Historically, the mining
industry has not given its towns a second chance. When ore runs out
or metal prices head south, as both always do, the industry waves
good-bye and leaves mining towns to confront their fates alone.
They can either join the West’s long list of ghost towns,
or figure out some way to replace mining with tourism, skiing,
gambling or anything else that works.
But a few mining
towns are too big to die, and yet not in the right place to manage
a successful economic transition. These end up not in post-mining
heaven or hell, but in an economic and cultural purgatory. Stripped
of their traditional identity and purpose, they go through the
years directionless and adrift. Their remaining residents, helpless
and frustrated, look on as other communities grow, while their own
continues to slide further downhill.
Consider Leadville,
Colo. For 60 heady years, Leadville sustained itself on the hefty
paychecks of the huge Climax Mine, then the world’s largest source
of molybdenum, a steel-toughening alloy metal. But when the
molybdenum market unexpectedly collapsed in 1981, Climax suspended
production, turning Leadville into a national poster child for
economic unpreparedness. In 1983, as businesses closed, neighbors
moved away, and the tax base dried up, The Denver
Post aptly described Leadville as “a classic example of a
busted mining camp,” and a town “that had carried all its eggs in
one basket.”
Since then, Leadville hasn’t had a lot of
eggs to carry. Its plans for economic diversification and
development — the usual menu of business parks and light
manufacturing — didn’t pan out. But, then, residents had
never really agreed on the need for economic development. While the
younger crowd wanted new jobs, many of the older set collecting
Climax pensions didn’t need jobs or, for that matter, business
parks or tourists, either.
Sure, Leadville attracted
tourists during its brief, alpine summer, but the cash registers
that rang in July didn’t pay the bills in January. A form of
economic diversification did come along in 1986, but it wasn’t
quite what town fathers had envisioned. Drawn by the availability
of cheap housing, resort workers in neighboring Summit and Eagle
counties soon made Leadville their bedroom community. Hundreds of
seasonal and transient workers, who often didn’t assimilate into
the community and spent most of their money elsewhere, put a huge
drain on city and county services.
During the 1990s,
while researching and writing a book about the Climax bust, I
realized that for the past 90 years, the fortunes of Leadville had
become inextricably entwined with those of the mine. And that’s
still true today: As long as Climax remains closed, so, too, it
seems, does Leadville’s future.
But now, all that is
about to miraculously change. In April 2006, the Phoenix,
Arizona-based Phelps Dodge Corporation, which owns Climax,
announced its intent to restart the mine. In just over a year, the
reopening will first provide some 500 construction jobs, followed
later by 300 long-term, good-paying mining jobs. That’s a lot of
jobs.
Interestingly, to illustrate the reality of
globalization, Leadville owes its sudden good fortune to events in
distant China. After decades of phenomenal economic growth, China
and its booming steel industry now need all the molybdenum they can
get. A former major molybdenum exporter, China became a net
importer in 2002, in the process driving the price of molybdenum to
record levels and giving Leadville hope for its future.
Some observers have recently suggested that Leadville is no longer
a mining town at all. But when the Leadville
Herald-Democrat announced the mine’s planned reopening in
banner headlines, everyone from local merchants and bankers to
retired Climax hands responded with unbridled joy. No one seems
opposed to the reopening, certainly not on the grounds that it
might discourage tourism or upset the status quo of housing in this
“bedroom community.” I can only conclude that Leadville, even after
enduring years without an operating mine, has remained a mining
town at heart.
The mining industry is about to give
Leadville a rare second chance. This time around, after learning
from its own past mistakes, Leadville will hopefully better prepare
itself for that inevitable day, perhaps 20 years down the line,
when Climax shuts down for what really will be the last time.
Leadville had better be ready then, because it’s not likely to get
a third chance.
Stephen Voynick is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). He lives in Twin Lake, Colorado,
and is the author of Climax: The History of Colorado’s
Climax Molybdenum Mine.
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