Archer County Copper Mines
Archer City, Archer County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The civilized world first heard of copper in this area from Texas Rangers after an 1860 campaign against Comanches on the Pease River, about 100 miles to the northwest. The Ranger Captain, Lawrence S. ("Sul") Ross, later to serve Texas as governor, had nuggets picked off the surface of the ground and hauled to Austin. In 1861, Assistant State Geologist S. B. Buckley charted the mineral site. The Rangers' ore haul was processed and used in gun caps for Confederate forces during the Civil War. To get more of the needed metal, the Texas Copper Mining & Manufacturing Company was founded on May 28, 1864, but wartime shortage of men apparently prevented recovery of copper at that time. The T.C.M.&M. Co., based in Dallas, sent W. F. Cummings to Archer County in 1880 to open mining sites. Although the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and Statistics reported in 1882 that no mining had commenced, ore eventually was hauled out and shipped to smelters in the east. No central vein or deposit could be found. The Boston & Texas Copper Company of Tucson, Ariz., leased the mine site here in 1899. It produced some copper ore which was processed in El Paso, but again the project failed to meet expectations. (1971)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Word of copper here first spread after Texas Rangers on an 1860 campaign against the Comanches at the Pease River — led by Lawrence "Sul" Ross, a future governor — carried nuggets back to Austin. During the Civil War that ore was processed into gun caps for Confederate forces, and the Texas Copper Mining & Manufacturing Company was chartered in 1864, though wartime labor shortages stalled it. Repeated ventures into the 1880s and a 1899 lease by an Arizona firm all shipped some ore but failed to find a central vein, and the mines never met expectations.
Why it matters
The story is a classic Western mining boom-and-bust, entangled with Indian warfare and the Confederacy's desperate search for metal.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Related events
- · Battle of Pease River
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Camp Cureton, C.S.A.
Archer City, TX
During the Civil War the Confederacy strung a thin line of frontier posts from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and Camp Cureton anchored a stretch of it near where the Gainesville–Fort Belknap road crossed the West Fork of the Trinity. Manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment and named for veteran Indian-fighter Capt. Jack Cureton, its poorly supplied troopers patrolled against Comanche raids while guarding supply trains and watching for Union movement. Contemporaries judged them more effective at curbing raids than the U.S. Army had been.
Joseph Alfred Woolfolk
Newcastle, TX
Kentucky-born and Louisville-trained in law, Joseph Alfred Woolfolk came to frontier Belknap in 1858 to survey Peters Colony land grants and soon served as a Young County official. He joined a home-guard Ranger unit and then the Confederate army, was captured in West Virginia in 1863, and spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ohio. Back in Texas, he gained notoriety in 1871 when the court appointed him to defend the Kiowa chiefs Satanta and Big Tree at their murder trial after the Salt Creek raid.
Camp Belknap, C.S.A.
Newcastle, TX
During the Civil War, Confederate frontier troops garrisoned Camp Belknap to hold the exposed edge of Texas settlement. Local men joined a frontier regiment of cavalry and rangers that patrolled a chain of posts from the Red River to the Rio Grande, guarding against both raids and a feared Union thrust from Indian Territory. Short on food and ammunition, they concentrated near here in 1863 and met a large Comanche force at Elm Creek the next year.
Tonkawa Scouts, C.S.A.
Newcastle, TX
During the Civil War the Tonkawa people allied themselves with Texans, serving as scouts along the frontier defense line from the Red River to the Rio Grande and watching for both hostile raiders and Federal incursion. Commanders prized their skill so highly they sometimes fed the scouts at personal expense. The Tonkawa paid dearly for that loyalty: in October 1862 a devastating attack on their camp near present Anadarko killed 137 of about 300 people, and the survivors were later resettled near Fort Griffin before removal to Oklahoma in 1884.