Cortez
In 1862, Mexican miners located silver at Mount Tenabo and made a shipment to Austin. Not unnoticed by prospectors there, an eight-man party including Simeon Wenban was sent out the next spring to locate the ore. Wenban partnered with George Hearst to form the Cortez Gold & Silver Mining Company, which built an eight-stamp mill in nearby Mill Canyon. By 1865, three companies worked the new Cortez (pronounced Cort-us) district, and that year the mill doubled in size. The early progress was slow and plagued with difficulties, however, and Hearst impatiently sold his share to Wenban and moved on. By 1868, Cortez grew to a population of 400 and secured its first post office. A new discovery at the St. Louis mine helped spur development, and although the post office closed the following year, Cortez continued to make steady shipments for the next two decades - most of which was under Wenban's ownership and worked by Chinese at a lower cost than Americans or Mexicans.
In 1886, satisfied with production, Wenban and the Tenabo Mill & Mining Company completed a new 50-ton mill and lixiviation plant with an extensive pipeline drawing water from across Grass Valley (which would also provide water for the town). Cortez consistently exceeded $300,000 per year from 1887 until 1891, regaining its post office in 1892. The Tenabo Mill closed in 1904, by which time some $3 million had been produced from the district. Wenban died in 1901, and for the next eighteen years only leasers worked the district; nevertheless, impressive production was recorded. The Tenabo Mill was remodeled to use cyanide in 1908, but burned in 1915.
Cortez's lull came to an end in 1919 when the new Consolidated Cortez Silver Mines Company was organized, gobbling up 49 claims, water rights, and mill sites. A 150-ton cyanide mill was erected four years later, and Cortez thrived until the Great Depression when the mill was shuttered and the Consolidated Company folded. This period added another $2 million to the books. Leasers worked the district thereafter, and by 1958 the district produced a staggering $14 million. Since 1959, modern mining has taken place and continued off and on until the present. The last permanent resident left in the 1960s, but today a few buildings, mill ruins, and the cemetery remain in the shadow of these newer workings.
