Allan Young was born in Wisconsin in 1950 and studied mining engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. He came to Silver Peak in the early 1980s when the Sunshine Mining Company reopened the Sixteen-to-One silver mine, and he witnessed technological innovations introduced to make the mine profitable in spite of low silver prices. Young was interviewed by Victoria Ford by in 1996. (In the early 1980s, the Sunshine Mining Company reopened the Sixteen-to-One silver mine outside of Silver Peak, but housing for employees was a problem. Allan Young explains how Sunshine tried to remedy the situation.) Well, the company had done some work down there before, and we had a couple of trailers that we owned in town, so when I first came there for a visit, we would stay in those trailers. We had a watchman there as well who took care of things, so there was enough room in those trailers for about six guys. At the same time, there wasn’t any place in Tonopah (the next closest town) either, because Anaconda was developing a big molybdenum mine near Tonopah, and there was a bit of a boom going on over there, too. There just wasn’t any place to live, and we knew we had to do something about that. Prior to the project actually being approved, we went around and bought up some property in town. We bought a big lot that would eventually become a trailer park, and we bought some lots on the north end of town where we eventually put in some apartments, some two-bedroom family units, and then some studio apartments and also some houses. We had bought a house down on the south end of town that we kind of converted into a bunkhouse or a boardinghouse. So we had bought up some land already, and then, when the project was approved, we went ahead and started building. We brought in four modular houses—that’s where I lived when I brought my family down—and then we also built some apartments. We also started a program where we would purchase mobile homes and then lease them to our employees on a lease-option program, so after a period of time they could buy their homes. It was a pretty sweetheart deal. I don’t even think there was any interest charged. After a period of time, they would own them, and that was pretty popular. So you really had to build your part of the town? Yes, we had to provide our people with a decent place to live. The type of mine that we were putting in, especially because it was all mechanized, was going to require some pretty good technical people as well as skilled operators. We were going to ask a guy to get on a third-of-a-million-dollar piece of equipment. We definitely wanted to keep him happy and make sure that he was skilled and trained. [laughter] We wanted to keep our turnover down as much as possible, so we knew we had to provide these people with a good place to live. It’s tough enough moving into a place like that. If you don’t have decent housing, it’s tougher yet. |