Minerva
Silver chlorides were revealed by a Native American to white miners in 1869, leading to the establishment of the Indian Gold & Silver Mining Company and the Shoshone district. The ore proved to be unprofitable, however, and the district was deserted in 1876. About 1885, the district became known as the Minerva, and though a few mines were located, but little work was done until after 1915 when scheelite ore was discovered. Three years later the Minerva Tungsten Corporation was incorporated, and soon had 340 acres worth of claims and a new 150-ton concentrator erected to treat ore from its largest producer: the Scheelite Chief (at the old Indian Company's mine). Unfortunately work was suspended shortly thereafter, and the concentrator was dismantled in 1923 with most of the equipment being removed to the Comet mine.
A new breath of life was found in 1936, when the Tungsten Metals Corporation reopened the Minerva mines and built a new 75-ton concentrator. A company camp grew to house about 45 (though it never had its own post office; mail was sent to nearby Shoshone). 75,000 tons were produced by 1939, making Minerva the second largest producer of tungsten in Nevada after the aptly-named Tungsten in Pershing County. The mill was enlarged to 150 tons in 1940, and the Tungsten Metals Corp. produced more than $1.5 million before closing its mines on May 31, 1945.
Subsequent years brought smaller-scale work to Minerva. In 1947, the property was taken over by the family-operated Minerva Scheelite Mining Company, who reopened the Scheelite Chief mine and installed a new 35-ton mill. After 1952, the M.I.A. Company (successor to the previous and a joint venture of the American Zinc, Lead and Smelting Co. and Combined Metals Reduction Co.) began development which declined toward the end of the decade. The US Government discontinued the purchase of tungsten in 1957, which paired with a fire which destroyed the Minerva mill in September 1958 hastened Minerva's demise, and the last stockpiled tungsten was shipped off in 1964. The old camp may have been occupied as recently as the last twenty or thirty years, but today its most noteworthy inhabitant is an owl that keeps watch over the silent buildings.
