Customer Reviews

Idaho's Bunker Hill: The Rise and Fall of a Great Mining Company, 1885-1991

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Katherine Aiken's history of the Bunker Hill Mining Company covers a lot of ground in 210 pages. The mine operated for 94 years before being closed in 1981 due to a combination of inept management, an obstinate union, and an inflexible EPA. Most of the book is a straightforward account of the company's establishment and growth, along with the financial and labor relations challenges through the depression. The latter years are focused on union/management relations until the late 60s', when environmentalism becomes an additional factor.
Aiken writes well, and though this is more scholarly than a typical popular history book, the narration holds a reader's interest, even though the author doesn't delve into personalities very much after two early key management figures depart.
There are a few issues that should have been covered in more depth. I have always wondered how the Steelworkers, after losing an election at the Bunker Hill, managed to wrest representation from the Metals Workers Union. Aiken only mentions that the Steelworkers found a "loophole." Shortly before the operation closed, the Steelworkers headquarters refused the local's request to cut the sort of deal that the Steelworkers have been cutting ever since; to take a pay cut in hopes of keeping the operation going. Aiken barely mentions this.
This book would otherwise be improved if Aiken had interviewed more former employees, and had spent more time learning the details of the underground operations. She may have better understood that the union support was not at the same level in the mine as it was in the various other plants, and that union members working on incentive played a more significant role in productivity than the allusions that management simply tried to get people to work harder. Other than that, and a few stock references to "workers fighting valiantly and continuously to control their lives" while management tries to make a profit, Aiken's book is a pretty good read, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a concise story of the Bunker Hill.
Those who want something more like a potboiler can consider The Deep Dark, by Gregg Olesen, which covers the 1972 fire at the nearby Sunshine Mine, but Oleson spends more time on impressions and individuals, and less on facts and research.

I was from that area and remember the bunker hill mine very well. I use to go by it on the why to school all through Jr high. It shut down just before I entered high school. I had two brothers that worked there for a while and they did not like it at all. My dad worked in the Sunshine Mine just down the road the uncle bunker. I bought the book because I did not know the history of how it was founded(besides the jackass story) I wanted to know more. This book shows want happen and how greed bought down one of the greatest mines in the world. Good read. Recommand it to any one who enjoy's mining and the history of it.

My family had been associated with the Bunker Hill mine for a few generations. I am intimately familiar with the business-side details of the last fifty years of the company's life and well aware of the rich history of this mining property. The author not only amplified and clarified, she also educates us about the business and history of this fascinating company. I enjoy her style of writing and her research is excellent. I highly recommend this book.