At Leadmine Bend in Tennessee, northwestern Union County on the Powell River
Although the iron works in the county were discussed earlier, the mining of other mineral ores such as zink and lead should be mentioned. Local history records that veins of lead so rich that they could be "cut with a knive," were discovered in a cave in the hillside in the bend of Powell River where it flows through the northeastern part of Union County. No doubt the discovery of such deposits were made by early settlers in search of material for making bullets. Many years would pass before an operation of any size would be established for removing great qualities of zink and lead ore from what later became known as the New Prospect Mine.
Following a recent visit to the site, this compiler contacted Stewart W. Maher, principal geologist with the firm of Kenwell Incorported, and was supplied source material that was very helpful in recording a history of the New Prospect mining operation.
James W. Love, an engineering student at the university of Tennessee, who had also investigated the iron works at Loyston and the Green Grove Furnace on Fall Creek, provided interesting facts regarding the mining of ores from the New Prospect Mine.
In his thesis dated May 11, 1911, Love wrote: "The mine was opened just after the Civil War and worked spasmodically until 1893. The years 1890-91-92, being the greatest in the production of the district. The mill located about four hundred feet from the mine, was erected by the superintendent of the company, Peter E. Blow of Knoxville." Another source written and published by the U. S. Printing Office, Washington, (1966), compiled by a team of geologists contained the following: The date of the earliest operation at New Prospect is not definitely known. Safford (1869) referred briefly to the deposit in his report, but apparently there was little development at that time. Peter E. Blow is reported to have worked at the mine as early as 1869. The following account by Purdue (1912) is the most complete statement of the early history now available. According to T. J. Davis of Sharp's Chapel, "this mine was opened in 1883, by Squires and Manning of New York. These men hauled the ore to the Powell River, and shipped it by water to Clinton, Tennessee, and from there by rail to New York. They worked the mine until 1888. About 1889, the property was taken over by Eades, Maxter and Heald Zinc Company. This company built the first mill, which consisted of a crusher and hand jib in 1890. A later mill was built in 1891. It had eight jibs with a capacity of one hundred tons. The company operated the mine until 1897. In 1899, the property was leased to the American Metals Company of New York who worked it until 1901. Since 1901, it has not been operated except for three weeks in 1903, by a man named Joseph D. Hardin who shipped no ore."
While the Eades, Mixter and Heald Zinc Company was operating, the ore was shipped to Clinton, Tennessee where it was smelted. Maher said that the coal fields near Clinton where fuel for smelting was available encouraged the setting up of a smelting plant there. He said the old processing plant was near the bridge that spans the river. The American Metals and Mining Company shipped the ore to Marion, Indiana. A part of it was shipped by water to Clinton and from there by rail, and part was hauled in wagons to Caswell Station at Cumberland Gap to the Louisville Railroad. By 1911, Love mentioned that approximately 1,000 barge loads containing 47 percent zinc ore concentrate had been shipped by river averaging 65 tons per load. Another 24,000 tons of crude ore was hauled to Tazewell to the railroad by the American Metals Company.
The mine was idle after 1903 with the exception of its operation during the World Wars when it was operated by the Union Zinc Company. George Blow, the superintendent, reportedly shipped in 1916-1918, 634 tons of concentrate averaging about 50 percent zinc, and in 1939-1943, shipped 3,089 tons of hand-picked ore averaging 23.7 percent zinc and one percent lead. In 1939, there were twelve pillars left in the mine. By 1942, only one pillar remained. The mill, which was just west of the opencut, was dismantled and the machinery removed.
Love's thesis points out that the Eades, Mixter, and Heald Zinc Company closed down during the panic of 1893. Before that time rafts were floated down the Powell River during the rainy seasons and by rafts and shallow draft barges. If the product was to be taken from the district during low water, it was necessary to haul it by wagon over a rought country dirt road to the Clinch River. This was done at an expense of five dollars per ton.
Records quoted by Love show that the mill material was mined at a cost of $0.65 to $1.10 per ton depending on the amount of work necessary and the breaking of the ore. This ore was treated in the mill at a cost of $2.00 to $6.00 per ton of 2,000 pounds depending on the percent of zinc present, the amount of gangue (worthless rock) and the fineness to which it was milled. A general average of the cost of treating one ton was $2.50. Love explained that the cost with a modern mill could have reduced the cost to $1.50 per ton.
From the reports of the company operating in the years 1890 to 1893, the maximum number of hours of mill run in one week was 144 during which time it treated 1,281,000 pounds of material. The zinc content of the ore mined in those years ranged from four to twenty percent and the lead from .16 to 1.33 percent. The total cost per ton of concentrates at the mines ranged from $5.54 to $18.68 while the pay-roll per week fluctuated between $95.00 and $475.00.
The main surface excavation at the New Prospect Mine is an opencut 420 feet long and one hundred feet wide extending eastward into the hillside--its floor following a gentle dipping limestone bed--to a depth of sixty-five feet. From that point underground workings averaging about twenty-two feet in height and 1-95 feet in width extend eastward for 555 feet following the same bed as a floor. Thus, the east half of the underground workings is below the normal pool level of Norris Lake and is filled with water except when the lake is down at least thirty feet. There is a shallow opencut on top of the hill above the underground part of the mine, and an air shaft extends from this cut to the mine, 450 feet west of the portal. A winze (a steeply inclined passageway driven to connect one mine working place with another at a lower level) was sunk sixteen feet on the north fault above, and 150 feet west of the portal, was filled by muck long ago. The ceiling of the portal has fallen in over the years creating a large pile of rock but has not damaged the underground section of the mine.
The Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Powell River Area, compiled by Arnold L. Brokaw, John Rogers, Dean F. Kent, Robert A. Laurence, and Charles H. Behre Jr, and published in 1966, reads: "The Powell River area in western Claiborn County and northeastern Union County, is one of the most pervasively mineralized areas in East Tennessee. A northwest-treading belt of zinc and lead mines and prospects extend along the Powell River for fifteen miles from King's Bend to Lead Mine Bend. Within this belt more zinc and lead occurences are known than in any other area of comparable size in East Tennessee. The presence of lead and zinc in this area has been known for more than a century, but until 1935, the only significant production came from the New Prospect Mine. It was operated continuously from 1893 to 1901, yielding a large but undetermined tonnage of zinc ore, probably on the order of 100,000 tons. Two new mines--the Buch Hollow and King's Bend--were opened in the area in 1935 by the Imperial Mining Company. Approximately eight hundred tons of zinc and lead concentrates was produced before these mines were shut down in 1945. No mining has been done in the district since that time."
After this article appeared in Pathway: History and Genealogical Journal, published by the Union County Historical Society, Dixie Hasse of Granby, Missouri wrote: "I put together a book on Granby and in doing so found many references to the Blow family in this area." Her compilation Granby: The Oldest Mining Town in the Southwest, sites sources including a notation by Evelyn Brewer which described Granby in the early 1850's: "In 1859, there were eight thousand miners and families living in shanties and tents. The hills and vales were literally coverd with prospectors. Superintendent B. K. Hersey and Henry Blow were in charge of the mining operations."
The Granby News-Herold reported in 1857, Peter E. Blow and F. B. Kenneth formed a partenership to engage in lead mining. Under the name of Granby Mining and Smelting Company they obtained from the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company a lease and immediately erected large furnaces on the land. In 1858-1861, the output reached 10-12 million pounds of ore per year.
In June, 1857, Ferdinand Kennett and Peter Blow leased all of section six of the area surounding Granby for mining purposes, excluding the platte lots in the village for a period of ten years at four dollars per ton of all minerals sold. In 1865, Peter Blow and associates incorporated the GMSC and continued to lease the mining right to section six of the community.
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