Page 70 - Vol. 1 Walks In The Black Range - 2nd Edition

The Opportunity Mine
The Sierra Consolidated Gold Mining Company may serve as an example of the mining model of the early 1900’s. To the right is the “Moody’s Manual of Railroads and Corporation Securities” (1906) description of the Opportunity Mine and its operations.
Operations of the Rattlesnake and Opportunity Mine groups had been combined by the Sierra Consolidated Gold Mining Company. The Mining Company’s prospectus showed the consolidated claims, see bottom image on the right.
Individual claims were often considered insufficient to warrant mining operations and were combined into various “groups” (north is to the left on this map).
Sierra Consolidated was incorporated in West
Virginia on December 1, 1902 (for a term of 50 years) with a place of business listed as Hillsboro and a capitalization of
$3,000,000. It acquired the Snake and Opportunity properties from Henry M. Porter of Denver shortly
after incorporating and began selling shares and interest (“Report of the Director of the Mint Upon
the Production of the Precious Metals in the
United States During the Calendar Year 1902”, Washington, GPO, 1903, p. 175). When the term of the corporation expired, the
state of New Mexico simply listed it as delinquent -
along with page after page
of mining and milling companies formed in that era.