The Copper Bonanza on San Juan Island
Local entrepreneurs Morgan and O'Bryant strike it rich with a silver-laced copper vein, promising to transform the rugged island into a major mining hub.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. Morgan, the original discoverer of the copper lode on San Juan Island, is in town today and showed us some specimens of ore taken from the lead. The area in question is very rich in copper and gold, ranging from ten to twenty cents, besides a large amount of fluid silver. The lead is being opened by Mr. Morgan and Mr. H. P. O'Bryant, on whose land it is located, and promises to be 'a big bonanza' to these gentlemen. They propose to ship the ore as it is mined to San Francisco, where they have made arrangements to dispose of it. It will probably be sent from there to Baltimore, where large copper reducing works are located. Messrs. Morgan and O'Bryant will commence shipping ore as soon as they complete a tunnel they are running in some one hundred and fifty feet to the vein.
This 1876 report captures the speculative fever that often accompanied resource extraction in the Pacific Northwest, long before the region's tech boom. While San Juan Island is now known for its serene landscapes and salmon runs rather than industrial mining, the story highlights how early Washington residents looked to extractive industries as the primary engine of wealth and civic development.
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