Harry Pye (prospector)

Harry Pye (died 1879) was a prospector and sometime mule skinner in New Mexico Territory who discovered silver chloride in the Black Range in 1879 initiating a multimillion-dollar silver rush.[1][2]

Born in England, he first went to Australia where he was unsuccessful, then he came to the American Southwest. Pye was working as a teamster hauling goods for the U.S. Army when he recognized the greyish mineral weathering out of the rock in a remote canyon as silver chloride or chlorargyrite.[1][2][3] He finished his contract, filed a claim and started mining, only to be killed a few months later by the Mimbres Apache.[1][2][4] But his mine continued under new management and the town of Chloride, New Mexico was founded in the canyon.[1][5]

Effects

Pye's claim, and the success of his mine set off a silver rush with hundreds of silver mines being opened in the Black Range.[1][5] Among them was the discovery of the Bridal Chamber in 1882, the richest native silver deposit ever found.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Abarr, p. 1
  2. ^ a b c Twitchell, p. 271
  3. ^ a b Harley, George Townsend (1934) The geology and ore deposits of Sierra County, New Mexico published as New Mexico State Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Bulletin 10, p.178-179
  4. ^ Woods, Betty (February 1953) "Trip of the Month: Chloride" New Mexico Magazine 31(2): p. 6
  5. ^ a b "About Sierra County:Chloride" Sierra County Recreation & Tourism Advisory Board Historical information courtesy of LaRena Miller, Geronimo Springs Museum, Truth or Consequences, and Rural Economic Development Through Tourism (REDTT).

References