Abstract
The George Wingfield Records on the Tonopah Divide Mining Company and Other Holdings (1902-1955) document some of George Wingfield's business interests and holdings, including the Goldfield News and Weekly Tribune, the Tonopah Banking Company, the Tonopah Divide Mining Company, and other mining operations. Materials include invoices, receipts, voucher records, correspondence, assay certificates, meeting minutes, legal papers, and ledgers of stocks and accounts.
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Scope and Contents Note
The collection primarily documents George Wingfield’s later (post-1918) mining companies and interests in the Tonopah Divide District (formerly known as Gold Mountain just south of the town of Tonopah, Nevada) and in Goldfield, Nevada, which were not part of his Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company. The most substantial set of records are from the Tonopah Divide Mining Company, Wingfield’s short-lived but highly productive consolidation of silver mines in the Tonopah Divide District that briefly boomed between 1918 and 1920 after high-grade silver was accidentally discovered in a worked-out gold vein. These records include a comprehensive set of assay and shipment reports from the local processing mills, which document the daily tonnage and value of ore being produced in what were the most productive silver mines in the United States at the time. There are also company correspondence and payroll accounts. The collection also contains records from a number of later Goldfield, Nevada mines and companies (the most important being the Goldfield Deep Mines Company), many of which were under the management of Wingfield’s chief mining engineer A. I. D’Arcy, who also served as president of the Tonopah Divide Mining Company.
Two of Wingfield’s non-mining companies, the Tonopah Banking Corporation (bank statements) and the Goldfield News and Weekly Tribune (subscription cards, receipts and invoices) are also represented in the collection. Corporate records include an accounts ledger, expense register, and loose stock ledger sheets for these various Wingfield companies, which had been maintained and bound together and an early (1902-05) stock ledger from the Tonopah Gold Mountain Mining Co. (the predecessor of the Tonopah Divide Mining Company). . The collection also contains expense accounts and a stock ledger from the Monarch Pittsburgh Mining Company, one of Cal Brougher’s Tonopah mining companies, incorporated in 1912 and operated until 1927.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
Material is arranged alphabetically.
Biographical / Historical Note
The Tonopah Divide mining district was just over four miles south of the town of Tonopah, Nevada and was originally known as Gold Mountain. Sporadic mining had taken place there since 1901 after Jim Butler made his initial strike in Tonopah, but it was not until late 1917, when high-grade silver was discovered in a gold vein, that the Divide district experienced a real boom, albeit a short-lived one. By 1920, the Divide mines closed, doe to falling silver prices and labor unrest.
George Wingfield (1876-1959), who had already made his fortune by shrewd speculation and mining management in Goldfield, Nevada, joined an old Tonopah associate, H. Cal Brougher, to purchase the failed Tonopah Divide Mining Company. In 1912, Wingfield sold his interest in the mining company to Brougher when it seemed unlikely that the Divide mines would ever be profitable. When silver was later discovered in the company’s mine, Brougher invited Wingfield to buy in; Wingfield provided the necessary capital to develop the mine from his re-capitalized Tonopah Banking Corporation. In just two years the Divide Company’s mines produced $1.4 million, and Wingfield made millions more from the sale of the soaring stock. In late 1919, rather than give in to renewed labor demands, Wingfield, who had already shut down his operations in Goldfield, closed his Tonopah mines, which were already producing diminishing returns. As a consequence the bottom fell out of the market for Divide stock and with it, investments and profits in Tonopah mining. In 1926, the Tonopah Divide Mining Company turned over operations of all its mines to leasers who continued to produce small amounts of ore through the late 1940s.
Preferred Citation
George Wingfield Records on the Tonopah Divide Mining Company and Other Holdings, 1902-1955. MS-00787. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Collection was collected by University Libraries Special Collections and Archives; accession numbers 2015-49 and, 2015-111.
Processing Note
Material was processed in 2015 by Joyce Moore. Collection was described by Peter Michel.