North Country at Work: Mining garnet on Gore Mountain
Judy says that Barton Mine was special not only due to its size, but also the unique shape of its garnet crystals, which "are kinda smushed." That’s because they formed before the Adirondacks even existed. As the mountains were taking shape, the heat and pressure of their formation reshaped the garnet. Judy says that it also made Gore’s garnet harder than most, and therefore even more valuable.
In the beginning, miners chipped away at the rock by hand using pickaxes and shovels. The rocks were extracted, loaded into carts, and taken by horse off the mountain. The raw garnet was then taken by train to Philadelphia, where it was processed into sandpaper. Jason Brown says that in 1920, "we got a new technology called dynamite. And that changed the industry drastically." He says that advances like dynamite and steam shovels allowed miners to work faster. Barton Mines also built a mill in the 1920s and started processing their own garnet.
The mine became a major economic player in the community. It employed about 300 people, and Judy says that a community grew up around it, right on the slopes of Gore Mountain itself. They had a firehouse, a lodge, and homes that still stand to this day.
Business stayed good throughout the 20th century. Garnet is prized for use in cutting and smoothing technologies that do all kinds of things, from taking paint off of airplanes to removing the red shell on the inside of peanuts.
In the early 1980s, Barton Mines moved its operation to nearby Ruby Mountain in North River. They’ve been there ever since. Today, Barton employs about 75 people at the Ruby Mountain site. Judy says that "it’s a very important industry because we don’t have a lot of industry around North Creek." Barton mines garnet for industrial uses like waterjet and sandblasting.
By the time Barton stopped mining at Gore and moved to Ruby Mountain, they had dug a massive pit over 100 feet deep at Gore. Today, that pit is a historical site. Since it hasn’t been an active mine in years, nature is starting to come back. Trees have grown up and frogs jump in the three ponds. It’s also home to the Gore Mountain Mineral & Gem Shop. Jason says the scenery is striking, and it's a beautiful place to work.
Barton left the Gore Mountain site due to mining safety regulations, not because they’d taken all of the garnet out. Jason says that "this is the largest garnet deposit, possibly, in the world and it’s still there."
Judy says that "you can find the largest garnet crystals in the world there. They’re up to basketball size or bigger!" Today, you can tour the preserved mine and even look for some garnet of your own.
Major support for North Country at Work comes from the Cloudsplitter Foundation and the Prospect Hill Foundation.
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