Copper Country
White Pine County, White Pine County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Copper Country. The famed open-pit copper mines of eastern Nevada, including the Liberty Pit, largest in the state, are located two miles south of this point. Through the first half of the twentieth century, this area produced nearly a billion dollars in copper, gold, and silver. The huge mounds visible from here are waste rock, which was removed to uncover the ore.Two miles east of here, near Lane City, was the Elijah, the first mine discovered in the Robinson Mining District. Lane City, originally called Mineral City, was settled in 1869 and had a population of 400. At Mineral City was the Ragsdale Station, one hotel, and a stage station.
Erected by Nevada State Historic Preservation Office
The Story
The great open-pit copper mines of eastern Nevada, including the Liberty Pit — the largest in the state — lie just south of this point, and through the first half of the twentieth century the district produced nearly a billion dollars in copper, gold, and silver. The huge mounds on the landscape are waste rock stripped away to reach the ore. Two miles east, near Lane City, the Elijah became the first mine of the Robinson Mining District; Lane City, first called Mineral City, was settled in 1869 and grew to some 400 people, with a hotel, a stage station, and the Ragsdale Station.
Why it matters
Copper Country marks the shift from lone silver prospectors to industrial-scale open-pit mining, the mass-production method that made Nevada a copper powerhouse and fed the wiring and machinery of modern America.
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Nearby & related markers
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