Old Pease City

COPPER PRODUCTION . Copper was first reported in Texas by Capt. Randolph B. Marcy in his exploration of the Red River in 1852. In 1864 a small amount of high-grade copper ore was smelted in Archer County; a part of this ore is said to have been used for percussion caps for the Confederate Army during the Civil War . After the war, Gen. George B. McClellan became interested in the copper deposits in North Central Texas and organized a company that started a mine near the Pease River in Foard County. The remains of the resulting shaft were still called the Old McClellan Mine in 1950. Subsequent trial shipments of copper ore made from Baylor, Clay, Hardeman, King, Knox, and Stonewall counties did not encourage commercial development. About 1885 copper production in connection with silver began at the Hazel Mine near Van Horn in Culberson County; this production continued, with intermittent periods of inactivity, until 1942 and produced about a million pounds of copper. Between 1926 and 1928 about 12,500 tons of low-grade ore, averaging nine ounces of silver to the ton and 0.42 percent copper, were shipped from the Van Horn-Allamoore district of the Trans-Pecos area; in 1929 new underground developments produced ore of 1.53 percent copper. The total amount of copper produced in the state between 1885 and 1944 was 1,251 short tons, of which 60,000 pounds were produced in 1940, 128,000 pounds in 1942, and 230,000 pounds in 1944. Other mines in the Trans-Pecos area that have produced copper in small amounts are the Sancho Panza, Black Shaft, and Pecos. There are known deposits of copper in Burnet and Llano counties. The last reported copper production using ore from within the state was eighteen tons in 1952, valued at $8,712; it mostly used ore from the old Hazel Mine in Culberson County. During the mid-1950s most of the Texas copper mines were inoperative. Large deposits of ore were known to exist in the North Texas region but were not developed because of their low copper content.