1891 - On October 14, 1891, Hecla Mining Company was incorporated in the state of Idaho. Founders, Amasa Campbell, Patsy Clark and John Finch, started a century of mining by Hecla. During its history, Hecla has been a leading domestic producer of silver and lead, and more recently, a major supplier of gold and industrial minerals.
1898 - On July 12, 1898, a new Hecla Mining Company was incorporated in Washington State. Capitalized for one million shares with a par value of 25¢, Hecla's stock rose within three months to 45¢ per share. Hecla's management began to buy up the claims adjacent to the Hecla lead mine and Amasa Campbell, one of Hecla's founders, exulted, "The Hecla is developing into a wonderful mine."
1900 - On July 5, 1900, as Amasa Campbell had forecast, Hecla paid its first dividend of 2¢ per share. By the end of the year, Hecla had sold $229,550 worth of ore and paid $100,000 in dividends.
1903 - James F. McCarthy, a hard-working engineer, took over Hecla's daily operations in 1903. In November, the Hecla Board of Trustees considered a resolution to appoint him manager. It did not pass, but according to the minutes, "the trustees seemed satisfied with his appointment." So, in this offhand way, the man who was to be the heart and soul of Hecla for the next 38 years began his job as manager. He was 36.
1904 - Hecla transferred its records from the offices of Finch and Campbell in Spokane, Washington, to Wallace, Idaho, on October 14, 1904. The Hecla office would stay in Wallace for more than eighty years.
1911 - James F. McCarthy is voted in as President in addition to being General Manager of Hecla, marking a change in management philosophy. It was the first time that one of the major shareholders did not hold the post of President.
1915 - On September 23, 1915, trading of Hecla stock began on the New York Curb Exchange, which later became the American Stock Exchange. With the listing on the Exchange, Hecla began printing an annual report, which previously had been a typewritten statement from James McCarthy's handwritten draft.
1916 - Mules were used underground in the early 1900s to haul ore cars and supplies until sufficient electrical power was provided to the mines. In the Hecla mine, mules were stabled underground and were an integral part of the mining process. Hecla's last dozen mules were retired in 1916.
1923 - On Friday the 13th, in July of 1923, fire swept through Burke, Idaho, destroying the Hecla Mine buildings and damaging the hoist. Men working underground as far down as the 1600 level were hoisted out of the mine before flames cut off the electricity. The rest had to climb hand over hand 2,000 feet to the surface. No one was injured, but the great fire decimated the Burke business district and about 50 homes, as well as the Hecla surface plant.
1924 - After the fire of 1923, Hecla was out of commission only 5 months and 18 days, hoisting its first ore on January 27, 1924. The new Hecla plant, fireproof and twice as large as the old one, was paid for out of insurance money and would process ore from both the Hecla and Star mines. An 8,203-foot crosscut from the bottom of the Hecla shaft to the 4000 level of the Star Mine was completed, after 32 months of around-the-clock digging at a pace of 300 feet per month. The longest tunnel in the world at the time, the venture had cost $531,887.
1930 - Hecla acquires the Polaris, one of the oldest claims in the district, staked in 1884. Although some were skeptical at first of Hecla's first real silver venture, a spectacular ore intercept of 24% lead and 125 ounces of silver per ton was discovered in 1944. The Polaris paid Hecla's dividends through the rest of the 1940s.
1944 - The last tonnage was hoisted from the original Hecla shaft in 1944, after four decades of production. Bottoming out at 3,600 feet, the namesake of the company had yielded more than nine million tons of ore during its lifetime.
1954 - Marking an entry into the uranium business, Hecla signed a deal in 1954 to acquire an interest in the rich Radon and Hot Rock uranium deposits in Utah. Over a nine-year life, the two mines yielded Hecla a net income of $9.3 million.
1958 - On December 12, Hecla bought 184,000 shares in the Lucky Friday Silver-Lead Mines Company, and soon after acquired a total of 644,058 shares, making Hecla the largest shareholder in the Lucky Friday silver-lead mine in Mullan, Idaho. The mine still operates today. Past Hecla President Les Randall said, "None of us ever dreamed that it would become the great mine it is."
1964 - On April 1, 1964, a merger between Hecla and Lucky Friday Silver-Lead Mines Company was consummated. That same year, after 49 years on the American Stock Exchange, the Company was listed on the prestigious New York Stock Exchange.
1966 - ASARCO sold the Morning mine (adjacent to the Star mine in Burke, Idaho) to Hecla for about three-quarters of a million dollars. Hecla immediately began sinking shaft to efficiently mine the deep regions of the Star mine. The Star was eventually shut down in 1982, reaching a depth of 8,100 feet, the deepest mine in North America.
1967 - Hecla makes what was to be the most costly move in its history . . . an agreement to develop the Lakeshore copper mine in Arizona. By 1977, with falling copper prices, 1,500 employees were let go at Lakeshore and the mine was closed. Lakeshore had cost Hecla $96 million.
1979 - The Hunt brothers made their famous move to corner the market on silver, at one point driving up the price to over $50.00 per ounce. In response, Hecla's stock price shot up from $5.25 in January of 1979 to a high of $53.50 in January of 1980. The Company was the best performer on the New York Stock Exchange for 1979. Best of all, Hecla was out of the debt caused by the Lakeshore venture within 18 months, thanks to the huge upsurge in silver price.
Work begins on the Lucky Friday Silver Shaft, a 6,200-foot deep, concrete-lined, circular shaft. It was the first of its type in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District, with a hoisting speed of 2,250 feet per minute. The Silver Shaft was completed in 1984.
1981 - Hecla turned to gold mining with the merger of Day Mines, Inc. into Hecla. After the merger, Hecla began operating the rich Republic gold mine, located in northeast Washington State.
1983 - To take advantage of the comprehensive and modern corporate laws of Delaware, in 1983 Hecla reincorporated as the new Hecla Mining Company of Delaware.
1984 - More growth for Hecla came in this year in the form of a merger with Ranchers Exploration and Development Corporation, owned by the flamboyant Maxie Anderson. This brought the Company into the industrial minerals business and launched Hecla into ball clay and volcanic scoria mining.
On July 10, Hecla President Bill Griffith announced the Company's intentions to move its headquarters from Wallace, where it had been since 1904, to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. 1984 also marked the discovery of the Golden Promise vein at the Republic gold mine.
1986 - On May 9, 1986, the day of the dedication of Hecla's new headquarters, Arthur Brown was named president and chief operating officer. He would take over the reins of the Company as chairman and chief executive officer three weeks later, upon Bill Griffith's retirement.
1987 - Hecla purchases a 28% interest in the massive Greens Creek silver-gold-zinc-lead mine on Admiralty Island near Juneau, Alaska. Construction of the mine was a testament to the mining industry's ability to minimize its impact on the environment.
1989 - The industrial minerals segment of Hecla's business expanded in 1989 with the acquisition of the kaolin division of Cyprus Minerals, and in 1990, one feldspar processing plant and two mines were added to the Company.
1991 - Hecla Mining Company celebrates 100 years of mineral production for a growing America.
Hecla completes a merger with CoCa Mines, Inc., which brings with it the undeveloped Grouse Creek gold property in central Idaho.
Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus honors Hecla with the state's top award for mining reclamation for work completed at the Yellow Pine Unit in central Idaho.