from across the United States and Europe. At one time, there were 25 nationalities. Many were hired from Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall in England. All had solid knowledge about gold mining. The population of Lead, in the 1920s and 1930s, peaked at 10,000 and is currently around 3,000.
Life was not easy for the miners with extreme heat as they descended into the lower levels. During the 126 years, almost 400 died with most killed by falling rock. Eighty fell to their deaths. The 1930 fire of the Ellison head frame wiped out nearly everything above ground. Fortunately, safety improved over time.
It wasn’t easy in the early days for the horses and mules either. They had underground stables. Some never saw daylight. It was found that when they were brought to the surface, the change in light could cause the animals to go blind. They were used to transport people and materials in the early 1900s until the arrival of air compression trains.
When the country was suffering through the Depression in the 1930's, the Homestake Mining Company did not have any negative effects. In 1935, it registered $11.39 million in net income, a record that would stand for nearly 40 years.
Just a year before, the U.S. Treasury Department had raised gold to a set price of $35 an ounce from $20.67 an ounce. Before the raise, the company traded at $80 a share on the NYSE. After it passed, the stock was valued at $495 by December 1935. The problem was that the price of gold remained at that level for the next 40 years while gold production costs rose. The gap between the two became increasingly narrower threatening to make the Homestake Mine profitless.
The War Production Board shut down gold mining in 1942. Miners and other workers transferred to other industries vital to the war effort. One-fifth of the Homestake Mining Company's employees were involved in the European theater with the National Guard’s 109th Engineering Battalion.
The Homestake Mine closed between 1942 and 1945. The company during the war years turned to making parts for airplanes, hand grenades, and wrenches. When the Homestake Mining Company reopened at the end of the war, a lot of its competition had dissolved.
After World War II, to reduce production costs, the Homestake Mining Company installed hoisting equipment, introduced television monitoring and short-wave radio communication equipment aimed at doubling each miner’s productivity. These solutions were only temporary. By 1951, it cost $22.18 to produce one ounce of gold.
From 1953 through 1957, the Homestake Mining Company started to diversify by purchasing uranium properties in Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico.This paid off as by the mid-1960s, uranium mining contributed more than half of the company’s $4.9 million in net income. Although the Homestake Mine expanded, reaching depths of 6,800 feet, its productivity plunged while its production costs rose. For example, in 1963, the mine produced the lowest amount of gold since 1884. The industry also had a sharp downturn as the number of U.S. gold mines fell from 9,000 to 600.
Diversification continued. In 1962, the Homestake Mining Company entered a joint venture with AMAX Gold to develop lead and zinc properties in southeast Missouri and in 1964 to develop potash in Saskatchewan, Canada, which began production in 1968. The company expanded into Australia to produce and ship ore from Koolanooka in western Australia through one of its subsidiaries. Another subsidiary, Compania Madrigal, was created in 1967 to develop copper, zinc, and lead deposits in Peru. During this same era, production began at the company’s silver Bulldog Mine in Creede, Colorado and at its Buick lead and zinc mine in Missouri.
By the early 1970s, other metals besides gold accounted for 75% of the company’s business with the gold mine becoming a break-even enterprise. A favorable industry change occurred. The price of gold was freed by the federal government from its $35 an ounce price. This invigorated gold production throughout the country.
While women were employed as carpenters, electricians, and timber workers, they could not work underground for much of the mine’s history. LeEtta Shaffner, in 1975, was one of the first female miners for Homestake Mining Company.
Starting in 1978, the Homestake Mining Company sought out new gold deposits. The company discovered California’s McLaughlin Mine in 1980. Although it took that mine five years and $280 million to develop, when it started gold production in 1985, it added significantly to the Homestake Mining Company’s total of gold production which tripled during the decade. During the mid 1980s, the company’s non gold industries, including a new interest of oil and natural gas, generated nearly half of the company’s revenues. However, by 1990, they would all be divested and the Homestake Mining Company would return almost exclusively to gold mining.
In 1991, the Homestake Mining Company had its first recorded loss in nearly 50 years. They lost $262 million due to mining property write-downs, operational problems, and low gold prices. The following year, they acquired International Corona Corporation. This added low-cost production properties, five million ounces of reserves, and gold development property in British Columbia. It was the Homestake Mining Company’s largest acquisition ever.
International Corona, renamed Homestake Canada Inc., was at the heart of a companywide restructuring program. This involved eliminating 200 jobs, closing administrative and exploration offices, and changing upper management. The goal was to maintain the company’s position as America’s leading gold producer. Such was not to be the case and in 2001 the Homestake Mining Company closed the doors of America’s most prosperous mine. Gold had been too costly to mine and lots of the infrastructure would have had to be replaced.
When the mine closed, the water pumps were turned off in 2003 which flooded the caverns from the 8300 level up to the 4550 level, damaging underground hoists and other facilities. It caused the property to go into disrepair. The question was what to do with it. An idea was proposed - to make it an underground laboratory where neutrino research and other experiments could take place.
In 2006, Barrick Gold Corporation, who had purchased the Homestake Mine in 2001, donated the property to the state of South Dakota for use as a dedicated underground research laboratory. T. Denny Sanford, South Dakota’s only billionaire, donated $70 million to turn the mine into the Sanford Lab while the state of South Dakota committed more than $40 million to dewater the mine and rehabilitate buildings. It also created the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority to run the site in 2011. In 2011, after the National Science Foundation decided not to fund the site, the federal Department of Energy stepped in to finance facility operations through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The facility is now operated through a cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy.
Former miners were employed to restart the water pumps, update the facility’s infrastructure, and map out the new underground and surface facilities. In 2009, the Sanford Underground Research Facility was dedicated. The first experiments began three years later, nearly a mile underground on the 4850 level.
NEUTRINOS
At the underground Sanford Lab, neutrinos are being studied. You can learn about the history of this research at the Visitor Center, on your tour, or by visiting the Sanford Underground Research Facility web site. The lab maintains about 12 miles of the former mine for its science projects with the main area at the 4,850 foot level accessed by the Ross and Yates Shafts.
Sanford Lab is doing advanced research in particle and nuclear physics and other science disciplines. The idea is to find out the composition of the universe, how it was made, and why matter exists at all.
What we see is only 4% of the universe. The other 96% is dark matter and dark energy which is invisible to the human eye. Neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe. They are tiny particles that stream throughout the universe at nearly the speed of light. They rarely interact and go through everything as if it wasn’t there. If you hold up your thumb and blink, almost 100 billion neutrinos will have passed through your thumbnail in that time period.
Neutrinos are formed through nuclear fusion and during radioactive decay when one particle transforms into another again. They don’t emit radiation or cause harm to anything they travel through.
Scientists find neutrinos especially intriguing because they are the only known particle to change types or “flavors” as they travel over long distances. They change from electron, to muon, then to tau neutrinos and back.
Initially born during the Big Bang, neutrinos are found in everything from the Earth’s core to our sun, explosions of stars, bananas, and even reactions in our own body. They were discovered by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines during a reactor experiment in 1956.
Because they are so small, it is impossible to detect neutrinos directly. When a neutrino interacts, it creates a signature track. This creates heavier charged particles which can be detected. Since neutrinos rarely interact, some experiments require huge detectors run for long periods of time in order to collect data. It is essential to eliminate cosmic rays and radiation for these experiments to work. That is why underground chambers such as the Sanford Lab are used.
Physicists can create neutrinos using particle accelerators then track them with extremely sensitive detectors. By using particle accelerators, they can create a concentrated group of neutrinos with a specific flavor and amount of energy. This makes it easier for researchers to learn about them via experiments.
International scientists are studying them because they are vital to the new physics. They might reveal some of the universe’s secrets - how it works, its history, and its future. Scientists aren’t sure quite yet where the technology created to detect these elusive particles will lead.
One answer may be using neutrino detectors to monitor nuclear proliferation for national security. Geologists could access the Earth’s crust for mineral deposits or measure movements in rocks. One experiment is developing a laser scanner that will be used to search for life on Mars. Detection may lead to new technologies in medicine or communications. Only the future will tell.
NOBEL AWARD NEUTRINO EXPERIMENT
Ray Davis, a chemist from Brookhaven Laboratory, predicted that when neutrinos interacted with the chlorine atoms, they would change into argon 37 atoms. Davis’s research initially took him to Brookhaven’s Graphite Research Reactor in New York and the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. He tested his theory in the late 1950s with a detector 2,300 feet below ground level in a limestone mine near Akron, Ohio. However, he was bothered by background radiation.
In 1965, Homestake excavated a cavern for Dr. Davis on the 4,850-foot level. The Davis experiment was far removed from the Homestake’s ore body and from the mine's infrastructure of tunnels and shafts.
Ray Davis began collecting data from his experiment in 1967. He used a 100,000 gallon tank of Perchloroethylene (dry-cleaning fluid) and set about finding neutrinos.
However, after nearly three decades of research, he only found one-third of the neutrinos that had been predicted by his partner, John Bahcall. The scientific community insisted that his experiment was wrong. It became known as “the solar neutrino problem.” In the late 1990s, he was vindicated by experiments in Japan and Canada that showed neutrinos change among the three flavors: electron, muon, and tao as they travel. Davis was only measuring the electron ones produced by the sun.
Davis’s solar neutrino detector was proven remarkably accurate. In 2002, Ray Davis was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work.
DUNE EXPERIMENT
Among the many experiments currently being undertaken at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is regarded as the flagship one. Currently under construction, it involves sending neutrinos 800 miles straight through the Earth from Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, to Sanford Lab's underground research facility. This project is bringing together over 1,100 scientists from more than 30 countries around the world and could collect data for 30 years. Excavation of more than 800,000 tons of rock is expected to begin in 2021. However, pre excavation work has been underway since 2018.
The DUNE project consists of two massive state-of-the-art particle detectors - the larger one at Sanford Lab with a smaller detector at Fermilab near the accelerator beam. It will use advanced technology and 70,000 tons of liquid argon to record neutrinos. That is the equivalent of 20 Olympic size swimming pools filled with liquid argon. It will be the largest science experiment ever built on U.S. soil.
DUNE scientists hope to learn more about neutrino oscillation, which refers to the way the types change, the mass of the neutrino, why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, and why the universe is made of matter.
They are also searching for proton decay. That’s a signal that has never been seen before. The hope is that it will move scientists closer to realizing Einstein’s theory that matter and energy are unified. Scientists are also looking for neutrinos emitted by exploding stars.
LEAD - THE MINE’S HOMETOWN
By July 1876, other miners had joined the Manuel brothers in a patchwork of claims. Soon survey lines were drawn, lots were laid, and by December a telegraph system was in place. By the beginning of the next year, Lead had four hotels, a grocery store, a saloon, a bakery, and a butcher shop. That year the town was officially incorporated.
Lead quickly became a company town. Employees paid only for the materials to build their houses. Labor and interest were free. The homes came in three sizes - small, medium, and large. Phoebe Hearst expanded the company store into the Hearst Mercantile Company which became the largest department store in South Dakota.
By 1910, Lead’s population grew to 8,392 making it the second largest community in South Dakota. While George Hearst was a businessman, his wife Phoebe was a philanthropist who was vitally interested in serving her community. When Hearst died in 1891, she inherited his estate of $21 million which enabled her to do so. She lived up to the town’s motto “Lead is 5,280 feet high with a heart of gold.”
Education was important to her. Phoebe established the second free kindergarten in the West. It was in the basement of the Christ Episcopal Church. She built and filled the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Library with more than 4,000 books. She also ordered newspapers from many countries so individuals living and working in Lead could learn of news in their home countries. For many years after her death, her foundation funded the library.
Phoebe was one of the founding members of the PTA ( Parents Teachers Association) and encouraged college scholarships for disadvantaged students. She began a homeopathic institute for women when medical schools would not accept female students.
With the help of Homestake Mine Superintendent Thomas Grier, who served from 1884 to 1914, Phoebe made the Homestake Hospital free for all employees and direct descendants. This included medical, dental, and vision care making it the first HMO (Health Medical Organization). They also underwrote America’s first pension plan in April 1917.
She funded the Homestake Opera House and Recreation Building in 1914. It contained a library, billiards hall, heated indoor swimming pool and a bowling alley (now a shooting range), social hall, and a 1,000 seat theater. It became the center for community events. The only fee was to watch a movie for a nickel.
After a disastrous fire which nearly destroyed the building in 1984, it sat unused for ten years. It has since been partially restored by the Historic Homestake Opera House Society and now seats 500. It has concerts, performing arts, events, and educational presentations. Fundraising efforts continue to bring the facility to its former glory.
Poor mining practices nearly brought Lead to its knees in the 1920s and 1930s. This was due to inadequate backfilling of mined caverns. It resulted in sections of downtown sinking as much as 30 feet. This caused residents to raze dozens of homes and businesses then resettle at higher elevations further west,
Arts and culture have become significant to the town. The Lead Deadwood Arts Center was established in 1990. It supports the artistic efforts of Deadwood and Lead. The town is home to various civic groups including the Historic Deadwood-Lead Arts Council. That group provides classes, art contests, monthly exhibits, and theater performances. Visitors are also drawn by the numerous outdoor recreational possibilities such as skiing and the 109-mile Mickelson Trail.
The town’s Black Hills Mining Museum is dedicated to the area’s mining heritage. It was converted from a grocery story to a museum by the miners. The two-story structure features a 45-minute tour given by a former miner of a complete collection of mining artifacts. Geological specimens are displayed and life in Lead is discussed. Several times a day, a guide takes people downstairs to provide an experience of the Homestake Mine and how it evolved over 126 years. The visit here includes gold panning.
SANFORD LAB HOMESTAKE VISITOR CENTER
Make your first stop in Lead the Sandford Lab Homestake Visitor Center. It’s a social center for Lead’s events and lectures, the departure point for trolley tours, and the office for the City’s Chamber of Commerce.
Exhibits have signboards focusing on Lead and mining history as well as on the particle detection experiments occurring at the research facility. They’re clearly written and even non scientists will be able to understand them.
You can see an elevator cage from the Ross Shaft of the Homestake Mine. Step in and experience a multi screen audiovisual experience simulating a descent to Sanford Lab’s 4850 level. This shaft dates from the 1970s. It held up to 36 people and could carry 10,000 pounds. Miners used to reach the bottom in three minutes. In 2012, new elevator cages replaced the old ones at the Ross Shaft. Now it takes scientists and others about 11 minutes to the 4850 foot level, 18 stories down.
Built on the edge of the Open Cut, a 30-foot window provides a panoramic view of the area. The Cut is a ridged, one-mile across, half-mile wide remnant of the mine’s surface operations. It is 1,250 feet deep. At the window, you’ll see large interpretative panels relating to various aspects of the exposed rock of the Open Cut’s steep walls. Golfers can club balls into the Open Cut and claim they made a hole in one. It’s $5 for one and $10 for three balls. Take time to pay attention to a 330-foot-long mural of historic and contemporary photographs around this space.
The Visitor Center touts The World Below as its most distinctive display. This highly detailed, 1500:1 scale model is suspended between the Center’s floor and ceiling depicting the many tunnels and cliffs of the former Homestake Mine from the surface to the 8,000 foot level. It contains a scale mapping of Lead’s contemporary surface topography and the mine’s surviving buildings. C&G Partners, who designed the exhibits, used more than 100 years of blueprints, mining records, and existing CADD documents to conceptualize the model with complete accuracy. A New York contractor then fabricated it.
You can see one of the Homestake Mining Company’s earliest stock certificates. It was signed by company president James B. Haggin on September 20, 1879. It remained one of the longest listed stocks in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1936, it reached its all time high at $544 a share and split eight for one. This took place less than two years after the company’s incorporation.
Check at the gift shop for summer trolley tours and bicycle rentals. You can rent a mountain bike for $25 for a half day and $40 for a full day.
Trolley tour prices for 2019 were adults (ages 22-54) $8, students with ID (ages 7-21) $7, seniors $7, and ages five and under free. These run from mid- May to the end of September at 10:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. They also run winter tours. These are conducted inside the visitor center and cost $5 for all. To book your tours, contact the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center at (605) 584-3110. It is located at 160 W Main Street in Lead and is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
TROLLEY TOUR
Our guide, Amanda, took the group into a classroom and related the history of the area and mine. We then boarded the trolley for a tour around town. She mentioned points of interest as we passed them. Among these were the Opera House, library, and Black Hills Museum. The trolley also passes the Victorian style Glover House, that was built by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science Movement. It was a Christmas gift to her son, George Washington Glover III, in 1899. His family lived there for 20 years.
Next to the visitor center, you’ll spot a large orange ring. “It was part of Ray Davis’s neutrino experiment which ran from 1965 to the late 1990s. This section of his detector tank was recovered from underground in 2014 and re-created as an art piece by Dale Lamphere, the artist laureate of South Dakota,” said Constance Walter, Communications Director for Sanford Underground Research Facility.
We went by Sanford Lab’s administration building then stopped at the Yates Shaft constructed during 1939. Outside the building, one can see an air compressive locomotive, ore cart, and such tools as a hammer and chisel and a pneumatic drill. Next stop was the hoist room where we saw more signs about Sanford Lab experiments, and learned how the hoist operates. In mining days, the cage we saw held 36 people at one time. Today, it carries only 28 per trip. To get into the cage, it is necessary to go down one floor. Our guide also explained the milling process and the DUNE experiment. We also saw the cable for the analogue hoists that are run by AC/DC motor-generators. The hoists are operated by using clutches and brakes.
Founded in 1876, Homestake Gold Mine was the deepest and most productive gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. It was also the most productive gold mine in recorded history. In its 370 miles of tunnels, shafts, and chambers, from the surface to 8,000 feet, it produced more than 40 million troy ounces of gold, 9 million troy ounces of silver, and 6 million ounces of copper in its 126-year existence. A troy ounce is slightly heavier than a standard ounce. It received its name in the market of Troyes, France.
The company town of Lead, South Dakota developed around the mine which at its peak employed 2,200 people. Homestake closed in 2001, and in 2006, its caverns became home to the Sanford Underground Research Facility dealing with fascinating physics experiments in neutrinos, dark energy, and dark matter. A visit to the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center with a trolley tour around town, including a stop at the Lab’s Yates hoistroom, answers lots of questions about this.
HISTORY OF THE HOMESTAKE MINE
In April 1876, after a winter of prospecting, two brothers, Fred and Moses Manuel; Hank Harney; and Alex Engh found a promising vein of ore near what is now Lead, a few miles southwest of Deadwood. Such veins were called leads (pronounced leeds) which gave the town its name. The group staked a claim, built a mill, and within a year mined $20,000 worth of gold. They gave the mine its name because they thought there might be enough gold to allow them to return to their families (A “home” stake). The next year, they sold their claim for $70,000 (a million dollars today) to a partnership of three mining entrepreneurs: George Hearst, James Haggin, and Lloyd Tevis. The partners incorporated the Homestake Mining Company in 1877.
When the Homestake Mining Company was incorporated, George Hearst and his syndicate probably had little idea of the magnitude of their purchase. During its life, the Homestake Mine would supply the United States with the bulk of its gold for over 100 years and surpass all of its competitors in the global gold industry.
The name Hearst seems familiar because George was the father of William Randolph Hearst of the publishing empire. George was awarded the San Francisco Enquirer to settle a gambling debt. His son took over the newspaper which is how his publishing business began.
Besides the Homestake Mine, George owned an interest in some of the most important claims in the U.S. including the Comstock Lode in Nevada, the Ontario silver mine in Utah, and the Anaconda copper mine in Montana. He became a United States Senator from California between 1887 and 1891.
Workers were recruited from across the United States and Europe. At one time, there were 25 nationalities. Many were hired from Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall in England. All had solid knowledge about gold mining. The population of Lead, in the 1920s and 1930s, peaked at 10,000 and is currently around 3,000.
Life was not easy for the miners with extreme heat as they descended into the lower levels. During the 126 years, almost 400 died with most killed by falling rock. Eighty fell to their deaths. The 1930 fire of the Ellison head frame wiped out nearly everything above ground. Fortunately, safety improved over time.
It wasn’t easy in the early days for the horses and mules either. They had underground stables. Some never saw daylight. It was found that when they were brought to the surface, the change in light could cause the animals to go blind. They were used to transport people and materials in the early 1900s until the arrival of air compression trains.
When the country was suffering through the Depression in the 1930's, the Homestake Mining Company did not have any negative effects. In 1935, it registered $11.39 million in net income, a record that would stand for nearly 40 years.
Just a year before, the U.S. Treasury Department had raised gold to a set price of $35 an ounce from $20.67 an ounce. Before the raise, the company traded at $80 a share on the NYSE. After it passed, the stock was valued at $495 by December 1935. The problem was that the price of gold remained at that level for the next 40 years while gold production costs rose. The gap between the two became increasingly narrower threatening to make the Homestake Mine profitless.
The War Production Board shut down gold mining in 1942. Miners and other workers transferred to other industries vital to the war effort. One-fifth of the Homestake Mining Company's employees were involved in the European theater with the National Guard’s 109th Engineering Battalion.
The Homestake Mine closed between 1942 and 1945. The company during the war years turned to making parts for airplanes, hand grenades, and wrenches. When the Homestake Mining Company reopened at the end of the war, a lot of its competition had dissolved.
After World War II, to reduce production costs, the Homestake Mining Company installed hoisting equipment, introduced television monitoring and short-wave radio communication equipment aimed at doubling each miner’s productivity. These solutions were only temporary. By 1951, it cost $22.18 to produce one ounce of gold.
From 1953 through 1957, the Homestake Mining Company started to diversify by purchasing uranium properties in Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico.This paid off as by the mid-1960s, uranium mining contributed more than half of the company’s $4.9 million in net income. Although the Homestake Mine expanded, reaching depths of 6,800 feet, its productivity plunged while its production costs rose. For example, in 1963, the mine produced the lowest amount of gold since 1884. The industry also had a sharp downturn as the number of U.S. gold mines fell from 9,000 to 600.
Diversification continued. In 1962, the Homestake Mining Company entered a joint venture with AMAX Gold to develop lead and zinc properties in southeast Missouri and in 1964 to develop potash in Saskatchewan, Canada, which began production in 1968. The company expanded into Australia to produce and ship ore from Koolanooka in western Australia through one of its subsidiaries. Another subsidiary, Compania Madrigal, was created in 1967 to develop copper, zinc, and lead deposits in Peru. During this same era, production began at the company’s silver Bulldog Mine in Creede, Colorado and at its Buick lead and zinc mine in Missouri.
By the early 1970s, other metals besides gold accounted for 75% of the company’s business with the gold mine becoming a break-even enterprise. A favorable industry change occurred. The price of gold was freed by the federal government from its $35 an ounce price. This invigorated gold production throughout the country.
While women were employed as carpenters, electricians, and timber workers, they could not work underground for much of the mine’s history. LeEtta Shaffner, in 1975, was one of the first female miners for Homestake Mining Company.
Starting in 1978, the Homestake Mining Company sought out new gold deposits. The company discovered California’s McLaughlin Mine in 1980. Although it took that mine five years and $280 million to develop, when it started gold production in 1985, it added significantly to the Homestake Mining Company’s total of gold production which tripled during the decade. During the mid 1980s, the company’s non gold industries, including a new interest of oil and natural gas, generated nearly half of the company’s revenues. However, by 1990, they would all be divested and the Homestake Mining Company would return almost exclusively to gold mining.
In 1991, the Homestake Mining Company had its first recorded loss in nearly 50 years. They lost $262 million due to mining property write-downs, operational problems, and low gold prices. The following year, they acquired International Corona Corporation. This added low-cost production properties, five million ounces of reserves, and gold development property in British Columbia. It was the Homestake Mining Company’s largest acquisition ever.
International Corona, renamed Homestake Canada Inc., was at the heart of a companywide restructuring program. This involved eliminating 200 jobs, closing administrative and exploration offices, and changing upper management. The goal was to maintain the company’s position as America’s leading gold producer. Such was not to be the case and in 2001 the Homestake Mining Company closed the doors of America’s most prosperous mine. Gold had been too costly to mine and lots of the infrastructure would have had to be replaced.
When the mine closed, the water pumps were turned off in 2003 which flooded the caverns from the 8300 level up to the 4550 level, damaging underground hoists and other facilities. It caused the property to go into disrepair. The question was what to do with it. An idea was proposed - to make it an underground laboratory where neutrino research and other experiments could take place.
In 2006, Barrick Gold Corporation, who had purchased the Homestake Mine in 2001, donated the property to the state of South Dakota for use as a dedicated underground research laboratory. T. Denny Sanford, South Dakota’s only billionaire, donated $70 million to turn the mine into the Sanford Lab while the state of South Dakota committed more than $40 million to dewater the mine and rehabilitate buildings. It also created the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority to run the site in 2011. In 2011, after the National Science Foundation decided not to fund the site, the federal Department of Energy stepped in to finance facility operations through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The facility is now operated through a cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy.
Former miners were employed to restart the water pumps, update the facility’s infrastructure, and map out the new underground and surface facilities. In 2009, the Sanford Underground Research Facility was dedicated. The first experiments began three years later, nearly a mile underground on the 4850 level.
NEUTRINOS
At the underground Sanford Lab, neutrinos are being studied. You can learn about the history of this research at the Visitor Center, on your tour, or by visiting the Sanford Underground Research Facility web site. The lab maintains about 12 miles of the former mine for its science projects with the main area at the 4,850 foot level accessed by the Ross and Yates Shafts.
Sanford Lab is doing advanced research in particle and nuclear physics and other science disciplines. The idea is to find out the composition of the universe, how it was made, and why matter exists at all.
What we see is only 4% of the universe. The other 96% is dark matter and dark energy which is invisible to the human eye. Neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe. They are tiny particles that stream throughout the universe at nearly the speed of light. They rarely interact and go through everything as if it wasn’t there. If you hold up your thumb and blink, almost 100 billion neutrinos will have passed through your thumbnail in that time period.
Neutrinos are formed through nuclear fusion and during radioactive decay when one particle transforms into another again. They don’t emit radiation or cause harm to anything they travel through.
Scientists find neutrinos especially intriguing because they are the only known particle to change types or “flavors” as they travel over long distances. They change from electron, to muon, then to tau neutrinos and back.
Initially born during the Big Bang, neutrinos are found in everything from the Earth’s core to our sun, explosions of stars, bananas, and even reactions in our own body. They were discovered by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines during a reactor experiment in 1956.
Because they are so small, it is impossible to detect neutrinos directly. When a neutrino interacts, it creates a signature track. This creates heavier charged particles which can be detected. Since neutrinos rarely interact, some experiments require huge detectors run for long periods of time in order to collect data. It is essential to eliminate cosmic rays and radiation for these experiments to work. That is why underground chambers such as the Sanford Lab are used.
Physicists can create neutrinos using particle accelerators then track them with extremely sensitive detectors. By using particle accelerators, they can create a concentrated group of neutrinos with a specific flavor and amount of energy. This makes it easier for researchers to learn about them via experiments.
International scientists are studying them because they are vital to the new physics. They might reveal some of the universe’s secrets - how it works, its history, and its future. Scientists aren’t sure quite yet where the technology created to detect these elusive particles will lead.
One answer may be using neutrino detectors to monitor nuclear proliferation for national security. Geologists could access the Earth’s crust for mineral deposits or measure movements in rocks. One experiment is developing a laser scanner that will be used to search for life on Mars. Detection may lead to new technologies in medicine or communications. Only the future will tell.
NOBEL AWARD NEUTRINO EXPERIMENT
Ray Davis, a chemist from Brookhaven Laboratory, predicted that when neutrinos interacted with the chlorine atoms, they would change into argon 37 atoms. Davis’s research initially took him to Brookhaven’s Graphite Research Reactor in New York and the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. He tested his theory in the late 1950s with a detector 2,300 feet below ground level in a limestone mine near Akron, Ohio. However, he was bothered by background radiation.
In 1965, Homestake excavated a cavern for Dr. Davis on the 4,850-foot level. The Davis experiment was far removed from the Homestake’s ore body and from the mine's infrastructure of tunnels and shafts.
Ray Davis began collecting data from his experiment in 1967. He used a 100,000 gallon tank of Perchloroethylene (dry-cleaning fluid) and set about finding neutrinos.
However, after nearly three decades of research, he only found one-third of the neutrinos that had been predicted by his partner, John Bahcall. The scientific community insisted that his experiment was wrong. It became known as “the solar neutrino problem.” In the late 1990s, he was vindicated by experiments in Japan and Canada that showed neutrinos change among the three flavors: electron, muon, and tao as they travel. Davis was only measuring the electron ones produced by the sun.
Davis’s solar neutrino detector was proven remarkably accurate. In 2002, Ray Davis was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work.
DUNE EXPERIMENT
Among the many experiments currently being undertaken at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is regarded as the flagship one. Currently under construction, it involves sending neutrinos 800 miles straight through the Earth from Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, to Sanford Lab's underground research facility. This project is bringing together over 1,100 scientists from more than 30 countries around the world and could collect data for 30 years. Excavation of more than 800,000 tons of rock is expected to begin in 2021. However, pre excavation work has been underway since 2018.
The DUNE project consists of two massive state-of-the-art particle detectors - the larger one at Sanford Lab with a smaller detector at Fermilab near the accelerator beam. It will use advanced technology and 70,000 tons of liquid argon to record neutrinos. That is the equivalent of 20 Olympic size swimming pools filled with liquid argon. It will be the largest science experiment ever built on U.S. soil.
DUNE scientists hope to learn more about neutrino oscillation, which refers to the way the types change, the mass of the neutrino, why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, and why the universe is made of matter.
They are also searching for proton decay. That’s a signal that has never been seen before. The hope is that it will move scientists closer to realizing Einstein’s theory that matter and energy are unified. Scientists are also looking for neutrinos emitted by exploding stars.
LEAD - THE MINE’S HOMETOWN
By July 1876, other miners had joined the Manuel brothers in a patchwork of claims. Soon survey lines were drawn, lots were laid, and by December a telegraph system was in place. By the beginning of the next year, Lead had four hotels, a grocery store, a saloon, a bakery, and a butcher shop. That year the town was officially incorporated.
Lead quickly became a company town. Employees paid only for the materials to build their houses. Labor and interest were free. The homes came in three sizes - small, medium, and large. Phoebe Hearst expanded the company store into the Hearst Mercantile Company which became the largest department store in South Dakota.
By 1910, Lead’s population grew to 8,392 making it the second largest community in South Dakota. While George Hearst was a businessman, his wife Phoebe was a philanthropist who was vitally interested in serving her community. When Hearst died in 1891, she inherited his estate of $21 million which enabled her to do so. She lived up to the town’s motto “Lead is 5,280 feet high with a heart of gold.”
Education was important to her. Phoebe established the second free kindergarten in the West. It was in the basement of the Christ Episcopal Church. She built and filled the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Library with more than 4,000 books. She also ordered newspapers from many countries so individuals living and working in Lead could learn of news in their home countries. For many years after her death, her foundation funded the library.
Phoebe was one of the founding members of the PTA ( Parents Teachers Association) and encouraged college scholarships for disadvantaged students. She began a homeopathic institute for women when medical schools would not accept female students.
With the help of Homestake Mine Superintendent Thomas Grier, who served from 1884 to 1914, Phoebe made the Homestake Hospital free for all employees and direct descendants. This included medical, dental, and vision care making it the first HMO (Health Medical Organization). They also underwrote America’s first pension plan in April 1917.
She funded the Homestake Opera House and Recreation Building in 1914. It contained a library, billiards hall, heated indoor swimming pool and a bowling alley (now a shooting range), social hall, and a 1,000 seat theater. It became the center for community events. The only fee was to watch a movie for a nickel.
After a disastrous fire which nearly destroyed the building in 1984, it sat unused for ten years. It has since been partially restored by the Historic Homestake Opera House Society and now seats 500. It has concerts, performing arts, events, and educational presentations. Fundraising efforts continue to bring the facility to its former glory.
Poor mining practices nearly brought Lead to its knees in the 1920s and 1930s. This was due to inadequate backfilling of mined caverns. It resulted in sections of downtown sinking as much as 30 feet. This caused residents to raze dozens of homes and businesses then resettle at higher elevations further west,
Arts and culture have become significant to the town. The Lead Deadwood Arts Center was established in 1990. It supports the artistic efforts of Deadwood and Lead. The town is home to various civic groups including the Historic Deadwood-Lead Arts Council. That group provides classes, art contests, monthly exhibits, and theater performances. Visitors are also drawn by the numerous outdoor recreational possibilities such as skiing and the 109-mile Mickelson Trail.
The town’s Black Hills Mining Museum is dedicated to the area’s mining heritage. It was converted from a grocery story to a museum by the miners. The two-story structure features a 45-minute tour given by a former miner of a complete collection of mining artifacts. Geological specimens are displayed and life in Lead is discussed. Several times a day, a guide takes people downstairs to provide an experience of the Homestake Mine and how it evolved over 126 years. The visit here includes gold panning.
SANFORD LAB HOMESTAKE VISITOR CENTER
Make your first stop in Lead the Sandford Lab Homestake Visitor Center. It’s a social center for Lead’s events and lectures, the departure point for trolley tours, and the office for the City’s Chamber of Commerce.
Exhibits have signboards focusing on Lead and mining history as well as on the particle detection experiments occurring at the research facility. They’re clearly written and even non scientists will be able to understand them.
You can see an elevator cage from the Ross Shaft of the Homestake Mine. Step in and experience a multi screen audiovisual experience simulating a descent to Sanford Lab’s 4850 level. This shaft dates from the 1970s. It held up to 36 people and could carry 10,000 pounds. Miners used to reach the bottom in three minutes. In 2012, new elevator cages replaced the old ones at the Ross Shaft. Now it takes scientists and others about 11 minutes to the 4850 foot level, 18 stories down.
Built on the edge of the Open Cut, a 30-foot window provides a panoramic view of the area. The Cut is a ridged, one-mile across, half-mile wide remnant of the mine’s surface operations. It is 1,250 feet deep. At the window, you’ll see large interpretative panels relating to various aspects of the exposed rock of the Open Cut’s steep walls. Golfers can club balls into the Open Cut and claim they made a hole in one. It’s $5 for one and $10 for three balls. Take time to pay attention to a 330-foot-long mural of historic and contemporary photographs around this space.
The Visitor Center touts The World Below as its most distinctive display. This highly detailed, 1500:1 scale model is suspended between the Center’s floor and ceiling depicting the many tunnels and cliffs of the former Homestake Mine from the surface to the 8,000 foot level. It contains a scale mapping of Lead’s contemporary surface topography and the mine’s surviving buildings. C&G Partners, who designed the exhibits, used more than 100 years of blueprints, mining records, and existing CADD documents to conceptualize the model with complete accuracy. A New York contractor then fabricated it.
You can see one of the Homestake Mining Company’s earliest stock certificates. It was signed by company president James B. Haggin on September 20, 1879. It remained one of the longest listed stocks in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1936, it reached its all time high at $544 a share and split eight for one. This took place less than two years after the company’s incorporation.
Check at the gift shop for summer trolley tours and bicycle rentals. You can rent a mountain bike for $25 for a half day and $40 for a full day.
Trolley tour prices for 2019 were adults (ages 22-54) $8, students with ID (ages 7-21) $7, seniors $7, and ages five and under free. These run from mid- May to the end of September at 10:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. They also run winter tours. These are conducted inside the visitor center and cost $5 for all. To book your tours, contact the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center at (605) 584-3110. It is located at 160 W Main Street in Lead and is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
TROLLEY TOUR
Our guide, Amanda, took the group into a classroom and related the history of the area and mine. We then boarded the trolley for a tour around town. She mentioned points of interest as we passed them. Among these were the Opera House, library, and Black Hills Museum. The trolley also passes the Victorian style Glover House, that was built by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science Movement. It was a Christmas gift to her son, George Washington Glover III, in 1899. His family lived there for 20 years.
Next to the visitor center, you’ll spot a large orange ring. “It was part of Ray Davis’s neutrino experiment which ran from 1965 to the late 1990s. This section of his detector tank was recovered from underground in 2014 and re-created as an art piece by Dale Lamphere, the artist laureate of South Dakota,” said Constance Walter, Communications Director for Sanford Underground Research Facility.
We went by Sanford Lab’s administration building then stopped at the Yates Shaft constructed during 1939. Outside the building, one can see an air compressive locomotive, ore cart, and such tools as a hammer and chisel and a pneumatic drill. Next stop was the hoist room where we saw more signs about Sanford Lab experiments, and learned how the hoist operates. In mining days, the cage we saw held 36 people at one time. Today, it carries only 28 per trip. To get into the cage, it is necessary to go down one floor. Our guide also explained the milling process and the DUNE experiment. We also saw the cable for the analogue hoists that are run by AC/DC motor-generators. The hoists are operated by using clutches and brakes.
A View of Lead's Main Street
Headed to the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center
Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center
Some of the Exhibits Inside the Center and First Glimpse of the View Overlooking the Open Cut
Panoramic View of the Open Cut
Nan Reading More Signs
Old Elevator Cage from the Ross Shaft
The World Below Exhibit
One of the Company's Earliest Stock Certificates
The Yates Shaft
Air Compression Engine
Ore Car and Loader
AC/DC Motor Generators
Hoist Cable Reel
Amanda Explaining the Milling Process
Part of Davis's Detector Tank Turned Into a Sculpture by Dale Lamphere