About Us
Chester Mining Company (CHMN)
Chester Mining Company (CHMN) was founded in Coeur d'Alene in 1900 to explore the Chester property, just east of the Sunshine Mine, in the heart of Idaho's world-famous Silver Valley. The property was later operated by Sunshine Mining & Refining and was most recently producing silver between 1961 through 1976. Chester paid shareholders a substantial dividend while its property was in production.
Today, a reinvigorated Chester Mining is a unique mineral exploration company with a strategy of acquiring properties in proven mining districts and leasing them out to generate an income stream while retaining speculative leverage to exploration success through royalty interests.
Chester has approximately 4.4 million shares outstanding, positive working capital and no debt.
Chester stock trades on the OTC Market under the symbol "CHMN". Corporate highlights include:
Properties
Conjecture Mine
The Conjecture property consists of approximately 240 acres and includes both patented and unpatented lode mining claims, located in the Lakeview Mining District of northern Idaho, roughly 30 miles northwest of the Coeur d'Alene Mining District.
Geologists have long noted similarities between the Precambrian belt series (i.e., Wallace, St. Regis, Revett) of the Lakeview District and those found in the world-class silver deposits of the Coeur d'Alene mining district, and the same important ore minerals (tetrahedrite, galena, sphalerite) define productive ore shoots in the Conjecture and the Coeur d'Alene District. Within the Lakeview District, only the Conjecture shaft has been driven deep enough to penetrate the less favorable Wallace formation into the better quartzite units.
Both the Lakeview District and the Conjecture Mine have a history of high-grade silver production from shallow workings dating to the late 1800s, though production on neighboring properties have occurred as recently as 1987.
The Conjecture Mine was discovered in 1895 and worked until the early 1920s, producing an unrecorded quantity of high-grade silver ore from the Graham and Spider adit levels. It was further developed by an inclined shaft from the 100-foot to the 400-foot level and sporadically worked until the mid 1950s. The Idaho Bureau of Mines and Geology records 350 tons of concentrate processed at the Bunker Hill Smelter from 1952 to 1954, averaging approximately 91 oz/t silver, 0.14 oz/t gold and 4.5% lead.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Federal Resources invested approximately $3 million dollars to extend the inclined shaft to the 700-foot level, sank a 2000-foot vertical shaft, and developed the 700-, 1000-, 1600- and 2000-foot levels along 2500 feet of strike, totaling over 13,000 feet of workings. Federal Resources established a block of mineralized material of 336,000 tons grading nearly 12 opt silver and .02 opt gold, three percent zinc and 1/2 percent lead. Federal Resources also listed an additional block of 370,000 tons of similar grade as a possible block of mineralization between the levels, or a total of more than 700,000 thousand tons of mineralized material.
Sunshine Mining unitized the Lakeview District during in the 1970s and conducted further exploration and development work, but did not produce any ore from Conjecture.
An independent reserve report, prepared by registered professional geologist Richard W. Morris in 1981, verified the earlier numbers for Minerals Management, Inc., though this mineralized material does not currently constitute a proven or probable ore reserve.
High-grade silver mineralization has been shown to extend laterally for over two miles, and vertically for over 3000 feet in the Conjecture Mine.
The Coeur d'Alene Mining District
North Idaho's prolific "Silver Valley" The Sunshine Mine is the richest silver mine in American history with more than 360 million ounces of production over the past century, within a district which has produced in excess of 1 billion ounces of silver. And yet, geologists estimate less than 15% of the district has been explored using modern exploration techniques.
Chester owns two strategic claim groups in the immediate vicinity of the Sunshine Mine: the Chester and Bismark properties.
In addition, Chester owns 1/3 of the nearby Mineral Mountain Unitized Area.
The Chester Property
The Chester property consists of a 100-acre parcel, completely surrounded by the Sunshine Mine property and less than one mile east of its Jewell Shaft.
Despite almost 100 years of continuous production at the Sunshine Mine, having produced silver at grades exceeding on average 27.8 ounces of silver per ton, there has been relatively limited exploration in the upper levels of the mine due to the historical record of consistently converting resources to reserves and production at the Sunshine Mine.
Since 1900, Chester Mining has been in the area, and is now in its second century. For years, Chester Mining Company paid dividends derived from its profit percentage of silver produced from the Chester property area.
The Bismark Property
The Bismark property consists of a 75-acre parcel, adjacent to the Sunshine Mine property and roughly one mile south-southwest of its Jewell Shaft. The Bismark claims were developed by a 1500-foot access drift from the surface and include over 1000 feet of lateral development along the Bismark Vein. Under the prior lease, Sunshine Mining & Refining drilled the property to explore the downward extension of the Bismark Vein. Although mineralized vein material was intersected, along with other veins and fault structures, detailed information regarding grade and thickness were not disclosed.
Other Properties
For information regarding other properties, please contact Chester Mining.