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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 595516, member: 13650&quot;]Well, if I remember right, the CC mint was lucky to have ever existed.&nbsp; I think a lot of people were against it being built but it finally got approved.&nbsp; It was a highly political mint to work at where employees were cleared out when Grover Cleveland took office.&nbsp; A lot of corruption.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Most of the silver mined in the area at that time had to be shipped over the Sierra Nevada mountains to S.F. which was costly and involved some risk from bandits.&nbsp;&nbsp; The mint director at the time was largely opposed to having any branch mints.</p><p>&nbsp; The House Ways and Means committee reported favorably on it though and noted that most of the refined metal coming from the S.F. mint was being shipped over seas and lost to the domestic economy.&nbsp; &nbsp; It was thought that a mint further inland would likely keep it&#039;s product within the U.S., which would save the U.S. treasury money.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; The Nevada mint bill passed both the house and senate in a single day on March 3, 1863.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; It struggled to get going because of the Civil war, construction woes and dollars. It was closed and re-opened several times.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp; It was closed, re-opened than closed again.&nbsp; Everyone anticipated that it would open again but then it was proven in 1895 that several mint employees and prominent community members had been pilfering bullion from the mint which pretty much did CC in.&nbsp; &nbsp; It was re-opened in June 1896 for refining bullion into ingots only.&nbsp; &nbsp; In 1899 a bill was passed making it an assay office only, sealing it&#039;s fate and in August, 22 tons of remaining CC silver dollars were taken away by train and all of the coining equipment disassembled.&nbsp;&nbsp; Some of these went to New Orleans to get an &#039;O&#039; MM stamped over them.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; CC refined gold and silver from Nevada and neighboring states until 1933.&nbsp; &nbsp; 1941 it became the Nevada state museum.&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1965, an old 1890&#039;s flywheel press at CC was shipped up to Denver and put back into service out of desperation to produce coins to meet the requirements of production that year.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;Surprisingly, Congress appropriated a bill for $100,000 for construction of a branch mint at The Dalles, Oregon also, to accomodate the gold that was being found in that area.&nbsp; A private firm was minting $5 and $10 gold there already but just for a year.&nbsp; Just as what had happened in Charlotte and Dolenegha.&nbsp; &nbsp; But when construction began in 1869, the gold supply had begun to dwindle.&nbsp; The mint&#039;s stone and brick arches for the basement were constructed but the project was suspended.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp; Would make a good trivia question. :smile[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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