Cooper Chrome Mine


Location: West Nottingham. This property now forms the core of Nottingham County Park.


Newspaper Clippings

1872

Iron Furnace in West Nottingham – Iron in considerable quantity has recently been found by prospecting parties on the Cooper property, in West Nottingham township. Workmen, under the superintendence of Hazel Griest, have been employed for several weeks breaking out the ore. A party of Lancastrians, some of them interested in the property, visited it a short time since and slightly disturbed the equilibrium of some of the citizens of that stony-faced and iron-hearted region by talking of building furnaces thereon for converting the ore into marketable shape. The people will extend a hearty welcome to such adventurers, if they mean business. Between two and three hundred cords of pine wood were cut on this property last winter, which is now being hauled to the Phila. & Balt. Central R. R. Co., to whom it was sold. Pines on the land in this region, owing to the proximity of the underlying serpentine rock to the surface, do not grow rapidly nor attain a large growth. The woods cut off some thirty years ago and allowed to grow up are now covered with a growth of stunted, scraggly looking trees, nearly all pines, from six to ten inches in diameter.

Oxford Press
24th May 1872


Items from Nottingham

… Two new engines were received in West Nottingham last week; one at Martin’s green serpentine stone quarries, and the other at E. M. Bye’s chrome works on the Cooper place. Mr. Bye is operating a patent screener and washer.

Oxford Press
22nd July 1874


Items from Nottingham

… E. M. Bye spoke in flattering terms of his steam power washer at the Cooper mine. The supply of sand chrome there is quite large.

Daily Local News
7th February 1901


Some of the financial men in this section have been considering the advisability of starting a new enterprise, a stock company for the development of barren lands in West Nottingham. The promoters of the scheme argue that as there is nothing on top of the ground, much wealth evidently lies beneath the surface, and therefore the investment must pay.

The land is a tract of 485 acres, with boundaries like the famous biscuit-shaped Congressional District in Ohio once formed to legislate William McKinley out of the House of Representatives at Washington. It resembles somewhat a turnover pie with edges bitten in irregular scallops. That, however, need be no bar to its productive merits. Those who are interested in the scheme call it the Double Back Action Double Decker, Corundum, Feldspar, Mica Hematite and Paint Company of North America, Capital Stock, $50,000, in shares of $50 each.

Proposed officers are these: President, David E. Chambers, Unionville; Vice-President, J. Elwood Quay, Phoenixville; Secretary, John C. Ferron, Londonderry; Treasurer, H. Smith Worth, Oxford; Engineer, Wilmer E. Pennypacker. Mr. Worth has declined the Treasureship, but he knows a man who might take it.

During a goodly portion of yesterday the suggested officers pored over a map of West Nottingham, looking up the merits of the land. The tract is marked “Estate of Frederick Cooper,” and is in charge of J. Hay Brown, of Lancaster. It is assessed at $4,000 and offered for sale at a price in the neighborhood of $2,500. Nearly all the land in that neighborhood is rich in minerals and the Baltimore Central Railroad passes directly through this tract. The nearest station is Sylmar, on the Maryland line.

Offers have been made to accept in exchange stock in the West Chester Street Railway, the Assembly Building, the trolley line to Pottstown or Unionville and Roselyn.