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We’ve been around almost 80 years and are still one of the best-kept secrets of the Southwest. Our customers jealously guard information about where they obtain their minerals. The placer claims were first discovered in 1930, and a location was promptly lodged at the county seat along with appropriate filings with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, etc. |
Three hundred and twenty (320) acres, = two quarter-sections situated in Lincoln County, Nevada were originally claimed by local residents who were informed by two college students of the deposit. As the legend has it, the students were apparently conducting prospecting work for the railroad during their summer vacation, to earn some tuition money, and woke up one morning to find their burros had escaped. Tracking them some distance, the burros were eventually encountered with their noses poked down a couple of rabbit holes, buried almost up to their eyes, oblivious to the approaching prospectors.
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Much to their amazement, the two students observed that the animals were eating a powdery clay substance they had previously observed at distance, but had not heretofore detoured to investigate. It was soon analyzed, and the basic matrix was found to be very similar indeed, to the first Montmorillonite deposit so-named nearly three quarters of a century earlier, in France. Various uses of the clay were made such as in mineral baths, as bleaching agents (major ingredient of Fuller’s Earth), and healing poultices for injured livestock. |
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Shortly after World War II a consortium of California and Arizona growers set up a mill on the west edge of Panaca and began shipping refined product in 100 lb. sacks by rail all, over the country. |
For more about Window Peak Trace Minerals history go to :
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