A Frontier Discovery: Quicksilver in the Hills
A routine spring cleaning by a settler’s wife in Clallam County leads to a potentially major discovery of mercury ore.
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.
From W. P. Mesather, who lives up in the Hoko hills about eighteen miles north of Clallam, we learn that a few days ago a Mrs. Li Tinston, who lives neighbor to him, was cleaning out a little spring with a view to preparing a place in which to keep her butter, when she discovered in the bottom of the spring quite a quantity of pure quicksilver. Mr. John Kuril, who claims to be familiar with the quicksilver in its crude state, is of the opinion that a valuable mine has been discovered. The ore, or cinnabar, in which the mercury exists, has, of course, been burned, probably through the action of timber fires, and a concentration taken place wherein the pure quicksilver is left at the bottom of the spring. A party will go out as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made and a thorough examination and test will be made.
“A Mrs. Li Tinston... was cleaning out a little spring with a view to preparing a place in which to keep her butter, when she discovered in the bottom of the spring quite a quantity of pure quicksilver.”
While this 1889 report highlights the excitement of early industrial prospectors in Washington, it also reflects the era's view of the land as a resource to be harvested. Today, such a discovery would likely trigger a complex environmental assessment, as quicksilver (mercury) mining left a legacy of toxic contamination across the Pacific Northwest.
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