Bingham Mine, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, USAi

Regional Level Types
Bingham Mine	Mine
Ottawa County	County
Oklahoma	State
USA	Country

The Bingham mine, Eagle-Picher Lead company, is located on an eighty-acre lease forming the W. ½ NW ¼ sec. 21, T. 29 N., R. 23 E. The ore is mined separately on each forty acres, one mine being known as the North Bingham and the other as the South Bingham. The ore is concentrated at the mill located at the North Bingham. Mining was first begun in 1916 and the production from 1916 to 1927 was 67,080 tons of zinc concentrates valued at $2,801,020 and 25,090 tons of lead concentrates valued at $2,216,400. The mine was not operated in 1928.

The ore is the South Bingham is mined from two shafts, the underground workings being at one level sloping down slightly to the east from 243 feet below the surface at the No. 22 shaft in the west part of the lease to 249 feet at the No. 15 shaft in the eastern part of the lease. In July, 1927 most of the pillars in the eastern part of the mine had been pulled and much of the underground workings had caved. The ore forms a very broad flat-lying body, the stoped-out chamber being eight to fifteen feet high, and having a wide lateral extension of 1,300 feet east and west and from 600 to 800 feet north and south. The mine workings extend under much of the south half of the forty-acre lease. The ore is in relatively “tight” formation of jasperoid and flint, the stopes having flint floors and roofs grading into dolomite and limestone walls.

The North Bingham ore-body is mined from a 264-foot level. The ore-body is a broad flat run, with height of stope of twenty to thirty feet, and a usual width of 200 to 400 feet extending east-west entirely across the north end of the forty-acre lease into the adjoining property. The ore is typical jasperoid breccia in relatively “tight” formation. The ore run in the North Bingham is therefore a much thicker but narrower run than that in the South Bingham. The jasperoid breccia forms a bed ten to fifteen feet thick grading down into white flinty ore at the bottom and likewise into white flinty ore above. The sidewalls of the ore-body in many places grade into nearly barren jasperoid breccia.

The shale, mainly Cherokee, maintains a uniform thickness of about fifty five to sixty-fire feet on the South Bingham lease and a thickness of sixty five to seventy-five feet on the North Bingham. The ore-body on the two leases is probably about 150 to 175 feet below the top of the Boone formation.