Sullivan sees last shift

Vancouver — After 91 years of production and adding $19 billion to the economy of British Columbia, the Sullivan zinc-lead-silver mine near Kimberley has closed shop.

The flagship operation of Cominco (now Teck Cominco [TEK-T]) was discovered a century ago, in 1892, when Patrick Sullivan and three partners, John Cleaver, E.C. Smith and W.C. Burchett, were prospecting in the East Kootenay region.

Mining started in 1895, under the operatorship of Canadian Smelting Works, which ran the Sullivan until it was sold to the Le Roi group from Spokane, Wash., in the following year. In 1899, operations benefitted from the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) branch line to Kimberley. The new owners operated the property as the Sullivan Group Mining Co. and built a smelter at nearby Marysville in 1903. However, ore was difficult to treat, and so the mine was forced to shut down in 1907. Two years later, it was acquired by Federal Mining & Smelting and, through a subsidiary, leased to Cominco, a subsidiary of CPR. In 1910, Cominco exercised its option, completing the purchase three years later.

Since 1916, when Cominco developed the processes necessary to separate lead and zinc ores in the milling process, the mine has produced 17 million tonnes of zinc and lead metal and more than 285 million oz. silver.

Once the backbone of Cominco’s zinc operations, the Sullivan has been winding down for the past 10 years. The ore that drove the nearby Trail smelter has gradually been replaced by material from the company’s Red Dog mine in Alaska. Teck Cominco has set aside $70 million to reclaim the site.