Record #:

8664

Author(s):

Haines, Don

Abstract:

Western North Carolina has the greatest variety of minerals in the country. Beginning in the 1860s, mica and feldspar were the money minerals, and North Carolina mica was considered the best in the world. One of mica's characteristics is that it is so hard that it will not burn. Feldspar is even harder. It can be melted but will not become fluid. Mining these two substances in earlier times involved great risk to the men who dug them from the earth. Unlike coal miners, these men are hardly mentioned in the historical literature, mainly because they were not unionized and didn't keep personal records. Haines discusses the men who dug the minerals from pre-Civil War days through World War II.

Source:

Our State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 74 Issue 10, Mar 2007, p30, 32-33, il Periodical Website

Subject(s):

Mica mines and mining--North Carolina, Western; Feldspar

Record #:

10808

Author(s):

Chapman, Ashton

Abstract:

Various authorities including the latest edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, now agree that a considerable amount of sheet mica from the North Carolina mountains eventually ended up in ancient burial mounds in southern Ohio. The mound builders were once considered a separate race that pre-dated the Indians, whom the earliest white explorers found on the North American continent. Anthropologists now believe that these mound builders were actually ancestors of the tribes who were found occupying the land when Columbus arrived.

Source:

The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 36 Issue 18, Feb 1969, p13-14, il

Subject(s):

Mica mines and mining--North Carolina, Western; Hopewell culture

Record #:

14566

Author(s):

Robertson, C. P.

Abstract:

Mica is essential in the manufacture of parts and equipment for telephones, radio, radar, armatures, dynamos, motor vehicles, heating, lighting, and air conditioning units and many other commodities. And North Carolina produces about 65 percent of the entire mica output for the United States.

Source:

The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 13 Issue 31, Dec 1945, p8-9, 22, f

Subject(s):

Mica mines and mining--North Carolina, Western

Record #:

2488

Author(s):

Lewellen, Faye

Abstract:

When imports of mica, a mineral of great strategic value to American military production during World War II, were cut off, the western part of the state became the nation's mining center for this critical mineral.

Source:

The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 63 Issue 4, Sept 1995, p17-18, il

Subject(s):

Mica mines and mining--North Carolina, Western; North Carolina--History--World War, 1939-1945--Equipment and supplies

Record #:

15212

Author(s):

Saunders, Keith

Abstract:

North Carolina leads the United States in the production of mica, and today it is an important economic asset to Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey Counties where the mineral is found. There are at present seven companies engaged in mining or grinding mica in western North Carolina, and in 1937, North Carolina produced 1,057,316 pounds of mica, valued at $700,000.

Source:

The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 7 Issue 10, Aug 1939, p6

Subject(s):

Mica mines and mining--North Carolina, Western