Old Guard Mine (Tombstone, Arizona)

You will receive the exact certificate pictured

Over 100 years old

Capital stock

December 13, 1907

Issued, uncanceled

J. W. Middleton

Hand signed

10 1/2" (w) by 8 1/4" (h)

NA

Historical Context

Although never a major producer like the Vizina or Stonewall, the Old Guard Mine held its own among the smaller corporations. The same as the Sunset, the Old Guard was one of the first mines located in Tombstone, Cochise County, and it ended up in the hands of oil country men in 1880 via Fordyce Roper's brokerage efforts. Roper also was one of the incorporators of the Old Guard Mining Co., along with Francis Graves Burke, a Tombstone attorney, and Sumner P. Vickers, brother of attorney and cattleman John V. Vickers, who invested his money. They pushed the work on their mine, which was north of the Lucky Cuss.

By August 1880, the Old Guard included a shaft, a drift developing from the 80-foot level, and a winze connecting the 150 and 220 foot levels. Among those who purchased a portion of the mine was Burdette A. Packard.

Mining continued steadily throughout 1882. The October 28 edition of the Tombstone Epitaph of that year reported that the Old Guard's shaft was 235 feet deep. At the southeast drift off the 90-foot level, the company was installing a whim (a windlass for raising ore or water from a mine) to begin hoisting again. The December 16 Epitaph told of a new raise [shaft] in the Old Guard. The next year, as in all other Tombstone mines, excessive water became an increasingly insurmountable problem. The Old Guard Co. leased its property to chloriders, who picked over the mine's bones for several years. By the end of the 1880s, scavenging of the Old Guard, Vizina, Tranquility, and Bunker Hill mines provided almost all the district's production. Tombstone's population, generally estimated at more than 10,000 in 1882, fell to less than 650 by the end of the 1890s.

There were a couple of mining revivals in the early twentieth century - including this iteration led by F. N. Fowler of Chicago - but mining in Tombstone never flourished again as it had in 1882.

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