Description:
In 1930, a remote corner of southwest Arkansas witnessed the discovery of cinnabar, the ore from which mercury is extracted. Upon the arrival of "the metal of a thousand uses," a wave of hope and ambition swept through the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains as mercury mining promised economic revival for the struggling state. Despite the known dangers of the industry, Arkansans greeted the prospect of a mercury boom with unbridled enthusiasm, seeing it as a potential solution to their economic woes amid the Great Depression.
In The Metal of a Thousand Uses: Mercury Mining in Arkansas, 1930-1946, Terry S. Reynolds charts the dramatic rise and fall of the state's mercury mining district, from the euphoria of discovery to the logistical and financial challenges of industrialization. Drawing on deep archival research, Reynolds explores the experiences of the miners and managers whose fates became bound to the companies that sought to commercialize mercury refining in the Ouachita Mountains. The result is a vivid account of a little-known chapter in American mineral-resource history.
Review Quotes:
"The Metal of a Thousand Uses is a definitive history of an industry that once seemed so promising, yet totally collapsed in just a decade and a half. The text moves beyond events in the Ouachita Mountains to examine mercury mining around the world, demonstrating how the Great Depression, World War II, and shifting quicksilver markets shaped the fate of a mineral district in a poor state seeking industrial growth. Terry S. Reynolds's book tells us how enthusiasm can be thwarted in many ways, ending up in disappointment and failure."
--Larry Lankton, author of Hollowed Ground: Copper Mining and Community Building on Lake Superior, 1840s-1990s