Page 95 - Vol. 1 Walks In The Black Range - 2nd Edition

Ore from the new mill was processed as follows: “pulp from the stamps was fed into a patented shaking amalgamator, where the free gold was saved, thence to concentrating tables, where the sulfides were recovered and a final tailing product made” (Harley, Bulletin 10, p. 151).
From December 1904 to September 1905 the net proceeds from the mine were $34,721. That is equivalent to roughly $825,000 dollars in 2015, using simple inflationary adjustments. Using an equivalency model based on the price of gold the figure is close to $3.3 million (34,721/18.96 [1904 price of gold] = 1835 oz., 1835 x 1797+ [current price of gold - July 2020] = 3.3M). W. H. Bucher, who was the vice-president of the Sierra County Bank in Hillsboro, which handled the ore shipments from the Bonanza, said the value of those shipments was in the range of $700,000 (700,000/ 18.96 = 36,920 oz.) This data bit is not precise as to time or value but using it as a rough estimate of the production of the Bonanza, the gold produced by the Bonanza would fetch in the range of $66.1M in today’s market (36,920 x 1797 = 66.1M.). (Note, however, that some sources report production of 21,900 oz., which would yield a value of $39.3M.) Harley (Bulletin 10, p. 140) reported that “During 1931-1933, activity was more general and more persistent in the camp, and mining and development work was done in the Bonanza... but most of the richer runs had already been discovered and removed, and it was only occasionally that such small-scale operations netted the worker more than a bare subsistence.”
By the Second World War, mining had become so unprofitable in the mines of the Hillsboro Mining District that most of the rails, seen along the bottom left edge of the photograph to the right, were removed from the mines to aid the war effort.
Very little information is available about production costs (the mill costs referenced above are a rare bit of data). Wages were very low, still lower if you were Mexican or Chinese, there were no “benefits”. Environmental and worker protections were non-existent. Even with greater mechanization, it is likely that production costs are (comparatively) significantly higher now than during the
major mining periods of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Increased production costs and lower quality ore, more than likely, overshadow the increases in the price of gold.
In “The Ore Deposits of New Mexico 1910” (p. 276) Lindgren, Graton, and Gordon note that “The Bonanza Mine is operated by the Ameranza Mining Company... The Bonanza is the only mine which was producing ore in 1905. The ores are free milling, with sulphides of copper carrying gold and silver values. Smelter returns of gold, silver, and copper are made. The lower-grade ores are treated in the company's mill, located in the valley three-fourths of a mile north of Hillsboro, and the concentrates, together with the shipping ores, are sent to the smelter at El Paso . . The smelter returns on three car lots of rich shipping ore, as taken from the company's records, are as follows: