Prospectors found copper ore near present day Mackay, Idaho in 1879.  Their discoveries led to the establishment of several small communities including Houston, Cliff City, Mackay and White Knob. 

Soon the Empire Copper Company was founded and by 1914, utilizing a leasing system, they had produced $3.75 million in copper, some silver and a little gold.  While mining continued for another thirty years, fluctuations in copper prices, the high cost of producing copper matte, and increased transportation costs took a toll on the company.  Throughout the life of the mine, management attempted to combat increasing transportation costs by replacing the original electric locomotive system of ore transport with gear-driven Shay locomotives, which were later replaced by a Bleichert aerial tramway system.  When the operation finally shut down in 1948, the small community houses, mine buildings, and infrastructure were salvaged, abandoned or fell into disrepair.

In 1999 local citizens and elected officials joined with the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service to form the White Knob Historical Preservation Committee.  A coordinated effort was begun to identify and save what remained of Mackay's legacy on the Mine Hill.

The Mackay Mine Hill Virtual Tour highlights the preservation efforts of the White Knob Historical Preservation Committee and visits most of the significant mining sites on Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, and private lands.

Our tour begins at the Lost Rivers Museum or at city hall in downtown Mackay and travels a series of winding mountain roads to an elevation of 8500 feet within the White Knob Mountain Range..

Along the way we stop at several sites that highlight the full range of mining activities and daily life on Mackay's Mine Hill.  From mine tunnels to open pits, abandoned towns to smelters and railroads; let’s go take a look!

Our first stop is just outside town along the banks of the Big Lost River.  The smelter site was the location of a smelter complex designed to produce "blister" copper using two huge blast furnaces and a 120 foot smokestack.  Built in 1901-02 the smelter was inefficient from the start and was shut down by 1908.

This site was also the terminus of the electric railroad, the Shay railroad and the aerial tramway system.  The smelter complex included a locomotive house, a machine shop, and an 8-hole outhouse; all are still standing today (ref: photos of these buildings).  The smelter has been dismantled, with only a few of the masonry walls and draft tunnels remaining to identify the site.

As we continue traveling up into the mountains our next stop is to view the AERIAL TRAMWAY TOWERS.  Placed in operation in 1918 the tramway consisted of 36 wooden tramway towers designed to support ore buckets traveling on a six-mile-long loop of steel cable.  The tramway operated on gravity power;  the loaded ore buckets going down pulled the empty ore buckets back up the mountain. Lighter material, such as coal or building materials, was often transported back up the hill, carried by the much heavier ore cars coming down.

Many of the 36 tramway towers have fallen down or been dismantled in the 60 years since the aerial tram system stopped transporting ore.  In 2004 and 2005, the ten remaining tram towers on BLM lands were stabilized and rehabilitated to prevent further deterioration (provide link here to tram tower report).

As we continue west up the Rio Grande Canyon the COSSAK TUNNEL AND COMPRESSOR BUILDING is our next stop. 
The Cossack Tunnel is the longest and lowest elevation penetration into the mountain.  Begun in 1902, by 1916 the tunnel extended in over a mile.
Compressed air was a vital part of early mining operations.  The air routed through miles of underground tunnels via hoses and pipes, was used to power miners' drills and jack-hammers.
Remnants of the large coal-fueled steam plant and the compressor building, and a small blacksmith shop and storage shed still stand on the site today.

The ANDERSON home site in Horseshoe or Morrow's Gulch dates to 1916 when the Anderson family was working in the mines.  The cabin standing today was built in 1948 with timbers from the original structures.  The original cabin, main house, and some other structures are gone, but the original locations are still visible.  Some of Charley Anderson's descendants still live in Mackay.
If you visit the Anderson Cabin remember this is private property; please respect it.

The HORSESHOE MINE SITE was first developed in 1903.  The site had two major tunnels, but never had a concentrating plant, so all ore was shipped out for processing.  The last recorded production was in 1978.
The  SAWMILL SITE and TAYLOR HOMESTEAD (adjacent to the Horseshoe Mine) was established on a claim filed by Daniel S. Taylor, who raised a large family at this site. The sawmill provided lumber for the area's mines.  A blacksmith shop, office building, bunkhouse, and the family cook shack remain.  Family members occupied the site until 1943; some still live in Mackay.

The town of WHITE KNOB came into being, along with Mackay, after the Oregon Shortline Railroad extended its tracks from Blackfoot in 1901.  Located on the Mine Hill about 3 miles above Mackay, it was home for many of the men working the mines and some of their families.  By 1917, White Knob had a boarding house, post office, movie house, general store, pool hall, barbershop, restaurant, amusement hall, telephone service, and a school nearby.  At its peak, White Knob may have boasted a population of nearly 1000 residents, but by the mid-1930s the town had been abandoned.

At the upper end of Bullion Gulch is the closed entrance to the BULLION MINE TUNNEL.  As evidenced by the piles of rubble and tailings, Bullion Gulch saw extensive early mining activity.  Ore production from this portal was great enough to warrant the construction of ore bins serviced by a spur of the mining railroad.  The hillside above the south side of the road shows reddish brown oxides and green carbonate of copper as well as more recent adits into the mountain.

The AERIAL TRAMWAY HEADHOUSE was the upper terminal and loading station for the gravity powered tramway system that connected the mines with the smelter site below.  Placed in operation in 1918, the system replaced the Shay mining railroad.   Ore was delivered to the top of the headhouse structure and stored and sorted into large ore bins.  Ore was then transferred into the tramway’s ore buckets and rolled onto a six mile loop of steel cable supported by 36 wooden towers. What remains of the headhouse loading station today is still a formidable site and includes examples of  expert timber joinery and craftsmanship from almost a century ago.

The ALBERTA TUNNEL was the center of the Empire Copper Company’s mining activity.  The tunnel, started about 1900, goes in over 4000 feet and connects to miles of cross-cut tunnels, shafts, and raises.  This site was at the top of the ore dumping chutes for the huge track-side ore bins on the mining railroad grade hundreds of feet below.  This site had a blacksmith shop, warehouse, dwellings and bunkhouses, and a large plant with two boilers that generated steam to drive generators and air compressors.  Today, the shells of the blacksmith and warehouse structures remain along with the concrete foundation or the steam and compressor plant.

The OPEN PIT MINE SITE and DARLINGTON SHAFT was the site of some of the earliest mining by the White Knob Copper Company.  In 1901 the electric mining railroad terminated here and surface ore was loaded directly into ore cars with a steam shovel.  The area became known as the "Glory Hole".  About 1963, surface mining was undertaken here using a leach type process.  Ore was piled in the concrete leach ponds that remain today and an acid solution was sprayed over it.  The copper, gold, and silver were leached from the rock and reclaimed.  Exploration work in ths privately owned area has recently restarted.  Because of this, these private lands are closed to public visitation. 

The AUSICH CABIN SITE, located in an area known as “the saddle,",is our next stop.  The original log cabin on this site was erected about 1889 by miners working the nearby mines and smelter at Cliff Creek.  The earliest known residents of the cabin were Louis Ausich and family who moved here about 1920 and built additions to the cabin about 1923.  The cabin was not continuously occupied, and the family later moved around the mountain to the town of White Knob.  The dwelling was often used for recreational outings by White Knob residents, and Joe and Dolly Ausich used the cabin for their summer-long honeymoon in 1937.  The US Forest Service is planning to do restoration and stabilization work on this cabin over the next several years using volunteers recruited through the Forest Service’s Passport in Time program.   

WHITE KNOB PEAK, so prominent on Mackay's western skyline, provides the title to the range in which it resides.  This 10,529 ft formation of white and blue-gray limestone, intermixed with metamorphic, ore-bearing rock, is devoid of vegetation, and looms as the highest among the other peaks of the range.  On its flanks are numerous old mining sites.  Its three sides each drain into separate stream systems.

Established about 1884, CLIFF CITY was one of several early mining camps in the area.  Never large, the city had a store, about twenty houses, and two or three saloons.  Cliff City slowly died as mining on the other side of the mountains blossomed and miners moved to Mackay and White Knob.  The only standing structure that remains of Cliff City today is the cabin that served as the first home for Charley and Anna Anderson, built around 1903.  The Anderson family lived in this cabin with children Ollie, Sander, Oscar, and Art for about a year before moving to another cabin near the aerial tramway headhouse in White Knob.

Following an early flurry of mining activity, a TWO-STACK SMELTER was built at Cliff City. The smelter began operations in November 1884, ran for a week and was shut down.  Although it operated again briefly in 1885-86 and 1890-91, the larger smelter at Mackay effectively signaled the end for the Cliff City smelter around 1901.  Walls of beautiful hand-stacked stone masonry and some boiler and machine remnants are still visible today.  The smelter used charcoal and slaked lime to process copper ore.  Charcoal was made in pits in the creek bed above the town site.  The lime was slaked in several KILNS, three of which are still visible today.

Leaving Cliff Creek, we begin to follow the old railroad grade…

When the White Knob Copper Company expanded its mining operations in 1901, an electric ore hauling mining railroad was built on a 12-mile roadbed that ran from the Mackay smelter site all the way to the top of the mountain and the surface mining operations.  A pair of Baldwin Westinghouse electric locomotives moved ore  down and supplies up the mountain.  In 1905, the inefficient electric locomotives were replaced with two coal burning gear-driven SHAY LOCOMOTIVES.  The completion of the aerial tramway in 1918 led to the abandonment of the mining railroad.  The grade was subsequently used by tourists traveling up from Mackay to the White Knob area by automobile.  The railroad grade still plays an important role on the "Mine Hill" as much of the present day road system is still made up of this historic railroad grade .

The mining railroad TRESTLE was built by the White Knob Mining Company about 1901 as part of the electric railroad system used to shuttle ore and supplies between the mines and the smelter.  It spans 105 feet, and is 25 feet tall.  Even though the entire rail system on the "Mine Hill" gave way to the aerial tramway in 1918, the trestle continued to be a popular tourist crossing until it was condemned in 1998.  In 2002, the BLM procured funding to have the entire trestle disassembled, the lower crib wall and footings reconstructed, and the trestle supports and platform rebuilt.  The reconstruction was faithful to the 100 year old original trestle except for cable side-railings that were added for safety.