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Greater Sudbury / Grand Sudbury

Murray Mine

Unknown Mine in Greater Sudbury / Grand Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Jan 01 2006

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Recent status Unknown
Location # 355

It was August of 1883 and blacksmith Tom Flanagan was working in the area of Sudbury, on the expansion of the Canadian Pacific Railway(a)s westward line.

It is believed that Flanagan discovered rust-coloured material at a right-of-way, which was later identified as copper sulphide. Who made this initial discovery is uncertain as others also claimed to have found it first including magistrate Andrew McNaughton, and CP doctor William H. Howey.

In February 1884, the first claim to the area was made by brothers Thomas and William Murray, merchants from Pembroke. A mine was subsequently opened that same year and named the Murray Mine. It was the first mine to operate in the Sudbury area.

In 1891 the Canadian Copper Company was formed to mine the metal. Ore was shipped to a smelting plant in Constable Hook, NJ (owned by the Orford Copper Company). Processing revealed that the ore contained a much more valuable metal, nickel. As a result, the International Nickel Company (INCO) was formed in 1902.

INCO was a result of mergers between Canadian Copper, the Orford Copper Company, the Société Minière Caledonienne and other mines. The community around the mine was renamed Sudbury in honour of the England hometown of the CPR commissioner(a)s wife.

The Murray mine continued to operate for at least six decades. Today it is abandoned, containing a handful of old buildings as well as many mining relics. What appears to be a firetower watches over the site. At the site of the town itself, one lot contains a stone marker which reads, "Mayor Burford Aug. 1963".

As the mine is located on private property belonging to INCO, no directions are provided. The mine is located not too far from Copper Cliff.

Comments

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10 years ago

When was the tower first built? I could see it being used if built before the open air smelting killed all the trees in the surrounding area, aside from that it was probably the only place to get a breath of fresh air while that was going on. Even now I don't think there's a tree in sudbury over 30 years of age, I can't imagine what permanent damage the smelting in the early days did.

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14 years ago

Ya the Murray Mine firetower was one of the strangest towers in the Ontario Dept of Lands and Forests system of 320 towers. This tower overlooked bare rock in the 1960s as the trees had all been killed by acid rain from the mines. I still dont know why they would have used a forest firetower on bare land. Maybe to protect any further damage?