Antimony City's Ghost Stirs Occasionally in Hill Country

by Harold Mabry

Like a jewel, Sevier county history has many facets; while Old Paraclifta exemplifies the old south atmosphere, another ghost town in the mining belt in the northern part of the county is representative of the frontier era. In many respects it resembles the typical western mining town, with its ox-team drivers, grimy miners, three hotels, business houses and population of 1000 people.

The ore belt it was in hs been traced by geologists entirely across Sevier County. The extent of the mining activity there is indicated by the mining claims record, at the Sevier county courthouse, where 1113 mining claims have been recorded. This is not all inclusive, either, because the record starts in 1891, almost 50 years after mining is known to have been done in Sevier County. The last recorded claim is in 1927. Now-a-days most land is privately owned and requires no claim.

There are many ores in this belt, lead, zinc, copper, silver, gold and antimony, to name the leading ones.

Antimony deposits were known and written of in this vicinity in the early 1850's by Walter F. Roberts. Later, during 1871 and '72 he was state geologist and he made a report of all the minerals in the state. His son, William F, Jr., acquainted with this report and his field notes, became interested in developing these antimony deposits. Although several previous attempts to develop the mines had met with only meager success due to transportation difficulties. In 1884 Roberts, in connection with William Blucher and F. Lou Morris, organized a syndicate and secured control of the mines and began to develop the property. In 1887 it was merged into a corporation named the United States Antimony Co. They sunk over 200 shafts, ranging from 20 to 260 feet deep. In 1889 smelting works were built in Philadelphia and they transported ore there. There are four different leads of antimony in this mineral belt.

The ore Antimony City was named for is a silvery metal used to harden other metals. It is used in printing type metal, babbit metal for bearings, bullets, solder, batteries and also in rubber, paint and chemical manufacture.

Antimony mining started at the Otto Mine, just west of King in 1873 and by 1880 the May Mine was opened across the Cossitot. Much Mining was done in the northeast section of the county and Antimony City sprang into being on the Howard County line.

The first store was opened there by Pack Kinsworthy in 1887. The postoffice was established in 1888 with H S Mitchell as postmaster. Another early store was owned by T M Poe. One merchant, W H Hughes, moved there in 1887 from Center Point, Arkansas where his stock of harness, valued at about $1,000 had been stolen in November 1868 by Clayton's militia. When he protested, he and several others were arrested for treason, and during the week he was held in jail, his establishment was pillaged and completely gutted.

Other Antimony City merchants were the Knod family. Fritz Knod, now in the wholesale grocer business in DeQueen, was born in 1888 in Antimony City. His father, while in business in Mt Pleasant, Texas, had heard of the antimony boom and after investing his entire stake there, experienced some hard times after the boom had subsided. A man called "Old Man Henry" carried the mail from Nashville, Arkansas three times a week, staying overnight at the Knod's for which he paid 50 cents, including meals.

At first the ore was hauled to Fulton, Arkansas by wagons drawn by ox or mule teams, to be shipped by steam boat to New Orleans and from there to England for smelting. Later the wagons hauled it to Nashville to the railroad and there was a constant stream of these wagons on the road. This proved too costly and a smelter was built at Antimony City. The intricate process of smelting the ore was so tricky, however, that the plant was abandoned.

During World War I the price of the metal went up and a refining plant ws built at Gillham by an operator named Fenton, capable of handling a large daily grind of ore. Several shafts were reopened, the Otto, Valley, Wolfton, Texarkana, Mays and others were producing antimony. (At that time, the Bellah and Davis were also opened for lead and zinc.) A smelting expert, a Frenchman, was employed at a high salary to operate the smelter, and the plant turned out a splendid product which found a ready market. After a few months of operation the owners decided they could dispense with the highly paid Frenchman, and put an understudy in his place. The understudy was unable to produce the finished pigs of ore in spite of much experimenting and effort and the plant had to be shut down.

The exact amount of ore taken from these antimony mines is not known. A booklet, written in 1928 by Dr George C Branner, state geologist, states that it has been estimated at 5,000 tons. The Otto Mine is believed to have produced 2,500 tons of ore.

Although a few attempts have been made to reopen, no sustained operation has gone on since that time. Most of the world's antimony is produced in the Orient.

Will Steel wote in his book "The Kindling Dawn", of a trip to Antimony City and described it as a typical lively mining town with fights aplenty.

Mrs Goldie Coffey of Gillham is the present owner of Antimony City. There are no visible signs there but she can point out the locations of the various buildings. She moved there in 1913 and worked as a clerk in the post office and ran a rooming house. This town was laid out with 10 streets and 11 avenues and Mrs Coffey paid taxes by town lot number and location until just a few years ago, when she had the description changed back to acreage.

Although a book published in 1890 says, "Explorations prove the supply of this mineral to be, humanly speaking, inexhaustible" there, and it is relatively easy to mine (some mines assaying 65 percent), the unsteady market, the ready supply from the Orient and several other factors combine to make it very unlikely that these mines will be opened in the forseeable future.

However, even in the unlikely event that the mines are ever opened again, because the changing times create no need for it, Antimony City will never rise again.

Antimony City is a ghost town.

Originally printed in the DeQueen Bee, DeQueen, Arkansas. October 13, 1965