Belmont Mills

Belmont • Nye County

Monitor-Belmont Mill - The 20-stamp Monitor-Belmont Mill was built in 1867 by the Belmont Silver Mining Company. Sometime before the late 1870s, the mill was closed. It was reopened in June 1881, but ore was inconsistent. By 1887, mining in Belmont had slowed and the mill was only processing ore from nearby Barcelona. It closed before the end of that year.

Monitor-Belmont Mill

Combination Mill - The 40-stamp Combination Mill started operation in February 1868 and cost $225,000 to build. It was the largest mill in Belmont. Sometime before July 1878, the mill became idle. It was then taken over by the newly formed Highbridge Consolidated Silver Mining Company and renamed the Highbridge Mill. Their repairs to the mill were completed in December 1878, and it restarted using twenty-five stamps. By October 1879, however, it was again idle.

Following the 1880 boom at Gold Mountain (in Esmeralda County), equipment was moved from the Combination Mill to the new camp. The large brick building lasted until 1914, when it was torn down and its bricks salvaged to construct the Cameron Mill the following year. The large stack remains, and a local story states that military jets traveling between NAS Fallon and Nellis AFB have in the past used it for target practice.

Combination Mill

Cameron Mill - In 1914, Belmont began to experience a revival. The Monitor-Belmont Mining Company acquired many of the old mines and in 1915 constructed the Cameron Mill out of bricks salvaged from the old Combination Mill (at the time also known as the Highbridge Mill, which has caused confusion and led to the Cameron Mill being incorrectly labelled as the Highbridge on some maps. This confusion is also aided by the fact that the Cameron was built on the site of the first Highbridge Mill, which lasted from 1867-1880.). The Cameron, named for the Company's superintendent Donald C. Cameron, had ten stamps and a 150-ton flotation system. Ore was obtained from the Company's 21 claims as well as from reworking old tailings piles. A powerline was built from Manhattan and the mill employed thirty. It lasted until 1917.

Cameron Mill

Belmont
Belmont • Mills
East Belmont

Bibliography

Preserving the Glory Days: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Nye County, Nevada by Shawn Hall (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1999), 129-139.