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13. From the time Tom Cruse discovered the Drum Lummon gold
veins in the 1876 until the flotation mill burned in the 1950's, this
mine produced over fifty million dollars in gold bullion. Prior to the
turn of the century it contained over twenty miles of mine car rail, mangered
working mules in its bowels, and boasted two enormous stamp mills which
crushed and processed ore. Although evidence of these mills is now all
but erased, at one time their imposing structures and the noise from their
individual 90 pound stamps operating at over 100 beats per minute defined
Marysville as one of the most important mining communities in the West.
Shortly after his discovery of the Drum
Lummon, Tom Cruse sold the mine to the Montana Mining
Company, Ltd. for a reported one million, five hundred
thousand dollars. This English company was responsible
for the greatest development of the mine and continued
to operate well into the twentieth century. The last
of the mining activity occurred in the 1940's and 1950's
under the management of mining engineer, Bill Wade.
During this period, the mine utilized modern mining
methods and was served by a modern flotation mill. Mining
ceased in the early 1950's when the flotation mill burned.
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