For more than 50 years, the Donovan Mill in Silver City, Nevada sat silent. Opened in 1860, as the Kelsey Mill, the last time its mighty stamps crushed ore was in 1959, making it the longest-running mill in the Comstock area.
During those decades, the roofs some of the buildings in the mill complex began to sag, tree roots began to grow into the interior, and hillsides began to slide into the back walls.
But in 2013, the non-profit Comstock Foundation for History and Culture purchased the mill, which includes seven structures, for $195,000, and began the tedious process of raising money to stabilize and restore the old mill.
A visit to the complex, which is open by appointment to visitors, reveals that the foundation and a host of volunteers have done a remarkable job to date. Roofs have been repaired, new wooden beams and supports have been installed and once-dusty and immobile equipment has been freed from the crust of ages of neglect.
The story of the mill is intertwined with the history of the Comstock Lode. After being built in 1860, it was operated at various times by important Nevada mining figures including banker William Sharon and mining magnates John MacKay and James Fair.
In the late 1870s, it was sold and became known as the Dazet Mill. According to records, in the late 1890s, the mill was adapted for a cyanide leaching process by Professor Robert Jackson of the University of Nevada Reno School of Mines—pioneering the method still used today to recover gold and silver for ore (and replacing a process that used highly-toxic mercury).
William Donovan Sr. purchased the mill in 1912 and enlarged it over time. Comstock Foundation Executive Director Steven Saylor notes that today it is the largest historic gold and silver stamp mill in the nation.
The largest building in the complex is the stamp mill facility, which boasts a wall of original iron stamps (including two stamp mill machines built at the Virginia & Truckee Railroad shops in Carson City) that were used to pulverize ore. The ore would be loaded from above (the mill is built into a hillside) and would slide down a chute to the stamps.
From there, it would be made into a slurry, which was dumped into large tanks in an adjacent room. There, the gold or silver would be separated from the rest of the mixture using a cyanide solution and then zinc powder, before being transported for further refining.
The importance of the Donovan Mill is that all of the vintage equipment, including stamps, conveyors, cyanide tanks, and zinc containers are intact and are being restored so that one day some of the machinery will be operable (for demonstration purposes).
In addition to the mill and processing facilities, the site also has the original blacksmith shop, where blacksmith lessons and demonstrations occur, the refinery, boiler room and the mill’s original office building, which boasts a large walk-in vault. The latter also has a small gift shop.
In addition, the Donovan Mill includes a separate refinery building where gold and silver bars were poured. The bars were stored in the vault and then taken to the mint in Carson City.
According to Saylor, the foundation is continuing to raise money for Donovan Mill, which remains an ongoing restoration project.
In addition to the mill, the Comstock Foundation has already raised funds that were used to stabilize and restore the Upper Yellow Jacket Hoist Works in nearby Gold Hill. It is also working with local officials to identify other historic structures on the Comstock that may be in need of preservation.
For more information and to schedule a tour, go to www.comstockfoundation.org/Tours.
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