The Girard Mill

By the closing weeks of 1881, Tombstone was preparing to add something more important to its future than another saloon or another gunfighter. On the ground near the Girard mine, workmen were finishing a new twenty-stamp reduction mill – a substantial industrial plant intended to crush and process ore within the Tombstone mining district itself.

The contemporary account was enthusiastic. Machinery had been supplied by Frazer & Chalmers of Chicago. The plant included ten pans, five settlers and an agitator, powered by an 80-horsepower steam engine and large boilers. Ore was to travel from the mine to the mill by tramway, then pass through the crushing and amalgamation process before the waste material was discharged into a ravine used for tailings.

The mill was expected to begin regular operation in January 1882. The newspaper predicted that once running steadily it could add about $75,000 a month to Tombstone’s bullion output and, together with the mine, provide employment for roughly seventy-five to one hundred men. It was the sort of prediction common in a mining camp: new machinery, new production and another promise of prosperity.

This time, however, there really was an impressive mill behind the optimism.

A Mill Beside the Mines

Much of Tombstone’s early ore had to be hauled from the mines to reduction works along the San Pedro River. That arrangement made sense because milling required large quantities of water, but hauling heavy ore for miles was expensive. The Girard represented an effort to bring substantial milling capacity much closer to the mines themselves.

Patrick Hamilton’s 1883 Resources of Arizona described the Girard mill as having twenty stamps and costing $85,000. During its initial period of operation, Hamilton reported that it milled about 15,000 tons of ore. Not all of that material came from the Girard mine. About 8,000 tons were third-class ore from the Contention, and additional ore came from the Tranquillity. Hamilton called the plant one of the most complete mills in the Tombstone district.

Water remained the problem that had driven earlier mills toward the San Pedro. Contemporary mining reports show that the Girard was supplied from the Sulphuret workings. By April 1882, the Engineering and Mining Journal reported that the Girard mill was running constantly on Girard ore and receiving its water from the Sulphuret.

The Optimism Did Not Last

The machinery worked. The finances did not.

Hamilton recorded receipts of $83,355 from ore milled, while milling expenses alone reached $64,058. With the company’s other expenses added, costs exceeded receipts. The Girard mine closed in May 1882. Hamilton placed the company’s indebtedness at about $62,749 and reported that both mine and mill were attached and sold at sheriff’s sale.

The contrast with the confident predictions made only months earlier is striking. A plant expected to increase Tombstone’s bullion production by tens of thousands of dollars each month was caught almost immediately in the harder arithmetic of mining: ore grade, operating expense, capital and debt.

But the failure of the original Girard company was not the end of the Girard mill.

A Second Life

The mill’s location ultimately made it valuable. By 1886 the United States Director of the Mint reported that the Tombstone Mill and Mining Company had shifted its milling operations back to Tombstone. The company had purchased the Girard mill the previous year and was using it instead of its older mills at Charleston.

The reason was practical. The Charleston works required a haul of roughly ten miles. The Girard was already positioned near the Tombstone mines. The same federal report noted that pumps in the Sulphuret shaft were intended specifically to supply the Girard mill with water.

In other words, the idea behind the original mill survived the company that built it. Processing ore close to the mines could eliminate a costly wagon haul to the San Pedro.

Still There in 1905

More than two decades after the first stamps began dropping, the Girard was still part of Tombstone’s mining story.

In July 1905 the Engineering and Mining Journal reported that the Tombstone Consolidated Mines Company was preparing to refit what it then called the old thirty-stamp Girard mill, adding twenty stamps and concentrating equipment. Other historical accounts report that surviving stamps from the old Grand Central mill at Fairbank were moved to the Girard during this period.

The changing stamp counts show that the plant did not remain frozen in its original 1882 configuration. Machinery was added, removed and rebuilt as Tombstone’s mining companies changed and new methods were introduced. What began as a twenty-stamp mill in the excitement of 1881 became part of a much longer industrial history.

More Than Gunfights

The Girard mill is easy to overlook beside Tombstone’s better-known stories. There was no famous gunfight at the mill and no outlaw legend attached to its boilers. Yet operations like the Girard explain why Tombstone existed in the first place.

The mines produced the ore. Mills converted that ore into something that could be shipped and sold. Steam engines, pumps, tramways, stamps, boilers and teams hauling ore were as much a part of Tombstone as Allen Street.

The newspaper writers of 1881 were wrong about the immediate financial future of the Girard company. They were not wrong about the importance of bringing milling closer to Tombstone’s mines. The first company failed, the mill changed hands, and the machinery changed with it – but more than twenty years later, men were still rebuilding the Girard and preparing its stamps to drop again.

Research Notes

Original newspaper clipping supplied for this story. Detailed description of the new Girard mill, its machinery, location relative to the mine, projected January startup, employment and predicted bullion output.

Patrick Hamilton, Resources of Arizona (1883). Documents the original 20-stamp mill, $85,000 cost, 15,000 tons milled, Contention and Tranquillity ore, company receipts/expenses, May 1882 shutdown, indebtedness and sheriff’s sale.

Engineering and Mining Journal, 1882. Contemporary report that the Girard mill was operating continuously on Girard ore and was supplied with water from the Sulphuret.

Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, calendar year 1886. Reports that the Tombstone Mill and Mining Company had purchased the Girard and moved milling operations from Charleston back to Tombstone; identifies Sulphuret pumps as the Girard’s water supply.

Engineering and Mining Journal, July 29, 1905. Reports plans to refit the old Girard mill, then described as a 30-stamp plant, by adding 20 stamps and concentrating equipment.