Bunker Hill Mining Corp.

Simeon Reed bought the Bunker Hill Mine and Mill, and incorporated the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Company on 29 July 1887. John Hays Hammond was hired to manage the mine, and a new concentrator, The Old South Mill, became operational in 1891, capable of 150 tons per day. Hammond became president on 2 July 1891, followed by Nathaniel H. Harris on 15 June 1893, when company headquarters were located in San Francisco. William Henry Crocker, of Crocker National Bank, served as treasurer, in addition to being the major stockholder.

When the mining boom began in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho mining district, the area was lightly inhabited. The Bunker Hill and the Sullivan companies built a boarding house for miners in 1887. By 1894, the company employed 332 workers, and in the late 1890s, the company built single-family houses to attract family men. In 1900, the company opened a company-built Kellogg school building, contributed to the construction of local churches, and started a loan program so employees could own their homes.

Frederick Worthen Bradley, a college-educated engineer, became president in 1897 and remained so until 1933, when Stanly A. Easton took over.

1892 labor unrest

On 11 July 1892, violence erupted during a strike at two nearby mines, the Gem and the Frisco in Burke-Canyon, resulting in the deaths of 3 union members, a Pinkerton detective, and a nonunion worker. Protesting a 1 April 1892 wage cut, after a 1 Jan. 1892 lockout, the union men forced the closure of the Bunker Hill mine. Governor N.B. Willey declared martial law and the military moved in to restore order. The mine was operational again on 19 July 1892.

Cave-in

The office of the mining inspector during the period 1893 to 1909 was occupied by men who were closely identified with the industry. A cave-in on 23 Feb. 1894, at the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine took the lives of three men, shortly after the first state mining inspector took office in 1893. A coroner's jury investigated the incident and issued a report which stated, in part,

We earnestly and emphatically call upon Mine Inspector Haskins to visit these mines immediately and demonstrate that he is willing to enforce the law if there should be any infraction thereof, and that he wears not the collar of any individual or corporation...

The Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine manager commented upon annual inspections of the enormous mining complex, declaring that the visits were "rather a perfunctory affair" which accomplished little. He argued that an employer would never run an unsafe mine because economic considerations prevented it.

Bradley also wrote Harris, "In working the mine we are sure to kill a certain percentage of our men." Between March 1893 and Feb. 1894, 15 fatalities occurred at the mine, yet the mine continued to operate under the fellow-servant rule doctrine.

A stronger inspection law was passed in 1909.

Yet, between 1911 and 1912, there were 11 fatalities. Only with the passing of the Idaho State Workman's Compensation law, was indemnity determined for each injury or death, rather than settled by company benevolence.

1899 labor unrest

In 1899 the Bunker Hill Mining Company had paid more than $600,000 in dividends, and was considered profitable. Miners working in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines were receiving fifty cents to a dollar less per day than other miners. The Bunker Hill Mining Company operated the only mines in the district that were not unionized, and the only mines that paid less than union scale of $3.50 per day. The Bunker Hill company employed Pinkerton labor spies to identify union members, who were immediately fired.

The Western Federation of Miners launched an organizing drive at the Bunker Hill Mining Company.

After declaring that the company would rather "shut down and remain closed twenty years" than to recognize the union, Superintendent Albert Burch fired seventeen suspected union members. He demanded that all other union men collect their back pay and quit.

On 29 April 1899, union miners hijacked a Northern Pacific train in Burke and drove it to Wardner, the site of a $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill mine. The miners set off three thousand pounds of dynamite, destroying the mill. Two men were killed, one of them a non-union miner, the other a union man accidentally shot by other union miners. Fire also destroyed the company offices.

Governor Frank Steunenberg declared martial law, and federal troops took over on 4 May 1899. Over 700 men were arrested, and three People's Party commissioners and sheriff, were impeached and removed from office. A new and more efficient mill was in operation in 3 months, with a greater capacity. Additionally, miners were required to take an oath of non-union membership in order to get a permit to work.

The eight-hour day had been a major issue for the Western Federation of Miners throughout the West. In 1900, after the Western Federation of Miners had been crushed in Coeur d'Alene, the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mine operated with a ten-hour shift, seven days a week.

Years later Harry Orchard, who had assassinated former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, claimed to have helped to light the dynamite charges at the Bunker Hill mill. However, two Coeur d'Alene residents testified that Orchard was with them in Mullan, Idaho playing poker when the mill was dynamited in Wardner.

Orchard also admitted to bombing Bradley's home on 7 Nov. 1904, which left Bradley blind and deaf for two months and scarred his face and body.

Idaho passed an 8-hour work day law in 1907, and in 1919, Bunker Hill agreed to the 8-hour day with the Mine, Mill and Smeltermen's Union No. 18, which included travel to and from their work site within the mine.