Description

Oro Belle Mine and Mill, Tiger District, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, ca.1908. The Oro Belle Mine was located in the Bradshaw Mountains along Humbug Creek on the southern slope of Mount Wasson, at an elevation of 5440 feet above sea level. It was also called the "Orobelle-Gray Eagle Mine." The mine was about 40 miles south Prescott, and on the southern borders of Bradshaw City and Crown King. It was first located by W. C. Campbell in 1882.

The mine's main tunnel ran 1500 feet into the mountainside. The Oro Belle's main commodity was gold, with secondary production of copper and silver as well. The working vein of the mine cut through Precambrian quartzite and schist. Igneous rocks dating from the Cret-Paleo age were close to the mine's deposit and ran south to the Crown King mining area. The mine's "pay chute" produced sulphite ore primarily, it was mixed with iron pyrites in its' quartz vein, an effect which also produced a lot of "fool's gold," a form of yellow-colored mica.

The Oro Belle employed around 100 men in its' mine and mill. It was never as great a producer as its' neighbors to the south, i.e., the Tiger, the Tip top, the Peck mines. The mine closed down in 1908 and was reactivated for a time in 1939 before closing for good. Little remains of the small town boarding houses, stores, saloons that flanked nearby Humbug Creek nor of the mining equipment that once comprised the area.