The Ben Hur Mining Company was organized on April 9, 1907. Under the Articles of Incorporation, which were filed on April 25, the term of existence of the company was 20 years. The property, discovered by Frank Bell, was located three miles north of Saltese in St. Regis, an unorganized mining district in Mineral County, Montana. It consisted of five full quartz lode mining claims and an undivided one half interest in two others, as well as a mill site and water rights. The claims included Bell #1, Bell #2, Eureka, Atlas, Ben Hur, Woodburn, Highland Chief, Highland Chief Fraction, and Ben Hur Fraction. Adjacent to this property was the Day brothers' Bryan Claim.
The original board of directors consisted of George Trask, president, F.F. Johnson, John P. Sheehy, Frank Bell, and Richard Daxon. George Keep served as president from 1908-1911 when he was succeeded by D.S. Dickson. In 1920, F.J. Davey became president.
Money for development work was raised by stock assessments. When this failed to produce the needed funds money was borrowed from Jerome Day. He invested between $8,000 and $10,000 in the company, and, in order to protect his investment, attorney John Wourms advised the formation of a new company after the charter for Ben Hur lapsed. This new company could then wind up the affairs of Ben Hur.
At the time of dissolution, April 13, 1927, the directors were F.J. Davey, Peter Peterson, Charles A. Keeting, Frank Haun, and Eugene Keesey. In 1937 the surviving directors, Davey, Keesey, and Haun, wished to be relieved of their trust and organized the Woodburn Mining Company for the purpose of transferring the title of the property from Ben Hur to Woodburn.
The records of the Ben Hur Mining Company span the years 1907 to 1940, with the bulk of the material covering the years 1907 to 1925. Included are company by-laws, minutes of meetings, annual reports, financial statements, correspondence with stockholders, stock ledgers and journals, assessment records, lists of stockholders, financial and journals, and tax returns.
Related materials can be found in the records of the Woodburn Mining Company and the Last Chance Mining Company.
Since there are so few records for the Ben Hur Mining Company no series designation has been made. However the physical arrangement of the material follows that of the larger record groups in the Day Mines collection.
The Records of the Board of Directors and Stockholders include by-laws and a minute book. General Correspondence and Related Records is an alphabetical series of files containing general correspondence, correspondence with stockholders, assays, assessment records and proxy statements. Included in the Capital Stock Records are stock ledgers and journals, a list of stockholders from 1926-1937, and records of the 1911-1925 assessments. Financial Records include financial journals, a cash book, and income tax returns for the years 1933-1939.
Removal of cancelled stock certificates, returned assessment notices, vouchers, paid checks, bank statements, and duplicate materials reduced the size of this collection by one cubic foot.
The records of the Ben Hur Mining Company are part of the records of Day Mines, Inc., donated to the University of Idaho by Henry Day in 1984 and 1985.
Initial processing of this manuscript group was done by Judith Nielsen in June 1987.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.