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Protecting Research Values: the Day Mines Group of Record$ University of Idaho Library

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Protecting Research Values: the Day Mines Group of Record$ University of Idaho Library PROTECTING RESEARCH VALUES: THE DAYMINES GROUP OFRECORD$ UNIVERSITY OFIDAHO LIBRARY Richard C. Davis BARRY DAY, son of a general store operator in them, in several accessions, to the University of Idaho. the small mining town of Wardner, in the Coeur There they remained piled in the library basement until d'Alene mining region of northern Idaho, staked his resources could be found to process them and make Hercules lode claim atop a ridge above Burke Canyon them available to researchers. A collection this large in 1889. Continually for twelve years Harry and his was beyond the everyday processing capabilities of the partners labored before one of them struck rich ore on Special Collections Department. Since these records June 2, 1901.1. As if in a classic tale of the West, within were thought to have value greater than the local weeks the Hercules became a mine, and by the end of histories of the individual companies represented--parti­ the year the Days and their partners were rich. For over cularly so as the archival literature had previously given forty years thereafter, the Days expanded their mineral relatively little attention to the research values of indus­ ,holdings. The Hercules played out by 1925 but with trial records--two subvention grants were obtained. Hercules profits the Days gained control of Tamarack Under the first, from the National Historical Publica­ & Custer Consolidated, Dayrock, and Sherman Lead tions and Records Commission, the author was mines, which continued for decades as notable silver­ employed as project archivist from late '1986 into 1989; lead-zinc producers. The "Day Interests" also swallowed under the second, from the U.S. Department of Educa­ up numerous smaller concerns, many of them never tion, Michael Tarabulski was employed in the same productive, but each representing some former owner's capacity in 1991-1992.3 dreams of wealth. My first sight of the Day mining records, on Decem­ Harry's son Henry L. Day reorganized twelve of the ber 2, 1986, gave the impression of an amorphous mass, mining companies controlled by his family into one overflowing from ramshackle shelves, heaped up on the firm, Day Mines, Inc., with headquarters in Wallace, basement floor: unlabeled cartons, loose handfuls of Idaho, in 1947. Day Mines then owned 719 patented correspondence, drawers out of filing cabinets, bundles claims in the Coeur · d'Alenes, amounting to 10,000 of file folders tied with string, shipping crates of diverse acres, the largest body of mineral lands in the region. sizes, leather-bound volumes large and small, diplomas, As the local mines faltered, Day Mines, Inc., searched framed photographs, chest x-rays, and other items. In the American West for new mineral properties, even­ such a state it was impossible to accurately gauge the tually operating gold, silver, lead, copper and other volume of this material, but the best guess was a little mines in the states of Washington, Utah, Colorado, and under 2,000 cubic feet. In the weeks ahead, each box, the province of British Columbia, as well as in Idaho. file drawer, volume, or cluster of loose material had to When Henry L. Day retired in 1972, management be inspected one at a time to identify--or at least make passed from the hands of the Day family, and in 1981 a preliminary guess at--its creator, date, and type 6f the Hecla Mining Company, drawn by Day Mines, Inc.'s record so that this information could be placed in a rich mineral reserves, acquired the Day empire through an exchange of stock, making Hecla for a time the largest silver mining company in the United States.z RICHARD C. DAVIS, Manuscripts-Archives Hecla had no interest in Day .Mines' older records, Librarian at the University of Idaho, presented an early and between 1981 and 1984 Henry L. Day donated form of this paper to the MHA 1992 convention in 19 20 Day Mines Oroup o/Recorch ' personal computer database. Once sorted and printed, in 1984. The great bulk date between the 1910s and the the resulting crude "preliminary inventory" provided a early 1950s. Most of it derives from lead, silver, and zinc glimpse of how complex the collection was, how many mining and milling in the Coeur d'Aienes and the companies, partnerships, and persons had been respon­ related smelters in Northport, Washington, and Carne­ sible for creating it; the first real knowledge of what we gie, Pennsylvania, but there are small amounts from had. With preliminary inventory in hand, student assis­ gold, silver, and copper ventures in other Western states tants could begin roughing out the arrangement of each and Canada. By the time the initial mass of the Day company's records, one company at a time. collection had been sorted by company, boxed, and By the summer of 1987 enough was known about the shelved, the actual volume was found to be about 1,600 mining records and the functions they had served to cubic feet. Once appraisal standards were established, begin drafting tentative appraisal guidelines, initially 42 percent of this--bulky records mostly in long runs of based on a test-case analysis of the records of one firm, routine material--could fairly readily be segregated for the Hercules Mining Company, which at that time discard in the first two years of the project. The last included about 300 cubic feet (since reduced to 73 cubic year of work saw another 23 percent weeded based on feet). These guidelines considered both evidential and closer inspection of the files. This left about 560 cubic informational values, were influenced by a desire to feet of material, about 35 percent of the original bulk.S retain unique information, and were intended to If this reduction seems alarming, consider the statistics balance information against bulk.4 In February 1988 the claimed for the federal government of the United guidelines and analysis were circulated for criticism States, where under 2 percent of all the records ever from three categories of experts: historical researchers; produced become archives. However, in the National subject experts "knowledgeable about a particular dis· Archives, and, as I will try to show, in our treatment of cipline" as creators of records5, in our case mining the Day mining records, these reduction figures "repre­ executives and engineers; and fellow archivists with sent volume and not information."9 prior experience in business records. (We knew of no In an attempt to gain a sense of the sources found archivists with prior experience with such a collection of useful by mining historians, I examined a variety of mining records.6) We asked a total of eighteen persons. published monographs. The majority of mining his­ Only eight actually made substantive comment, but the tories, I found, either have avoided unpublished sources review process publicized the collection among people altogether or cite only personal papers and scattered most likely to appreciate its potential and perhaps individual manuscripts in repositories. About a half­ reassured some historians who might have feared Idaho dozen of those I examined used such primary material was infested with vandal archivists intent upon trashing as records of county clerks and recorders, courts, mining the sources of history. As one critic remarked, he had districts, labor unions, and documents filed with com­ "read the report like .a historian, prepared to complain panies registration agencies and stock exchanges.to I about the discard of potentially meaningful materials, found something more than a dozen mining histories but find myself without any complaints of that sort."7 listing corporate records in their bibliographies. Not all Our referees, it turned out, made vital contributions in of them used these records in an important way, and provoking some reconsideration of the relative value of many of those which did seemed to have found value specific record types. only in the correspondence contained therein.tt Most of We identified and inventoried records of a total those that went beyond correspondence were still limi­ of ninety-two mining corporations and/or partnerships ted to narrative materials. Joseph Cash, Working tlJe (counting corporate reorganizations and name changes), Homestake, cited individual reports, lists, and letters in three corporations engaged in activities not related the Homestake Mining Company's records in Lead, directly to mining, and ten persons, all of whom were South Dakota. David and Brenda Stone, Hardrock either members of the Day family or key members of Oold, claimed reliance upon the records of the Alaska business enterprises dominated by the Day family. Juneau Gold Mining Company, in the possession of the These materials were assigned to eighty-seven manu­ Alaska Light & Power Company. James W. Byrkit, script groups, arranged, and inventoried. Groups varied Forging tlJe Copper Collar, found in "the old United in size and diversity from a single item, the Records of Verde Copper Company records, provided by Jerome the Fern Mining Company, one book of directors' historian Herbert V. Young, ... a rich vein," noting in minutes, to the 76 cubic feet, after appraisal and weed­ particular the use of reports by mine operators and ing, of the records of the Tamarack & Custer Consoli­ detectives for owners' and managers' political concerns. dated Mining Company. The earliest records are a few John Fahey's J7Je Days o/ t!Je Hercules, based on the fragments in the papers of Harry Day dating from the Day material when it was still in private hands, largely 1880s; the most recent are among the letters and clip­ used the letters of Harry Day, somewhat pre-selected by pings of Henry L. Day which extend almost to his death Henry L. Day.tz Few books on mining history seem to Mming History Association 1.994 Annual 21 have depended upon non-narrative record types.
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