Minto City, British Columbia
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Minto City Minto, Minto Mine, Minto Mines |
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| Company town | |
 Minto City
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| Coordinates: 50°53′27″N 122°46′40″W / 50.89083°N 122.77778°WCoordinates: 50°53′27″N 122°46′40″W / 50.89083°N 122.77778°W | |
| Country |
 Canada
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| Province |
 British Columbia
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Minto City, often called just Minto, sometimes Minto Mines or Minto Mine, was a gold mining town in the Bridge River Valley of British Columbia from 1930 to 1936, located at the confluence of that river with Gun Creek, one of its larger tributaries. It was first called the Alpha group of claims in the 1920s, when underground miners were exploring the seams of Cadwallader Creek and the origins of the placer deposits downstream in the Bridge River. The mine prospect was never much successful although a model townsite was built by promoter "Big Bill" Davidson, who imported soil to build a specially-built rodeo ground and baseball diamond on the rocky site. The larger mine of Bralorne was nearby. The mine shut down in 1936 due to productivity issues, but restarted in 1940. The valley has since been significantly altered when most of the vestiges of the town were inundated by the waters of the Carpenter Lake reservoir following completion of the Bridge River Power Project. The town sat on the western end of the lake near the present Carpenter Lake Road (a section of BC Road 40), part of the road drove through a wooden Tudor arch built into the rock mill.
The Minto Mine operated from 1934 to 1940 during which over 2130 metres of underground work was done, and a total of 80,650 tonnes (88,900 tons) of ore grading 6.8 grams pf gold and 19.9 grams of silver per tonne was produced, totalling 546 kilograms (17,558 ounces) of gold and 1,573 kilograms (50,582 ounces) of silver, 9,673 kilograms of copper and 56,435 kilograms of lead.
By the opening of World War II, the combination of poor mineral showings and most men going away to war brought the Minto mine to a standstill, but as of 1941 Minto was one of four locations in the Bridge River-Lillooet which were used for Japanese-Canadian relocation centres. During this period, the Japanese-Canadian presence transformed the town, which soon had vegetable and flower gardens, with the town's crops becoming a source of produce for the larger mining towns nearby. Many gold mines in BC were idled in the 1942-45 period as they were deemed non-essential to the war effort, and the miners were moved to strategic metal copper, tungsten, mercury, lead and zinc production. Several of the mines, including Minto did not survive the enforced shutdown.
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