Western Sulphur Industries, Inc.
Certificate No. B390, Unissued. [Illegible], Secretary; Theo. J. Dosch, Vice President.
The Crater sulfur deposits were first discovered in 1917 and were located by Frank Hicks and his brother Dan early in 1924. The men opened up an estimated 150,000 tons of 99% pure brimstone before selling the property to Woolworth dime store millionaire Fred M. Kirby in the spring of 1928.
The deposits lay in a mineralized area 3 miles long and 1 mile wide. A bedded deposit 16 to 30-foot thick contained ore concentrations ranging from 30% to 80% sulfur. Based on mining surveys, the estimated reserves of the deposits in 1938 showed more than 1,000,000 tons of ore containing at least 40 percent sulfur.
Kirby established the Pacific Sulphur Company of New York in June 1928. To reach the remote Crater area, the company bulldozed a 12-mile road (commonly referred to as the Big Pine Road) to the mine from a point 2 miles southwest of the junction of the Zurich Oasis and Pig Pine-Willow Springs-Lida roads at the eastern border of Eureka Valley.
The company established the small Crater camp, consisting of a half dozen buildings and several dozen miners, and began blocking out ore. Six claims of the Crater Group were developed in 1929 to 1930, with the completion of several shafts and a large open pit. The company produced approximately 12,000 tons of sulfur before suspending operations in December 1930.
During the fall of 1932, W. H. Sanger and Morris Albertoli of Big Pine leased the mine and started trucking out an average of 10 tons of sulfur per day. In 1934 Western Sulphur Industries reportedly shipped 4,500 tons of 96% sulfur.
In August 1936 Sulphur Diggers, Inc. obtained a lease on the Crater Group, operating the mines until September 1937. Retorts were installed at the mine, and some 5,000 tons of 96% sulfur ore and some refined sulfur was produced.
The Crater mines area and the access road from the Big Pine Road are excluded from, and completely outside of Death Valley National Park. This “cherry-stemmed” carve-out leaves open the possibility that Crater sulfur mining could resume sometime in the future.
Advertisement, Western Grower and Shipper, February 1931.
Allied Chemical Corporation
Certificate No. L569449, Thirty-One Shares to Jas. H Oliphant & Co., November 20, 1967. Richard F. Hansen, Secretary; Chester M. Brown, Chairman of the Board.
See also Mines of the Panamint Mountains – Central Area.
Death Valley Mining History - Thru Scripophily 