New Almaden

New Almaden is a former mercury mining town south of San Jose, California, now a quiet residential village along a wooded creek canyon. The settlement grew around the first quicksilver deposit discovered in North America, which was claimed in 1845 by Andreas Castillero. Under Henry W. Halleck, large-scale production began in 1850, and output reached about a million pounds a year by 1854. Because quicksilver was used to recover gold and silver from ore, the mine supplied the California gold fields and the Comstock Lode, and by 1865 it provided 60 percent of mercury consumed in California and Nevada. Surviving features include Casa Grande, the 1850s superintendent's residence of adobe and brick, early adobes, board-and-batten miners' cottages, a toll house and St. Anthony's Church of 1900. On Mine Hill, a school, store walls, brick chimneys, flumes and shafts remain. The area was recognized as a historic district for its central role in the mining frontier.