The Industrial Ambition of Monte Cristo
A detailed look at the massive capital investments and engineering feats transforming the Snohomish County mountains into a mining powerhouse.
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.
Surprise has been expressed that the outlay of enormous capital such as is being made in the building of the Everett & Monte Cristo Railroad, the Everett smelter, and the general opening up of the mines should have been begun with limited development work. But the Monte Cristo mines are not being developed strictly after the orthodox fashion; it is on the broadest scale, backed by ample capital. Nature here has cut two huge gorges, 2,000 and 3,000 feet deep, exposing mineralized ledges. F.W. Wilmans described the plan of operations, which includes tunneling straight through the mountain from the south side and following the ore veins continuously. They propose an automatic gravity train about 6,000 feet in length to take ore from the dumps to the concentrator. The outlook is glittering; it is ore and easily workable, and will be sufficient for mining for years to come.
“It is on the broadest scale, backed by ample capital, and, taken as a whole, is comparable rather to the development of the iron mines of the East.”
Monte Cristo was a major boomtown at the turn of the century, fueled by high hopes for gold and silver. Today, the townsite is a ghost town and a popular hiking destination, marking the remnants of the immense, short-lived capital investment described here.
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