DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Archer County Copper Mines — and friend, this is a story that kept almost paying off. Now, the civilized world first got word of copper out here in Archer County from Texas Rangers, of all people, after an 1860 campaign against Comanches on the Pease River — about a hundred miles to the northwest. The Ranger captain on that campaign was Lawrence S.
Ross, who folks called Sul. Sul Ross would go on to serve Texas as governor, but right then he was just a man who noticed something glittering on the ground. He had nuggets picked right off the surface and hauled all the way down to Austin.
Not a bad souvenir from a campaign. The following year, 1861, Assistant State Geologist S. B.
Buckley came out and charted the mineral site — made it official, put it on the map. And that ore the Rangers had hauled out? It was processed and used in gun caps for Confederate forces during the Civil War.
So this patch of Archer County ground made a small, quiet contribution to the war effort. But small and quiet wasn't going to cut it. The Confederacy needed more metal, and so on May 28, 1864, the Texas Copper Mining and Manufacturing Company was founded to go get it.
Wartime shortage of men, though, apparently prevented any actual recovery of copper at that time. The company existed. The copper did not cooperate.
Now, the T.C.M.&M. Company was based in Dallas, and they did not give up easy. In 1880 they sent a man named W.
F. Cummings to Archer County to open mining sites. Progress, you'd think.
Except that the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and Statistics reported in 1882 that no mining had yet commenced. Cummings had come, the company had plans — and the commissioner essentially said: we see no mining happening out there. Eventually — eventually — ore was hauled out and shipped to smelters in the east.
But here's the thing that kept breaking every optimist's heart about this place: no central vein or deposit could ever be found. Just scattered promise, never a mother lode. And yet people kept tryin'.
In 1899, the Boston and Texas Copper Company — out of Tucson, Arizona — leased the mine site here in Archer County. They produced some copper ore, got it processed over in El Paso, and then — same story — the project failed to meet expectations. From 1860 to 1899, Rangers, geologists, Confederate war planners, Dallas businessmen, and an Arizona company all took a run at this ground.
Every one of them found just enough copper to believe, and not quite enough to matter. Some places tease you like that. Archer County's copper was real — it just never quite showed up to work.
What the marker says
The civilized world first heard of copper in this area from Texas Rangers after an 1860 campaign against Comanches on the Pease River, about 100 miles to the northwest. The Ranger Captain, Lawrence S. ("Sul") Ross, later to serve Texas as governor, had nuggets picked off the surface of the ground and hauled to Austin. In 1861, Assistant State Geologist S. B. Buckley charted the mineral site. The Rangers' ore haul was processed and used in gun caps for Confederate forces during the Civil War. To get more of the needed metal, the Texas Copper Mining & Manufacturing Company was founded on May 28, 1864, but wartime shortage of men apparently prevented recovery of copper at that time. The T.C.M.&M. Co., based in Dallas, sent W. F. Cummings to Archer County in 1880 to open mining sites. Although the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and Statistics reported in 1882 that no mining had commenced, ore eventually was hauled out and shipped to smelters in the east. No central vein or deposit could be found. The Boston & Texas Copper Company of Tucson, Ariz., leased the mine site here in 1899. It produced some copper ore which was processed in El Paso, but again the project failed to meet expectations. (1971)