Chino Mine

The Chino Mine - Silver City, NM

The Chino Mine ("Chino" is Spanish for the "Chinaman"), also known as the Santa Rita mine, is an open-pit copper mine located in the town of Santa Rita, New Mexico 15 miles (24 km) east of Silver City. The mine was started as the Chino Copper Company in 1909 by mining engineer John M. Sully and Spencer Penrose, and is currently owned and operated by Freeport-McMoRan Inc. subsidiaries. The area where the mine is located is at an average elevation of 5,699 feet (1,737 m).
The huge open-pit mine was once the largest in the world, but has been surpassed by Chuquicamata, and is perhaps the oldest mining site still being used in the American southwest. Apaches, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans have all obtained native copper and copper ore from this site, once known as the Santa Rita mine, and in the 19th century, a tunnel mine. The present-day open-pit mining operation was begun in 1910. It is the third oldest open pit copper mine in the world after the Bingham Canyon Mine and Chuquicamata. [Wiki]

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