History
Copper has been mined for centuries at Chuquicamata, as evidenced by the 1899 discovery of the "Copper Man," a mummy dated to c. 550 A.D. The mummy was found in an ancient mine shaft, apparently trapped by a rockfall.[7] It is also related that the men of conquistador Diego de Almagro obtained copper horseshoes from the natives when he passed through in 1536.
Incas and Spanish explorers exploited the mineral deposits of Chuquicamata during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Mining activity was relatively small scale until the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), when Chile annexed parts of both Peru and Bolivia, including Chuquicamata. At this time, a great influx of miners were drawn into the area by what was termed the 'Red Gold Fever' (La Fiebre del Oro Rojo).[8] Soon, Chuquicamata was covered with mines and over 400 mining claims at one point. Pirquineros and Chilean and English companies mined the brochantite veins from 1879 to 1912.[9] The development of the mines was helped by arrival of the railroad to Calama.[9] Some copper mining were former nitrate miners.[9] Ten individual mines (piques) existed in Chuquicamata until 1882 when these begun to consolidate and by 1883 the following mine claims existed in Chuquicamata; Zaragoza and Lérida, Amigos and San Luis.[9] The property of the mines in Chuquicamata continued to change in the 1880s and 1890s.[9]
It was a wild and disorganized camp. Title claims were often in doubt due to the defective 1873 Mining Code and matters were further complicated after the capture of Calama during the 1891 Chilean Civil War when rebels confiscated mines belonging to loyalists.[9] Many miners lived in makeshift and lawless shanty towns around the mines, including Punta de Rieles, Placilla, and Banco Drummond. These settlements provided miners with alcohol, gambling, and prostitution and murder was an almost daily occurrence. The army had to be sent in to maintain order as late as 1918.[10] The towns were eventually buried under the waste dumps to east of the mine.
These early operations mined high grade veins like the Zaragoza and Balmaceda veins, which contained concentrations of up to 10-15% copper, leaving low grade disseminated ore.[10] One attempt was made to process the low-grade ore in 1899-1900 by Norman Walker, a partner in La Compañia de Cobres de Antofagasta, but the attempt failed, leaving the company deeply in debt.[9] Mining was never really fully developed at this time because of a lack of water, isolation, difficulty communicating, lack of capital, and fluctuations in the copper price. Nevertheless, larger mining companies eventually emerged, organized as commercial companies rather than mining operations to work around problems with the mining code.[11] These companies started to buy up and consolidate small mines and claims.
Beginning of modern mine and Guggenheim era (1910–1923)
The modern era started when an American engineer named Bradley finally developed a method of processing low-grade oxidized copper ores. In 1910 he approached the lawyer and industrialist Albert C Burrage, who sent engineers to examine Chuquicamata. This was the beginning of copper mining by the Chile Exploration Company of the Guggenheim Group. Their reports found that the mine showed promise, and in April 1911, he started to buy up mines and claims, mainly from the larger mining companies, in association with Duncan Fox y Cia., an English entrepreneur.[9][12]
Since Burrage did not have the capital to develop a mine, he approached the Guggenheim Brothers. They examined his claims and estimated the reserves at 690 million tonnes of 2.58% grade copper.[13] The Guggenheims also had discovered a process for treating the low grade ores developed by Elias Anton Cappelen Smith[14]
