NEDERLAND - In 1909, Nederland became by far the leading producer of tungsten in the United States until 1918. The Nederland Tungsten District produced $23,000,0000 worth of tungsten from 1900-1945.

Tungsten was needed for the high-speed steel cutting tools used to manufacture weapons during World War I. From 1909 to 1910, the Primos Mining and Milling Company was the largest tungsten mining company in the world and ran the world’s largest tungsten mill in Lakewood (a company town northwest of Nederland). They owned the Conger Mine, the world’s deepest tungsten mine at 991 feet deep. 

Gold and silver prospecting began in the Nederland area around 1859, but the heavy black mineral called barren silver, heavy iron, and black iron by the miners was not recognized as tungsten ore.

In 1899, John H. Knight documented wolframite, a dark-colored, iron-manganese tungstate mineral, (Fe, Mn)WO3, near Ward, 8 miles north of Nederland.

In 1900, W. H. Wanamaker recognized abundant ferberite, an iron tungstate mineral, FeWO3, north of Nederland. He had seen tungsten ore before from the Dragoon Mountains in Arizona.

Wanamaker teamed with Samual Conger, who had discovered the Caribou silver mine in 1870, and together they negotiated a lease on a portion of the Boulder County (Caribou) Ranch in August of 1900.

After the discovery of tungsten, prospectors flocked to the region, and during the next few years many discoveries were made.

In 1900, tungsten ore was exposed in mine workings driven in search of silver on the Miser claims in Gordon Gulch, and by the end of the year Morris Jones of the Great Western Exploration & Reduction Company had begun mining and milling this ore.

The mill stood at the foot of the hill where Sugar Loaf road enters Gordon Gulch, and the first ore came from the nearby Misers Hoard and Ophir mines.

In 1901, mining began on the nearby Quaker City and Misers Pride veins. This group of mines supplied about half the district’s output through1904. Much of the ore handled in the mill was float ore, collected from the surface.

Also in 1901, Conger and Wanamaker sunk a shaft 80 feet deep on the Conger vein, but the vein was mostly barren. Tungsten was soon discovered on Tungsten Mountain in the Beaver Creek area and ore was also discovered in the Bummers Gulch area and near Boulder Falls. 

In 1902, the tungsten produced in Boulder County found little market. However, the Krupp Steel interests in Germany began negotiating for Nederland tungsten.

By 1903, development of the district was greatly stimulated when the Firth-Sterling Steel Company moved into the district. They created a subsidiary, called the Wolf Tongue Mining Company.

The Wolf Tongue name was a combination of the metal element tungsten and wolframite, a tungstate mineral, (Fe, Mn) WO3, rarely found in the Nederland area. The tungsten ore found in Nederland contains mostly iron with only a little manganese, so it must be classified as the tungstate mineral ferberite, Fe (WO3). 

In 1904, the Wolf Tongue Mining Company began working the Oregon mine on the southern continuation of the Conger vein. At first the ore was concentrated at the Black Swan gold mill at Salina, but in 1905 the Midget mill, an old silver mill at Nederland, was acquired and revamped to treat tungsten ore.

Lake and Barnsdall, the new owners of the Conger mine, sank their shaft below the supposed barren zone 80 feet below the surface, and they soon reached a large body of high-grade ore. They treated their ore at the stamp mill at the Boulder County gold mine in Cardinal, west of Nederland.

The increasing use of tungsten tool steel was reflected by higher prices during the first nine months of 1907, but the deep business depression that occurred in the fall of that year caused the price to fall.

During this year the Phillip Bauer Company of Hamburg, Germany, took over the Rogers tract north of Tungsten Post office, and built the Clarasdorf mill on Boulder Creek about a mile above the Narrows in Boulder Canyon.

In 1908, the price for tungsten remained so low that production fell to less than half of that in the previous year. Most of the output came from the Wolf Tongue Mining Company.

In this year the holdings of the Stein & Boericke Company in Gordon Gulch and those of Lake and Barnsdall, owners of the Conger mine, combined to form the Primos Mining & Milling Company, a subsidiary of the Primos Chemical Company of Primos, Pennsylvania, creating the largest tungsten mining company in the world. 

In 1909, the Stein & Boericke mill in Gordon Gulch was dismantled and construction was started on the Primos mill at Lakewood, a company town at the junction of Sherwood Gulch and North Boulder Creek. The Primos production this year was milled at Cardinal.

In 1910, the output rose to a new record. The Primos Mining & Milling Co. completed its new mill at Lakewood, and it became the largest tungsten mill in the world. The Wolf Tongue Mining Company rebuilt its mill in Nederland. 

During 1911, the demand for tungsten fell off, so many of the mines closed for a large part of the year. The Primos Company closed down all its mines and both its mills, but the Wolf Tongue Mining Company built a new reinforced concrete mill to replace its old one in Nederland. 

In 1912, the Primos Mining & Milling Company completed an electric tramway from the Conger mine to the Lakewood mill, and the vertical shaft at the Conger mine was deepened, cutting an excellent ore body. 

Early in 1914, the price of tungsten was low. Immediately after the outbreak of the First World War the demand for tungsten ceased entirely for a short time, but it soon returned, and toward the end of the year production was restored.

The war-caused demand for high-speed steel cutting tools used to manufacture weapons during World War I did not appear until the summer of 1915.

In the fall, however, the unparalleled demand for tungsten all over the world increased the price of ore from $4 to $6 per unit to $45 per unit. The Nederland area was overrun with prospectors searching for new deposits, and every effort was made to increase production from the properties already known. The ore was removed as fast as it was found, so the output did not increase rapidly.

During this year, the Vasco Mining Company, a subsidiary of the Vanadium Alloy Steel Company of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, entered the district and purchased the highly productive Rogers tract north of the Tungsten Post Office. The company built a large mill at Tungsten, extended the Clyde Tunnel and immediately began to operate the 10 mines on the tract. 

The price of tungsten continued to increase in the early part of 1916, reaching $60 per unit in February and $90 in March—close to $3.50 per pound of ferberite.

The population of Nederland quickly grew to more than 3,000, and towns containing several hundred people sprang up at Lakewood, two miles north of Nederland along Boulder Creek, east of Nederland at Ferberite, and Stevens camp (later known as Tungsten Post Office). There were also many small tent settlements that dotted the district.

All the old dumps were restored, and the ground near the veins was carefully worked over for float, much of which was jigged on site. Miners could literally make a living by collecting the float, tungsten-bearing rocks that were lying on the ground, and selling it to one of the 22 concentrating mills in the district. 

Although the price of tungsten fell rapidly from a peak of $90 per unit in March of 1916 to a low of $10 per unit in August of that year, development increased for the next two years.

In 1917, the output from the district reached an all-time high. The Vasco No. 10 mine found one piece of high-grade ore weighing more than a ton, probably the largest piece of ferberite ever mined, which is now in the United States National Museum.

In December 1918, the local price of tungsten dropped, partly because of the flow of tungsten into world markets from newly discovered Chinese deposits.

The Primos Mining & Milling Company closed the Conger mine, the last of its mines to remain in operation, in January of 1918.

By 1919, the production of the Nederland district reached a lower figure than at any time since 1901. 

References:

Lovering, T. S., and Tweto, O., Geology and Ore Deposits of the Boulder County Tungsten District, 1953, Geological Survey Professional Paper 245, United States Government Printing Office, 199 p.

Pettem, S., Inn and Around Nederland Accommodating the Traveler Then and Now, 1998, The Book Lode, tourism and Recreation Program of Boulder County, Inc. 130 p.