82 SAN JOSE MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 ucked away in a narrow canyon in southern San Jose, New Almaden feels delightfully out of synch with Silicon Valley? frantic pace. But at the height of its fortunes, the village was a rough-and-tumble outpost of the Victorian Age, reaching world-renown for the vast quantities of mercury extracted from the surrounding hills. New Almaden contains California? first and richest mining site. Going into operation several years before James Marshall? 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter? Mill, its mines produced in 130 years more than $70 million worth of mercury (also called ?uicksilver?). In fact, historians believe that without New Almaden, the boom of California? historic gold rush would have quickly gone bust. The seeds of New Almaden? incredible importance were sown about 10 million years ago when tectonic plate movement along the San Andreas Fault deposited cinnabar rock in the hills. This blood-red ore is a chemical combination of mercury and sulfur created through volcanic hydrothermal activity. For hundreds of years, the Ohlone Indians who lived in the coastal region gathered the cinnabar and ground it into powder to paint their bodies for rituals. They also used the rock as a form of currency. In 1845, a captain of the Mexican cavalry named Don Andres Castillero visited the mission in Santa Clara and saw the Ohlone using a cinnabar paste as paint for the church chapel. Castillero had a background as a mining engineer and recognized the significance of the Ohlone? red powder from his travels to the Castilla-La Mancha region of Spain? where, since Roman times, the legendary Almaden mercury mines produced vast amounts of the silvery liquid metal. Castillero quickly filed a claim for the cinnabar-rich land, and on December 30, 1845, was granted ownership of ?a Mina de Santa Clara.? Castillero divided his claim into 24 shares, keeping 12 and giving the rest to four other men. He then journeyed back to Mexico to solicit funds to develop the mines. Unfortunately for Castillero, at that time the United States and Mexico faced a growing political conflict. As war proved inevitable, he sold his ownership to the Barron, Forbes Company, an English firm based in Tepec, Mexico, and never returned to the Santa Clara Valley. Meanwhile, the United States government learned about the mercury mines from Thomas Larkin, the U.S. consul in Monterey, who visited the site and sent quicksilver samples to Washington, D.C. On May 2, 1846, Larkin wrote to Secretary of State James Buchanan about the rich mineral deposits on the West Coast. ?here is no doubt in my mind but that gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, lead, sulphur [sic.], and coal mines are to be found all over California,? he wrote. Eleven days later, the United States declared war on Mexico. In 1847, Barron, Forbes evicted the minority owners of the canyon site and began to develop mining operations. At this time, the company changed the name of the mines to Nuevo Almaden (New Almaden) after the famous quicksilver site in Spain. Cinnabar ore was hauled in burlap sacks up wooden ladders by Mexican workers called ?anateros,? and then heated in wood-burning furnaces to cook the mercury out of the rock. The mines produced as much as 150 pounds of mercury a day in 1848?ust in time for the discovery of gold at Sutter? Mill. New Almaden? quicksilver played a major role in California? gold rush. Barron, Forbes carted the mercury to the port of Alviso at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay and shipped it east to Sacramento on the delta? waterways. From Sacramento, it was hauled by wagons to the miners in the Sierra who washed crushed ore with the mercury. Then through a chemical process called ?malgamation,? the gold and silver flakes attach to the liquid mercury. The miners then cooked the amalgam in large kilns, separating the metals. Without New Almaden, miners would have had to obtain mercury from Spain, making it nearly impossible to export gold at the necessary rate. As the gold rush boomed, Barron, Forbes Company saw the potential profits from mercury mining. In 1850, it hired a West Point graduate with a background in engineering. As the mine? new superintendent, Capt. Henry W. Halleck began modernizing operations by designing and constructing a furnace built of brick and cement. Halleck? experimental design proved so efficient at extracting the mercury from the cinnabar that by 1854, 13 furnaces were built. Roughly 200 men worked on the site, mining and processing the ore. In 1854 alone, 31,860 flasks were produced, with each flask containing 76 pounds of quicksilver. With the increasing profits, Halleck designed a three-story brick building intended as a hotel. His Eastern-bred wife, Elizabeth, however, decided it would more suitably serve as the mine manager? official family residence. The exquisite Casa Grande functioned for many years as the centerpiece for entertaining prestigious guests visiting New Almaden. Halleck would manage the mines until 1863, supervising it during the Civil War from Washington, D.C., while serving as Abraham Lincoln? general-in-chief of the Army. During the 1850s, the new state of California made a difficult transition from Mexican to American law. Settlers granted land by Mexico often faced eviction because of confusion in title claims. Barron, Forbes Company in 1852 presented documents to land commissioners to establish Don Andres Castillero? original title to their property. However, because of various discrepancies in recorded dates, some Americans considered the documents fraudulent, and a lawsuit began over the legality of the company? claim. During the next decade, the suit went through the district courts all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which in March 1863 ruled 4 to 3 against the company. Following the court? judgment, President Lincoln contemplated seizing the lucrative New Almaden property from Barron, Forbes for the U.S. government. The mines were vital to the federal government? Civil War efforts. Without its mercury, California and T ?n such an atmosphere, everyone would