A Brief History of the United Verde Open Pit, Jerome, Arizona

Alenius, E.M.J.

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The "Big Hole" was the name miners gave to the United Verde mine, for with its many shafts, raises, large stopes, and miles of drifts and tunnels, it was one of the largest mines in the world near the turn of the present century. Several pictures are included with this presentation so that the interested visitor to Jerome may have a better understanding of how the "Big Hole" was made, and what the problems were. Also, visitors can become familiar with the great extent of the mine by examining the model in the Douglas Memorial Mining Museum at the Jerome State Historic Park. However, only by comparing this with the actual "Big Hole," the United Verde open pit to the north of Jerome, can the magnitude of the early day mining be fully appreciated. The United Verde open-pit mining operation was unusual in many respects and it presented conditions not commonly found in most mining enterprises. To the best of the writer's knowledge, no other surface mine operation can compare in the variety of situations which were encountered. Whereas development of the pit conformed generally to practices prevalent at the time, many changes and innovations were required as the operations progressed. During its twenty-two year lifetime, from 1918 to 1940, great improvements were made in the methods of drilling, blasting, loading, and hauling and, as a result, technologies first used at the United Verde open pit have contributed to the development of many modern-day surface mining methods.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10150/629624

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https://library.azgs.arizona.edu/

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Documents in the AZGS Document Repository collection are made available by the Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact azgs-info@email.arizona.edu.

North Bounding Coordinate

34.7719

South Bounding Coordinate

34.6991

West Bounding Coordinate

-112.148

East Bounding Coordinate

-112.079

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AZGS Document Repository