Miners tamp a charge of dynamite into a rock shelf in the old Ore Knob Mine. The men were not identified in the caption. The photo was taken from an old mine newsletter.

Ore Knob copper mine is recalled

What little is left of the Ore Knob copper mine lies silent and wasted off N.C. 88, barely five minutes out of Alleghany County. It’s been closed for more than 40 years, but the site’s hard, brittle smell remains. Eroded dunes of barren, copperless rubble lay like swollen fingers down the mountaintop’s far side. The gaping, tractor-sized mouth of a back-filled mineshaft now collects trash and household discards. Not far away, another shaft opening is crosshatched by large logs and surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. Old work roads around the top are cluttered with blackish-orange rocks, their corners scuffed smooth from nearly a century of weighty traffic. The waste from decades past dies very, very slowly, coating downstream rocks with the rust-colored stains of time and tainted water. Across Peak Creek Road, two huge corrugated steel cylinders, perhaps 20 feet in diameter and twice that tall, sit atop concrete foundations with doorway-like openings all around. Their useful purpose in the mining process has been replaced by an ugly existence.

The Ore Knob mine opened in 1855, its owners seeking iron; but that was tossed aside when rich veins of copper appeared. Getting things together took time. Unfortunately, storm clouds brewed. Words like “secession” and “war” hinted of trouble and grew in volume. Mining slowed, then ended during the Civil War and through the early years of Reconstruction.

In 1873, a promising second effort began. During the last half of that year, 400,000 pounds of North Carolina copper went to Connecticut’s Revere Copper Company. Nearly 700 people settled around the busy mine, including some from Alleghany and Wilkes counties, both just down the highway. A third of them worked for the company. Their community was like any other, with a school, a couple of churches and a bank. No one made much money in the late 1800’s. The mine’s furnace supervisor earned just $3.33 a day. A day, not an hour. Common laborers made as little as 40 cents. Miners and furnace men sweated buckets for a long shift’s dollar and a quarter. The average salary was 95 cents a day. For years, workers were paid in scrip, the paper “money” redeemable at the company’s store.

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