RCPL's Sanford Lab Wiki

1874

• August 15, 1874: Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer writes a letter to the Assistant Adjuntant General of the Department of Dakota saying that "there is no doubt as to the existence of various metals throughout the hills" ¹.

1876

• April 9, 1876: Moses and Fred Manuel along with Hank Harney discover an out-cropping of ore called a "lead" (pronounced "leed") in what is now the Open Cut. The men named this claim "Homestake." Lead City is the mining camp associated with it ^{2 3}.

1877

• November 5, 1877: The Manuel brothers, Moses and Fred, sell their claim and 10 additional acres to a group of men who form the Homestake Mining Company ³.

1878

• July 12, 1878: 80 stamps, each weighing 750 pounds and brought by ox team 300 miles from Sidney, Nebraska, start dropping in a new mill ³.

1879

• January 22, 1879: The New York Stock Exchange's Governing Committee accepts Homestake stock on the open market ³.

1880

• Homestake starts the Black Hills & Ft. Pierre railroad to bring cord wood fuel to the shops, mills, and hoist, and timbers to the mine. The line does not exist today ³.

• Black Hills Medical Center is founded by Homestake Hospital ³.

• First National Bank of the Black Hills in Lead is founded to serve Homestake and its employees ³.

1889

• November 2, 1889: South Dakota is admitted to the Union as the 40th state ³.

1899

• Homestake Mining Company builds a cyanide plant as an experiment to recover gold in tailings after amalgamation ³.

1900

• Handrilling in mining operations are slowly replaced with pnuematic drills ³.

1901

• Homestake Mining Company constructs fourteen 600 ton leaching vats to treat sand tailings. Later, these vats were enlarged, and more were installed in later years ³.
• Locomotives using compressed air replace livestock underground ³.

1906

• The first of three hyrdoelectric plants brings electricity to Homestake Mine ³.
• A plant to treat finer ore particles (slime fraction) is opened in Deadwood ³.

1916

• A steam turbine is placed to generate electricity for the mine ³.

1918

• Buildings near Open Cut (such as warehouses, mechanical shops, etc.) are dismantled and removed in a process that lasts until 1940. Buildings are replaced on the southeast ridge of the Open Cut, including new warehouse, mechanical, and metallurgical facilities ³.

1920

• The Geology Department is organized and then becomes an independing engineering unit.
• The first formal guided tour os the surface operations begin in the summer ³.

1926

• Homestake Mine celebrates 50 years since the initial discovery made by Moses Manuel, Fred Manuel, and Hank Harney ³.

1930

• December 4, 1930: Wolfgang Pauli, an Austrian physicist, hypothesizes the existance of a subatomic particals later named "neutrinos," which means "little neutral one" ².

1934

• The Rose Shaft is put into operation ³.
• The Kirk steam turbine is installed to generate electricity for the mine ³.

1941

• October 1, 1941: The Yates Shaft is installed and normal hoisting begins ³.

1942

• October 8, 1942: The War Production Board issues Limitation Order L-208, which suspends all gold mining in the United States. Homestake Mining Company stopped mining immediately, but broken ore in stopes was milled until June 1943 ³.

1945

• July 2, 1945: Order L-208 is rescinded, and mining and milling operations begin again ³.

1950

• Mordernization of the mining and milling operations begins with new equipment installed, and new tools and techniques implemented. The mine is extended with deep-level mining developments which begin with an underground shaft that goes from the 4,850 foot level to the 6,800 foot level. A ventaliation shaft from the surface to the 5,000 foot level is sunk ³.

1954

• The Kirk steam turbine is sold to the Black Hills Power and Light Company ³.

1965

• Excavation to construct a Solar Neutrino Observatory at the 4,850 foot level of the mine begins ³.
• When installed, Dr. Ray Davis Jr. of Brookhaven National Laboratory uses the observatory to study neutrinos under the protection the mine provides from cosmic radiation ².

++1968

• Dr. Ray Davis Jr. reports a "solar neutrino problem." The neutrinos were detected at a lower rate than the Stanford Model predicted ².

1970

• Two additional underground shafts sunk between 1970 and 1976: one from the 4,500 foot level and one from the 6,800 foot level, both to 8,000 feet below the surface ³.

1977

• Grizzly Gultch Tailings Impoundement facility is completed ³.

1982

• The Black Hills Medical Center in Deadwood replaces the Hoemstake Hospital ³.
• Monitoring of the dust near the Open Cut begins. Results are submitted to the South Dakota Department of Water and National Resources for quarterly review ³.

1983

• The South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment approves the Open Cut mine operating and reclamation plan ³.
• Modern open pit methods are implemented in test mining at the north end of the Open Cut.
• In order to minimize impacts on Lead and prevent injury to persons and property, blast monitoring is conducted ³.
• From 1983 to 1985, the Terraville Test Pit phase of the Open Cut Project yeilds approximately 28,000 oz. of gold and removed more than 4.4 million tons of ore and waste ³.

1984

• Homestake's Waste Water Treatment Plant, a unique biological treatment facility, is put into operation. It converts Whtitewood Creek into a trout fishery ³.

1985

• The Homestake Board fo Directors approves the Open Cut Expansion plan in order to develop the project to the south ³.
• The Lead Lot Sale Program begins. Proceeds are donated to the Twin City Area Development Corporation ³.

1986

• The Black HIills Mining Museum is constructed. Homestaking Mining Company provides major funding and construction assistance ³.
• Homestake Mining Company builds the Japan Pipe Conveyor system, which consists of a continuous rubber tube and quietly moves crushed ore from the Open Cut to be processed at the Homestake mill. This longest JPC system of it's kind worldwide replaces the truck haulage and makes the environment cleaner and safer ³.

1987

• Homestake Mining Company donates land for and facilitates the construction of the Twin City Mall.
• The new all-weather track and multi-use sports facility at Mountain Top Field in Lead are completed.
• The South Mill Gravity Separation Circut starts up. It increases gracity gold recovery to about 54% and allows the South Mill to efficiently process up to 7,000 tons of ore per day ³.

1988

• Homestake Mining Company commissions a new refrigeration and cooling system to be placed at the 6,950-foot level ³.
• Homestake Mining Company underwrites $3.7 million in bonds in order to assist in financing Golden Hills Resort ³.

1989

• The Homstake Natural History and Cultural Center is built at Savoy in Spearfish Canyon ³.

1992

• To increase revenues and lower costs, the Lead mill Optimization Project is implemented. The project optimizes the Lead Mill and uses the Open Cut to supply an additional 500 tons per day to the Mill ³.

1993

• January 1, 1993: All phones, surface and underground, are moved from a switchboard put into operation in 1906 to a computerized system ³.

1997

• Homestake Vistor Center takes over guided surface tours ³.

1998

• Surface mining in the Open Cut ends ³.

1999

• Homestake is shut down for three months, during which the mine's management and workforce are reorganized due to high production costs ³.

2000

• September 11, 2000: Homestake Mining Company announced that it would cease operating the gold mine located in Lead, South Dakota. At the time, scientists who had conducted experiments at the 4850 foot level, suggested that the mine be used for scientific investigation ^{2 3}.

• September 21, 2000: Al Mann, Ken Lande, and Marvin Marschak support Homestake as the site of a national underground lab ².

2001

• January 10, 2001: Physicists from across the United States inspect Homestake Mine as a potential lab ².

• March 5, 2001: Bahcall-Lesko Committee recommends a national underground laboratory at Homestake ².

• June 25, 2001: Barrick Gold Corporation of Toronto, Canada announces its purchase of Homestake Mining Company ².

• July 20, 2001: South Dakota Democratc Senator Tim Johnson pushes a $10 million grant through a Senate committee to preserve Homestake to be used as an underground laboratory ².

• October 18, 2001: South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow, and Homestake officials negotiate a compromise concerning liability ².

• December 14, 2001: The last bucket of ore is extracted from Homestake Mine ².

• December 14, 2001: Barrick Gold Corporation of Toronto, Canada, merged with the Homestake Mining Company. The purchase included the Lead, SD operation as well as mines around the world ². Barrick Press Release (PDF)

• December 15, 2001: Homestake Mine closes ².

2002

• January 1, 2002: Homestake Mining Company lays off 80 workers in Lead while the remaining 130 employees begin closing the mine ².

• March 29, 2002: Homestake Mining Company agrees to delay turning off the underground pumps that keep the mine from flooding, but Barrick Gold Corporation continues to be unsure of its liability protection for an underground laboratory ².

• December 10, 2002: Dr. Raymond Davis Jr. is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with neutrinos in Homestake Mine ².

2003

• April 15, 2003: Scientists protest flooding of Homestake Mine, and Tom Nelson, Mayor of Lead, SD, goes to court to try and prevent it ².

• May 30, 2003: A panel of experts from the National Science Foundation names Homestake Mine the most optimal location for a national underground lab ².

• June 10, 2003: Homestake Mining Company turns off the underground pumps. The mine begins to fill with water ².

• July 1, 2003: South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds establishes the Homestake Laboratory Conversion Project with the purpose to oversee turning Homestake Mine into an underground laboratory ².

• November 2003: Homestake Mining Company seals the Yates and Ross shafts to preserve the infrastructure of the mine and prevent damage due to weather ².