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125 Years of Persistence and Perspective
IN 1907, a year most closely associated with a nationwide banking panic, James F. McCarthy was one of a handful of men who ran the mining district known as the Coeur d'Alene in the Silver Valley of Northwest Idaho. McCarthy was in charge of the daily operations of the Hecla Mining Company, a little-known lead mining company. The Panic of 1907 nearly wiped out the company, as did the Great Crash of 1929. Yet it survived long enough to face more financial turmoil in 2008-2009, with President/CEO Phil Baker steering the company through the Great Recession. For Hecla, endurance through those tough times eventually led it to become one of the longest-surviving precious metals mining companies in the United States, and the lone survivor of the pioneer mining companies formed in the Coeur d'Alene District before 1900.
Hecla got its start when James Toner staked a claim on May 5, 1885 on the banks of Canyon Creek near what would become known as the town of Burke, Idaho. Toner did nothing with the claim, and it passed through a few hands until Patsy Clark ended up with 100% of the mine on July 11, 1891. Clark, who had settled in Spokane, had a history of mining in the Comstock mines of Virginia City, and he built a mansion in Spokane that still stands today. The company was capitalized at $500,000 in Idaho on October 14, 1891 by Clark and co-founders John Finch and Amasa Campbell.
The early years of Hecla were punctuated by union scraps, which included beatings and murders. As a result, twice in its history - in July 1892 and May 1899 - the area came under martial law. The unrest resulted in the severing of eastern money and the relocation of mine owners to Spokane. Once these men moved out of the Coeur d'Alene, many of them, including Finch and Campbell, invested in other mining and non-mining companies.
Under the leadership of McCarthy, who had taken over Hecla s daily operations in 1903, the company's stock had more than doubled. That year, Hecla had a net income of $153,263 and paid $60,000 in dividends; they also bought the Milwaukee mill in the town of...