Castle Dome Mining: The Beginning

Castle Dome Mine is one of over 300 mines in the Castle Dome Mining District of Arizona.  The rules about mines and mining were written in the a860-1870’s and haven’t changed much since then.  The mine has had many owners since Jacob Snively and his friend made the first claim that was then patented. 

The area is rich in silver, lead, placer gold, and copper, to name only a few.  This area produced 9,700 tons of lead, 498,000 troy ounces of silver, 33 tons of copper, and 2,000 troy ounces of placer gold.

The argentiferous silver galena vein here is about 12 feet wide and about 2,000 feet in length.  Except during WWI and WWII, silver was what was mined.  During WWII 3 million tons of lead were produced here, making this one of the greatest lead producing mines and putting the mine as no. 5 on Japan’s list of sites to bomb had they been able to do long distance bombing.

The mine was purchased inn 1994 by Allen and Stephanie Armstrong who worked hard to salvage items and buildings to recreate the former Castle Dome City.  There are over 50 buildings and artifacts packed into each building.

Welcome to the beginning, more to come on later webpages.