$70.00 CAD
| /
RPPC photo postcard of concentrator building used to process silver ore during Cobalt Silver Rush. Located beside the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario (T.&N.O.) Railway track. Attached building with 3 smokestacks.
Scarce photo of short-lived operation.
Postmarked ‘COBALT Mar – 10(?) – ONT’, mailed to Plymouth MA.: “I arrived here safe and sound”
Stamp missing
The Mugsley (or Muggly) concentrator in Cobalt, Ontario, was a vital part of the town’s early 20th-century silver mining operations, processing ore with gravity-based concentration methods and contributing to the boom of Cobalt’s silver rush around 1910.
Cobalt, Ontario, experienced a major silver rush beginning in 1903 following the discovery of silver near Cobalt Lake. By the time the town grew rapidly in the early 1900s, numerous mines had sprung up, including LaRose, Trethewey, Coniagas, Buffalo, Drummond, and Nipissing.
The town became a hub of mining activity, with a population exceeding 10,000 by 1909, drawing international labor and investment.
Ore processing was essential to handling the high-grade silver near the surface, and concentrators like Mugsley were constructed to extract silver from mined ore.
Historical records indicate that the Mugsley concentrator existed around 1908–1910 and was linked to a railway siding, facilitating ore transport and shipments.
The facility likely employed gravity concentration technology, common in Cobalt at the time, where ore was crushed and then separated using shaking tables and other mechanical methods to concentrate silver from waste rock.
Postcards and real photographs from the period show rolling stock and signage connected to the site, indicating its industrial activity and integration with the Cleveland Co. Ltd and operators such as Chalmers.
By 1910, the output from Cobalt’s milling and concentrator operations had increased dramatically, with ore processed in gravity concentrators soaring nearly twelvefold from 1908 to over half a million tons by 1914.
While the Mugsley concentrator was one of the smaller concentrators relative to some of the mechanized mills, it played an important role in supporting nearby mines by efficiently processing silver ore and enabling transportation of refined concentrates via the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario (T.&N.O.) Railway.
Although not as widely documented as major mills, the Mugsley concentrator remains part of Cobalt’s visual and documentary history. Photographic postcards and archival materials capture its presence during the height of the silver rush.
These sources provide a glimpse of its infrastructure, associated rolling stock, and the industrial landscape of early 20th-century Cobalt. Today, these images are preserved by collectors and local historical societies, helping illustrate the town’s industrial heritage.
In summary, the 1910 Mugsley concentrator was a component of Cobalt’s silver processing network, tied closely to the railway, supporting nearby mining operations, and embodying the technological approach of early gravity-based ore concentration that characterized Cobalt’s mining boom. Its preserved visual records contribute to understanding the industrial history of northern Ontario’s silver camps
