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At Bonanza Mine. Photo credit: Alaska Hike Research.
Into the mines
By L.C.
On Sept. of 2023, the Academy Charter School seventh grade students went to the Kennecott copper mine to learn about the industry. Kennecott was a mine that was built near McCarthy and has many different interesting characteristics, one of which was the miners themselves.
There were five mines of Kennecott: Bonanza, Erie, Motherlode, Glacier, and Jumbo. At the beginning, the miners would simply mine the copper ore and bag it, skipping the mill process entirely. As a St. Elias Alpine guide stated, once the original layer of 98% copper was mined, the mill building was built. This attracted workers from around the world, including the US and Scandinavia, with higher salaries than those found in the lower states by about $3 per hour. In total there were about 300 miners during the height of operation, according to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park website.
A Bonanza miner pouring ore into a rail car. Photo credit: Mining History Association
Kennecott Mines Ca. 1920. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons,
The Bonanza Mine Trail, Photo Credit: Alaska Hike Research
Days of Deafness
The working conditions in the mines were harsh and dangerous; in fact, the average time of their career was seventeen months. It took eight months to pay off the round trip to Kennecott and back. According to the previously mentioned mill guide, miners were paid $3.25 per hour minus food, health care, and housing, bringing take-home-pay down to about a dollar, about $30 in today’s money. Miners worked 8 hour shifts. They were paid if any injury were to occur while working; For example: $200 for lost fingers, $300 for lost thumb, $1000 was given to their family if they died, and $2000 for blindness (their family had to care for them after they left the mill town). They were not paid for deafness however, the reason for this simply being that, as a guide would state it, “they all were deaf”, because of the extreme loudness, and paying all of the workers thousands of dollars could be very damaging economically.
Inside a Kennecott mine. Photo credit: Legends of America,
Life in the mines of Kennecott
Many of the miners actually lived inside the mountain because the temperature outside the mine was very, very, low, in the negative forties even. William Douglass, who lived in the mill town even said that “...essentially those [miners] lived without seeing the outside air from the first of November to... the end of March...and it was cold.” They worked 363 days a year and “..they were essentially captives of the company.”
Hard work for a low salary
In conclusion, the miners may have been paid well for their work, but they worked hard and with large risk. They risked losing it all, including money, limb, or life. All for a profit of only one month’s salary, the equivalent of roughly $900 in today’s money.
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