Silver Mine in Pa. ??? True or Not

Just a bit here but the stories of LOST silver mines were the question, not the one which is not lost nor ever was, so it would pay to keep an eye open for any of the silver ores not just the argentiferous galena from the KNOWN mine.

This page:
http://nevada-outback-gems.com/prospect/gold_specimen/Silver_ores.htm

..has several good photos of different silver ores, and most will be black, grey and brown. Don't confuse the term "mineral" with "ore" for the ore contains the mineral, so a black rock may well have many tiny crystals of silvery colored silver minerals in it and be considered an ore. Extract from that page, quote

For ores where the most valuable element is silver, the silver is normally contained in minerals colored gray to black in appearance. These minerals range from a metallic sheen to an earthy soot-like appearance. Sooty black minerals are common in many very rich silver ore samples. Most of these sooty black deposits consist of acanthite or various complex silver sulfides.
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Another form of silver deposit that is somewhat uncommon is in the form of a blue or bluish clay, as was found at the famous Comstock mine in Nevada. Keep your eyes open for unusual rock OR even clay!

A simple test you can do in the field is to crush up a sample of the ore to a powder, then take a clean (shiny) piece of copper and work it around in the powdered rock; often silver will turn the copper white if it is present in a good quantity. Just gave away a prospectors trade secret there but it might help you find a lost silver mine.

Good luck and good hunting amigos I hope you find one of those lost silver mines!
Oroblanco

:coffee2: :coffee2:
 

I have heard stories of Silver and Gold mines near tunkhannock. My grandparents live in falls pa, right next to the Susquehanna river and buttermilk creek. There used to be a water mill on the creek, but now there is just a concrete wall that damns up the water. During the summer, when the creek is extremely low, you can see a huge crack in the rock next to the damn. It is just wide enough to get in, and it looks like it goes back really far. Before the damn was there, you would probably be able to get in that crack without a problem. I think that there is a possibility that it used to be an Indian Silver mine. This summer I am going to see if I can get in it with a flashlight, and see what is in there.
 

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I also know that there was lots of indian activity in this area because me, and many others have found indian artifacts all around. I have also heard stories of the Indians and the white men having wars in the area too.
 

Lancaster daily intelligencer. (Lancaster, Pa.), 19 May 1883.

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Juniata sentinel and Republican. (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.), 06 June 1883.

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Millheim Journal. (Millheim, Pa.), 31 May 1883.

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Juniata sentinel and Republican. (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.), 02 June 1880.

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The Carbon advocate. (Lehighton, Pa.), 07 May 1881.

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The Carbon advocate. (Lehighton, Pa.), 14 May 1881.

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The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.), 17 May 1881.

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Juniata sentinel and Republican. (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.), 06 June 1883.

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I have several elementary school girls very interested in writing a children's book about the silver mines of economy borough. Can you supply any additional information or sources for us?
 

Welcome to TreasureNet !

I see VonDigger hasn't stopped in here for almost 2 Years Now.
Hopefully he is OK & just keeping busy.
Since he is the one that Brought up Economy & Silver Mines,
you may wanna try sending him a PM. and see if he responds.

I unfortunately Cannot find anything on the area Silver Mines except what pops up when I google

Economy pa Silver Mines which brings up this thread & a Facebook Page that May be you
for all I know :tongue3:

My source of Research


https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...0&searchType=advanced#tab=tab_advanced_search

has Nothing on Economy Silver Mines & too much on Beaver County Utah Silver Mines. add to that the words economy & Silver together seem to bring up all types of Subjects.

I'll do a little more Research, After posting This. as I love research,
But in the Meantime .... Good Luck :thumbsup:

I just spilled My Coffee :( & got a Craving so , Break time
coffee2.gif
 

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Yes this is true....Apparently H.Charles Beil has found one that was mined in the 1700's. He was talking about it at his big pig roast this summer. It's supposed to be filled with water but is documented and he has the mining records. I don't know if he'll tell where it's at but he has given me great leads in the past to virgin sites that he doesn't have time for. He's really not a metal detectorist, he's a researcher that hunts for big treasure.
 

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jeff of pa said:
Welcome to TreasureNet !

I see VonDigger hasn't stopped in here for almost 2 Years Now.
Hopefully he is OK & just keeping busy.
Since he is the one that Brought up Economy & Silver Mines,
you may wanna try sending him a PM. and see if he responds.

I unfortunately Cannot find anything on the area Silver Mines except what pops up when I google

Economy pa Silver Mines which brings up this thread & a Facebook Page that May be you
for all I know :tongue3:

My source of Research


https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...0&searchType=advanced#tab=tab_advanced_search

has Nothing on Economy Silver Mines & too much on Beaver County Utah Silver Mines. add to that the words economy & Silver together seem to bring up all types of Subjects.

I'll do a little more Research, After posting This. as I love research,
But in the Meantime .... Good Luck :thumbsup:

I just spilled My Coffee :( & got a Craving so , Break time :coffee2:
Click to expand...

I finally made it back. I have had 2 jobs since my last post in this thread. Things are finally leveling back off now and getting time to myself again to pursue different things. I have looked into the silver mines in Economy park a little more and many thing that they were just clay mines for the local brick makers. That is a distinct possibility. Sometime in the near future, I want to head off to Old Economy in Ambridge and see what exactly the deal was. I find it interesting that 2 of the picnic shelters are named Silver Mine 1 and Silver Mine 2. There are other places in that park where clay mining could have happened, but there is at leas the remains (though filled in) of at least one vertical shaft, possibly a second. Even though the ground is still froze, I might be able to get down to the shelters wit the camera and do some local research on it too. I have seen those holes hundreds of times, never thought about snapping a pic of them till now LOL. You know how that goes. So I think there might still be a slight kernel of truth to silver mines in the area, but how well the produced is total speculation. I can also go to where they were mining clay at. The open pitted the clay and didn't dig tunnels to it. So it looks like I have a couple small missions here. ;)

VonDigger
 

my great grandfather worked on the silvermines in pittsburgh in the 1870s and returned to ireland in 1893 so i know for sure , there were silver mines
 

silvermines

my great grandfather worked on the silvermines in pittsburgh in the 1870s and returned to ireland in 1893 so i know for sure , there were silver mines
 

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